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HISTORY 

William It, Smith, 
OF THE ^' S. Botanic Garden, 

WA&iiHOSO», D. 0. 

REFORMATION IN GERMANY. 

XU 

LEOPOLD RANKE, 



AUTHOR OP 



THE HISTORY OF THE POPES, &c., &c. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE LAST EDITION OF THE GERMAN, 



SARAH AUSTIN 



COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

LEA AND BLANC HARD. 
1844. 






Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins 






PREFACE 



From the first ten years of the fifteenth century, to the beginning of the thirty 
years' war, the constitution and political condition of Germany were determined by 
♦he periodical diets anu tue measures there resolved on. 

The time was long past in which the public affairs of the country were determined 
by one supreme will ; but its political life had not yet (as at a later period) retreated 
within the circle of the several constituent members of the empire. The imperial 
assemblies exercised rights and powers which, though not accurately defined, were yet 
the comprehensive and absolute powers of sovereignty. They made war and peace ; 
levied taxes ; exercised a supreme ^per vision, and were even invested with executive 
power. Together with the deputie? from the cities, and the representatives of the 
counts and lords, appeared the emperor and the sovereign princes in person. It is 
true they discussed the most important affairs of their respective countries in their 
several colleges, or in committees chosen from the whole body, and the questions were 
decided by the majority of voices. The unity of the nation was represented by these 
assemblies. Within the wide borders of the empire nothing of importance could occur 
which did not here come under deliberation, nothing new arise, which mu not await 
its final decision and execution here. 

Spite of all these considerations, the history of the diets of the empire has not yet 
received the attention it deserves. The Recesses* of the diets are sufficiently well 
known ; but who would judge a deliberative assembly by the final results of its deliber- 
ations ? Projects of a systematic collection of its transactions have occasionally beeii 
entertained, and the work has even been taken in hand ; but all that has hitherto been 
done has remained in a fragmentary and incomplete state. 

* The Recess {Abschied — Recessus), the document wherewith the labours of a deliberative assem- 
bly are closed, and in which they are summed up. All the resolutions of the assembly, or the deci- 
sions of their sovereign on their proposals or petitions, were collected into one whole, and the session, 
or, according to the German expression, day ( Tag) was thus closed, with the publication of the 
Recess. Each separate law, after having passed the two colleges, that of the electors and that of the 
princes, received the emperor's assent or ratification, and had then the force of law. It was called 
Resolution of the Empire (Reichscluss of Reicksconclusum). The older recesses of the empire (Reicks- 
abschiede) are lost. Since the year 1663, as the diet remained constantly sitting down to 1806, no 
recess, properly so called, could be published. The sum of all the decisions or acts of a diet was called 
Reichsabsckied. The correspondence of this with the English term Statute will be seen in the follow- 
ing extract : " For all the acts of one session of parliament taken together make properly but one 
statute ; and therefore when two sessions have been held in one year we usually mention stat. 1 or 2. 
Thus the Bill of Rights is cited as 1 W. & M. st. 2, c. 2 ; signifying that it is the second chapter or 
act of the second statute, or the laws made in the second session of parliament in the first year of King 
William and Queen M-^ry.""— Blackstone' s Comment, vol. i. p. 85, 15th ed. 

The speech with which the emperor opened the diet was called the Proposition. 

(3) 



iv PREFACE. 

As it is the natural ambition of every man to leave behind him some useful record 
of his existence, I have long cherished the project of devoting my industry and my 
powers to this most important work. Not that I flattered myself that I was competent 
to supply so large a deficiency ; to exhaust the mass of materials in its manifold 
juridical bearings ; my idea was only to trace with accuracy the rise and developmt;nt 
of the constitution of the empire, through a series (if possible unbroken) of the A: is 
of the Diets. 

Fortune was so propitious to my wishes, that, in the autumn of 1836, 1 found in the 
Archives of the city of Frankfurt a collection of the very kind I wanted, and was 
permitted to use these precious documents with all the facility I could desire. 

The collection consists of ninety-six folio volumes, which contain the Acts of the 
Imperial Diets from 1414 to 1613. In the earlier part it is very imperfect, but step 
by step, in proportion as the constitution of the empire acquires form and development, 
the documents rise in interest. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, from which 
time the practice of reducing public proceedings to writing was introduced, it becomes 
so rich in new and important documents, that it lays the strongest hold on the atten- 
tion. There are not only the acts, but the reports of the deputies from the cities — the 
Rathsfreünde, which generally charm by their frankness and simplicity, and often s ir- 
prise by their sagacity. I profited by the opportunity to make myself master of The 
contents of the first sixty-four of these volumes, extending down to the year 1551. A 
collection of Imperial Rescripts occasionally afibrded me valuable contributions. 

But I could not stop here. A single town was not in a condition to know all that 
passed. It is evident that the labours of the electoral and princely colleges were not 
to be sought for in the records of a city. 

In the beginning of the year 1837, I received permission to explore the Royal 
Archives of the kingdom of Prussia at Berlin, and in the April of the same year, the 
State Archives of the kingdom of Saxony at Dresden, for the affairs of the empire 
during the times of Maximilian I. and Charles V. The former were of great value 
to me, as containing the records of an electorate ; the latter, down to the end of that 
epoch, those of a sovereign principality. It is true that I came upon many documents 
which I had already seen at Frankfurt ; but, at the same time, I found a great number 
of new ones, which gave me an insight into parts of the subject hitherto obscure. 
None of these collections is, indeed, complete, and many a question which suggests 
itself remains unanswered ; yet they are in a high degree instructive. They throw u 
completely new light on the character and conduct of such influential princes as 
Joachim II. of Brandenburg, and still more, Maurice of Saxony. 

Let no one pity a man who devotes himself to studies apparently so dry, and 
neglects for them the delights of many a joyous day. It is true the companions of his 
solitary hours are but lifeless paper, but they are the remnants of the life of past ages, 
which gradually assume form and substance to the eye occupied in the study of them.' 
For me (in a preface an author is bound to speak of himself — a subject he elsewhere 
gladly avoids) they had a peculiar interest. 

When I wrote the first part of my History of the Popes, I designedly treated the 
origin and progress of the Reformation with as much brevity as the subject permitted. 
I cherished the hope of dedicating more extensive and profound research to this most 
important event of the history of our country. 

This hope was now abundantly satisfied. Of the new matter which I found, the 
greater part related directly or indirectly to the epoch of the Reformation. At evei v 
step I acquired nev/ information as to the circumstances which prepared the politic *» 
rehgious movement of that time; the phases of our national life, by which it wjs 
accelerated ; the origin and working of the resistance it encountered. 



PREFACE. V 

It Is impossible to approach a matter originating in such intense mental energy, and 
exercising so vast an influence on the destinies of the world, without being profoundly 
interested and absorbed by it. I was fully sensible that if I executed the work I pro- 
posed to myself, the Refornmation would be the centre on which all other incidents 
and circumstances would turn. 

But to accomplish this, more accurate information as to the progress of opinion in 
the evangelical* or reforming party, especially in a polhical point of view, antecedent 
to the crisis of th^ Reformation, was necessary than any that could be gathered from 
printed sources. The Archives common to the whole Ernestine line of Saxony, 
deposited at Weimar, which I visited in August, 1837, afforded me what I desired. 
Nor can any spot be more full of information on the marked epochs at which this 
house played so important a part, than the vault in which its archives are preserved. 
The walls and the whole interior space are covered with the rolls of documents relating 
to the actions and events of that period. Every note, every draft of an answer, is 
here preserved. The correspondence between the Elector John Frederic and the 
Landgrave Philip of Hessen would alone fill a long series of printed volumes. I 
endeavoured, above all, to make myself master of the two registers, which include the 
affairs of the empire and the Schmalkaldic League. As to the former, I found, as 
was to be expected from the nature of the subject, many valuable details ; as to the 
latter, I hence first drew information which is, I hope, in some degree calculated to 
satisfy the curiosity of the public. 

I feel bound here publicly to express my thanks to the authorities to whom the 
guardianship of all these Archives is entrusted for the liberal aid — often not unattended 
with personal trouble — which I received from them all. How much more easy are 
existence and study become than they formerly were ! 

At length, I conceived the idea of undertaking a more extensive research into the 
Archives of Germany. I repaired to the Communal Archives of the house of Anhalt 
at Dessau, which at the epoch in question shared the opinions and followed the 
example of that of Saxony ; but I soon saw that I should here be in danger of 
encumbering myself with too much matter of a merely local character. I remem- 
bered how many other documents relating to this period, had been explored and 
employed by the industry of German inquirers. The work of Bucholz on Ferdinand 
L contains a most copious treasure of important matter from those of Austria, of 
which too little use is made in that state. The instructive writings of Stumpf and 
Winter are founded on those of Bavaria. The Archives of Würtenberg were formerly 
explored by Sattler ; the Hessian, recently, by Rommel and Neudecker. For the 
more exclusively ecclesiastical view of the period, the public is in possession of a rich 
mass of authentic documents in the collections of Walch, and the recent editions of 
Luther's Letters by De Wette, and still more in those of Älelanchthon by Bret- 
schneider. The letters of the deputies from Strasburg and Nürnberg, which have 
been published, throw light on the history of particular diets. It is hardly necessary 
for me to mention how much has lately been brought together by Förstemann respect- 
ing the Diet of Augsburg of 1530, so long the subject of earnest research and labour. 

Recent publications', especially in Italy and England, lead us to hope for the possi- 



* It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remark, that I have retained this word throughout the following 
work in its original acceptation ; viz. as denoting the party which, at the time of the Reformation, 
adhered to the Confession of Augsburg. In our own age and country it has been adopted by a party 
which stands in nearly the same relation to the Church of England as the party called pietistigal 
{pieiistisch) to the Lutheran Church of Germany. But this did not seem to me a sufHcient reason 
for removing it from its proper and authorised place in German history. — Transl. 



vi PREFACE. 

bility of a thorough and satisfactory -explanation of the foreign relations of the 
empire.* 

I see the time approach in which we shall no longer have to found modern history 
on the reports even of contemporaneous historians, except in so far as they were in 
possession of personal and immediate knowledge of facts ; still less, on works yet 
more remote from the source ; but on the narratives of eye-witnesses, and the 
genuine and original documents. For the epoch treated in the following work, this 
prospect is no distant one. I myself have made use of a number of records which I 
had found when in the pursuit of another subject, in the Archives of Vienna, Venice, 
Rome, and especially Florence. Had I gone into further detail, I should have run the 
risk of losing sight of the subject as a whole ; or, in the necessary lapse of time, of 
breaking the unity of the conception which arose before my mind in the course of my 
past researches. 

And thus I proceeded boldly to the completion of this work ; persuaded that when 
an inquirer has made researches of some extent in the authentic records, with an 
earnest spirit and a genuine ardour for truth, later discoveries may throw clearer and 
more certain light on details, but can only strengthen his fundamental conceptions of 
the subject : — for truth can be but one. 

* Researches and publications of this kind have been going on ever since the first edition of the 
two first volumes of this work were published ; I have availed myself of them as far as was possible in 
the second. Nor have I neglected to introduce the additional matter which presented itself to me in 
Brussels and in Paris. (Note to the second edition.') , 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 



In the Preface to the first volume of this work, I said that, accord- 
ing to the view of the Author, it might be divided into three epochs : 
the first comprehended in the first two volumes ; the next, in the 
third ; and the last, in the two concluding volumes. 

The second of these historical divisions I now, after a considerable 
and unwilling delay, offer to the English reader. 

If, in the volumes already translated, he watched the early struggles, 
the partial and doubtful triumphs of the church founded by Luther, 
he will here accompany it, through the various stages of growing 
strength, to maturity. At the close of this volume, we leave it in 
possession of all the attributes of a regularly constituted Church ; we 
leave it protected by the civil power, and yielding in return cordial 
obedience and firm support. 

We leave it also (such is the infirmity, and such the presumption 
of man) already laying claim to the possession of absolute truth; 
already forging instruments for restraining the inquiry it had so 
ardently promoted, and so largely used; and for establishing an 
authority akin to that which it had risen to overthrow. 

In their ardour to overthrow the authority of the ancient church, 
the Reformers had not measured the aberrations of which undis- 
ciplined minds, suddenly freed from habitual restraint, are capable : 
and now, alarmed at the frightful and apparently boundless extent of 
the moral disorder, they felt the necessity of fixing certain limits, 
beyond which the extravagance of man should not pass. 

But if they had not calculated the amount of evil they had let 
loose on the world, neither had they understood all the value and 
potency of the great conservative and corrective principle to which 
they were the first to give a general and systematic application. It 
is in the promptitude, the energy, the inflexible perseverance, with 
which Luther seized and pursued the idea of the connexion between 
the Church and the School (i. e. the joint and inseparable culture of 



translator's preface. 



the religioTis affections and the intellectual faculties), and of the duty 
incumbent on a Christian State to provide with equal care for both, 
that we recognize the pre-eminent genius of the first German 
Reformer. This idea was adopted by most of his successors ; but 
none of them — nor, indeed, even the great author of it himself — was 
as yet sufficiently secure of its results, to dare to intrust religion to 
the guardianship of enlightened reason, or the order of the world to 
the slow but sure operation of moral discipline. 

The experience of three centuries has shown that religion and 
morality have, at best, a precarious hold on minds too gross to under- 
stand their foundations or their value ; that all modes of governing 
men which take no account of their reason are inefficacious or de- 
praving, and, in either case, fraught with danger; and thus the 
political expediency (as well as the Christian duty) of educating the 
people, which the dauntless innovator was the first to proclaim, has 
come to be admitted, even by the selfish and the timorous. Nor is 
the recognition of this great necessity confined to the countries which 
adopted his ecclesiastical reforms. In many of those where the 
Catholic Church retains her authority, the State has provided (more 
or less amply) for the instruction of all its subjects. 

The origin and course of the Keformation in England sufficiently 
explain the absence of any such presiding thought among its authors 
and leaders. Exactly three hundred years have passed since Luther's 
death (1546) : are we too sanguine in believing the time to be at hand, 
when, in a country calling herself the champion of Protestantism, 
some attempt may be made to act up to that sublime conception of 
the duties of a Reformed Church and a Protestant State, which he 
bequeathed to the world ? 

S. A. 

December, 1846. 



HISTORY 



REFORMATION IN GERMANY 



INTRODUCTION. 



VIEW OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF GERMANY. 



For purposes of discussion or of instruction, 
it may be possible to sever ecclesiastical from 
political history ; in actual life, they are indis- 
solubly connected, or rather fused into one in- 
divisible whole. 

As indeed there is nothing of real import- 
ance in the moral and intellectual business of 
human life, the source of which does not lie 
in a profound and more or less conscious rela- 
tion of man and his concerns to God and divine 
things, it is injipossible to conceive a nation 
worthy of the name, or entitled to be called, in 
any sense, great, whose political existence is 
not constantly elevated and guided by religious 
ideas. To cultivate, purify and exalt these, — 
to give them an expression intelligible to all 
and profitaWe to all,— to embody them in out- 
ward forms and public acts, is its necessary as 
well as its noblest task. 

It is not to be denied that this process in- 
evitably brings into action two great principles 
wiiich seem to place a nation at variance with 
itself. Nationality (i. e. the sum of the pecu- 
liar qualities, habits, and sentiments of a nation) 
is necessarily restricted within the bounds 
marked out by neighbouring nationalities ; 
whereas religion, ever since it was revealed to 
the world in a form which claims and deserves 
universality, constantly strives after sole and 
absolute supremacy. 

In the foundation or constitution of a State, 
some particular moral or intellectual principle 
predominates ; a principle prescribed by an 
inherent necessity, expressed in determinate 
forms and giving birth to a peculiar condition 
of society, or character of civilisation. But 
no sooner has a Church, with its forms of 
wider application, embracing different nations, 
arisen, than it grasps at the project of absorb- 
ing the State, and of reducing the principle on 
which civil society is founded to complete 
subjection : the original underived authority 
of that principle is, indeed, rarely acknow- 
ledged by the Church. 

At length the universal religion appears, 
and, after it has incorporated itself w-ith the 
consciousness of mankind, assumes the cha- 
4 c 



I racter of a great and growing tradition, handed 
I down from people to people, and communi- 
I cated in rigid dogmas. But nations cannot 
suffer themselves to be debarred from exer- 
cising the understanding bestowed on them by 
nature, or the knowledge acquired hj study, 
on an investigation of its truth. In every age, 
therefore, we see diversities in the views of 
religion arise, in different nations, and these 
again react in various ways on the character 
and condition of the State. It is evident, from 
the nature of this struggle, how mighty is the 
crisis w^hich it involves for the destinies of the 
human race. Religious truth must have an 
outward and visible representation, in order 
that the State may be perpetually reminded of 
the origin and the end of our earthly existence ; 
of the rights of our neighbours, and the kindred 
of all the nations of the earth ; it would other- 
wise be in danger of degenerating into tyranny, 
or of hardening into inveterate prejudice, — 
into intolerant conceit of self, and hatred of all 
that is foreign. On the other hand, a free de- 
velopment of the national character and culture 
is necessary to the interests of religion. With- 
out this, its doctrines can never be truly under- 
stood nor profoundly accepted : without inces- 
sant alternations of doubt and conviction, of 
assent and dissent, of seeking and finding, no 
error could be removed, no deeper understand- 
ing of truth attained. Thus, then, independ- 
ence of thought and political freedom are in- 
dispensable to the Church herself; she' needs 
them to remind her of the, varying intellectual 
wants of men, of the changing nature of her 
own forms ; she needs them to preserve her 
from the lifeless iteration of misunderstood 
doctrines and rites, which kill the soul. 

It has been said, the State is itself the 
Church, but the Church has thought herself 
authorised to usurp the place of the State. 
The truth is, that the spiritual or intellectual 
life of man — in its intensest depth and energy 
unquestionably one — yet manifests itself in 
these two institutions, which come into con- 
tact under the most varied fo?ms ; which are 
continually striving to pervade each other, yet 

(25) 



26 



INTRODUCTION, 



never entirely coincide ; to exclude each other, 
yet neither has ever been permanently victor 
or vanquished. In the nations of the West, 
at least, such a result has never been obtained. 
The Califate may unite ecclesiastical and 
political power in one hand; but the whole 
life and character of western Christendom con- 
sists of the incessant action and counter-action 
of Church and State ; hence arises the freer, 
more comprehensive, more profound activity of 
mind, which must, on the whole, be admitted 
10 characterise that portion of the globe. The 
aspect of the public life of Europe is always 
determined by the mutual relations of these 
two great principles. 

Kence it happens that ecclesiastical history 
is not to be understood without political, nor 
the latter without the former. The combina- 
tion of both is necessary to present either in 
its true light ; and if ever we are able to 
fathom the depths of that profounder life where 
both have their common source and origin, it 
must be by a complete knowledge of this com- 
bination. 

But if this is the case with all nations, it is 
most pre-eminently so with the German, w^hich 
has bestowed more persevering and original 
thought on ecclesiastical and religious subjects 
than any other. The events of ten centuries 
turn upon the struggles between the Empire 
and the Papacy, between Catholicism and 
Protestantism. We, in our days, stand mid- 
way between them. 

My design is" to relate the history of an 
epoch in which the politico-religious energy 
of the German nation was most conspicuous 
for its. growth and most prolific in its results. 
I do not conceal from myself the great diffi- 
culty of this undertaking ; but, with God's 
help, I will endeavour to accomplish it. I 
sjiall first attempt to trace my way through a 
retrospect of earlier times. 



CAROLINGIAN TIMES. 

One of the most important epochs in the 
history of the world was the commenceijient 
of the eighth century ; when, on the one side 
Mahommedanism threatened to overspread 
Italy and Gaul, and on the other, the ancient 
idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more 
forced its way across the Rhine. In this peril 
of Christian institutions a youthful prince of 
Germanic 'race, Karl Martell, arose as their 
champion ; maintained them with all the en- 
ergy which the necessity for self-defence calls 
forth, and finally extended them into new 
regions. For, as the possessor of the sole 
power which still remained erect in the nations 
of Roman origin — the Pope of Rome — allied 
himself with this prince and his successors; 
as he received assistance from them, and be- 
stowed in return the favour and protection of 
the spiritual authority, the compound of military 
and sacerdotal government v/hich forms the 
basis of all European civilisation from that 
moment arose into being. From that time 
conquest and conversion went hand in hand. 
" As soon," says the author of the life of St. 



Boniface, "as the authority of the glorious 
Prince Charles over the Frisians was con- 
firmed, the trumpet of the sacred word was 
heard." It would be difficult to say whether 
the Frankic domination contributed more to the 
conversion of the Hessians and Thuringians, 
or Christianity to the incorporation of tl^^ose 
races with the Frankic empire. The war of 
Charlemagne against the Saxons was a war 
not only of conquest but of religion. Charle- 
magne opened it with an attack on the old 
Saxon sanctuary, the Irminsul ; the Saxons 
retorted by the destruction of the church at 
Fritzlar. Charlemagne marched to battle bear- 
ing the relics of saints ; missionaries accom- 
panied the divisions of his army ; his victories 
were celebrated by the establishment of bishop- 
rics ; baptism was the seal of subjection and 
allegiance ; relapse into heathenism was also 
a crime against the state. The consummation 
of all these incidents is to be found in the in- 
vestiture of the aged conqueror with the im- 
perial crown. A German, in the natural course 
of events and in the exercise of regular legi- 
timate power, occupied the place of the Caesars 
as chief of a great part of the Romanz world; 
he also assumed a lofty station at the side 
of the Roman pontiff in spiritual affairs; a 
Frankic synod saluted him, as "Regent of the 
true religion." The entire state of which he 
was the chief now assumed a colour and form 
wherein the spiritual and temporal elements 
were completely blended. The union between 
emperor and pope served as a model for that 
between count and bishop. The archdeacon- 
ries into which the bishoprics were divided, 
generally, if not universally, coincided with 
the Gauen, or political divisions of the country. 
As the counties were divided into hundreds, 
so were the archdeaconries into deaneries. 
The seat of them was different; but, in respect 
of the territory over which their jurisdiction 
extended, there was a striking correspondence.* 
According to the view of the lor,d and ruler, 
not only was the secular power to lend its arm 
to the spiritual, but the spiritual to aid the 
temporal by its excommunications. The great 
empire reminds us of a vast neutral ground in 
the midst of a world filled with carnage and 
devastation ; where an iron will imposes peace 
on forces generally in a state of mutual hos- 
tility and destruction, and fosters and shelters 
the germ of civilisation ; so guarded was it on 
all sides by impregnable marches. 

But every age could not produce a man so 
formed to subdue and to command ; and for 
the development of the world which Charle- 
magne founded, it remained to be seen what 
would be the mutual bearing of the different 
elements of which it was composed ; whether 
they would blend with or repel each other, 
agree or conflict : for there can be no true and 
enduring vitality without the free motion of 
natural and innate pov/ers and propensities. 

It was inevitable that the clergy would first 
feel its own strength. This body formed a 
corporation independent even of the emperor : 



*See Wenck, Hessische Landesgeschichte, ii. 469. 



CAROLINGIAN TIMES. 



27 



originating and developed in the Romanz na- 
tions, whose most remarkable product it had 
been in the preceding century, it now extended 
over those of Germanic race; in which, through 
the medium of a common language, it continu- 
ally made new proselytes and gained strength 
and consistency. 

Even under Charlemagne the spiritual ele- 
ment was already bestirring itself wdth activity 
and vigour. . One of the most remarkable of 
his capitularies is that wherein he expresses 
his astonishment that his spiritual and tem- 
poral officers so often thwart, instead of sup- 
porting each other, as it is their duty to do. 
He does not disguise that it was the clergy 
more especially who exceeded their powers : 
to them he addresses the question, fraught with 
reproach and displeasure, which has been so 
often repeated by succeeding ages — how far 
tliey are justified in interfering in purely secu- 
lar affairs] He tells them they must explain 
what is meant by renouncing the world; 
whether that is consistent with large and 
costly retinues, with attempts to persuade the 
ignorant to make donations of their goods and 
to disinherit their children ; whether it were 
not better to foster good morals than to build 
churches, and the like.* 

But the clergy soon evinced a much stronger 
propensity to ambitious encroachment. 

We need not here inquire w^hether the pseu- 
do-Isidorian decretals were invented as early 
as the reign of Charlemagne, or somewhat 
later ; in the F^ankic church, or in Italy : at 
all events, they belong to that period, are con- 
nected with a most extensive project, and form 
a great epoch in our history. The project was 
to overthrow the existing constitution of the 
church, which, in every country, still essenti- 
ally rested on the authority of the metropolitan ; 
to place the whole church in immediate sub- 
jection to the pope of Rome, and to establish 
a unity of the spiritual power, by means of 
which it must necessarily emancipate itself 
from the temporal. Such was the plan which 
the clergy had even then the boldness to avow. 
A series of names of the earlier popes v/ere 
pressed into the service, in order to append to 
them forged documents, to which a colour of 
legality was thus given.f 

And what was it not possible to effect in 
those times of profound historical ignorance, 
in which past ages were only beheld through 
the twilight of falsehood and fantastic error? 
and under princes like the successors of Char- 
lemagne, whose minds, instead of being eleva- 
ted or purified were crushed by religious influ- 
ences, so that they lost the power of distin- 
guishing the spiritual from the temporal pro- 
vince of the clerical office 1 

It is indisputable that the order of succes- 

*"CapJtulare iuterrogationis de iis quse Karolus M. 
pro communi omnium utilitate interroganda constituit 
Aquisgrani 811." — Monum. Oermanice Histor. ed. Pertz, 
iii. p. 106. 

t A passage from the spurious Acts of the Synods of 
Pope Silvester is found in a Capitulary of 806. See Eicli- 
horn, Ueber die spanische Sammlung der Quellen des 
Kirchenrechts in den Abhandll. der Preuss. Akad. d. W. 
1834. Püilos. Hist. Klasse, p. 132. * 



sion to the throne which Louis the Pious, in 
utter disregard of the warnings of his faithful 
adherents, and in opposition to all German 
modes of thinking, established in the year 817,4: 
was principally brought about by the influence 
of the clergy. "The empire," says Agobar- 
dus, " must not be divided into three ; it must 
remain one and undivided." The division of 
the empire seemed to endanger the unity of the 
church : and, as the emperor was chiefly de- 
termined by spiritual motives, the regulations 
adopted were enforced with all the pomp of 
j religious ceremonies, — by masses, fasts, and 
I distributions of alms ; every one swore to 
I them ; they were held to be inspired by God 
himself, 

, After this, no one, not even the emperor, 
could venture to depart from them. Great, at 
least, were the evils which he brought upon 
himself by his attempt to do so, out of love to 
a son born at a later period of his life. The 
irritated clergy made common cause with his 
elder sons, who w^ere already dissatisfied with 
the administration of the empire. The supreme 
pontiff came in person from Rome and declared 
in their favour ; and a universal revolt was the 
I consequence. Nor did this first manifestation 
I of their power satisfy the clergy. In order to 
I make sure of their advantage, they formed the 
j daring scheme of depriving the born and 
I anointed emperor, on whom they could now no 
I longer place reliance, of his consecrated dig- 
I nity, — a dignity which, at any rate, he owed 
not to them, — and of bestowing it immediately 
on the successor to the throne who had been 
nominated in 817, and who was the natural 
representative of the unity of the empire. If, 
on the one hand, it is indisputable that, in the 
eighth century, the spiritual authority contri- 
buted greatly to the establishment of the prin- 
ciple of obedience to the temporal government, 
it is equally certain that, in the ninth, it made 
I rapid strides towards the acquisition of pov/er 
I into its own hands. In the collection of capi- 
I tularies of BenediCtus Levita, it is treated as 
one of the leading principles, that no constitu- 
tion in the world has any force or validity against 
the decisions of the popes of Rome; in more 
than one canon, kings who act in opposition to 
I this principle are threatened with divine pun- 
ishment.§ The monarchy of Charlemagne 
seemed to be about to be transformed into an 
ecclesiastical state. 

I do not hesitate to affirm that it was mainly 
the people of Germany who resisted this ten- 
dency ; indeed, that it was precisely this re- 
sistance which first a,wakened Germany to a 
consciousness of its own importance as a na- 
tion. For it would be impossible to speak of 
a German nation, in the proper sense of the 
word, during the preceding ages. In the more 
remote, the several tribes had not even a com- 
mon name by which they recognised each 

I Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule Merid. iv. 47, examines 
this point more in detail. 

§ Benedicti Capitularia, lib. ii. p. 322. " Velut praeva- 
ricator catholicse fidei semper a Domino reus existat qui- 
cunque regum cajionis hajus censuram permiserit violan- 
dam." Lib. iii. 346. " Constitutiones contradecreta prse- 
sulum Romanorum nullius sunt momenti." 



28 



INTRODUCTION. 



other: during the period of their migration, 
they fought with as much hostility among 
themselves as against the stranger, and allied 
themselves as readily with the latter as with 
those of common race. Under the Merovin- 
gian kings they were further divided by reli- 
gious enmities ; the Saxons, in presence of 
Frankic Christianity, held the more pertina- 
ciously to their forms of government and to 
their ancient gods. It was not till Charlemagne 
had united all the Germanic tribes, with the 
exception of those in England and Scandina- 
via, in one and the same temporal and spiritual 
allegiance, that the nation began to acquire 
form and consistency ; it was not till the be- 
ginning of the ninth centur}'', that the German 
name appeared as contra-distinguished from 
the Romanz portion of the empire.* 

It is worthy of eternal remembrance, that 
the first act in which the Germans appear as 
one people, is the resistance to the attempt of 
the clergy to depose their emperor and lord. 

The ideas of legitimacy which they had in- 
herited from their past political life and his- 
tory, as members of tribes, would never have 
led them to derive it from the pretended grace 
of God, — that is to SdLj, from the declaration 
of the spiritual authorities. They were at- 
tached to Louis the Pious, who had rendered 
peculiar services to the Saxon chiefs ; their 
aversion to his deposition was easily fanned 
into a flame : at the call of Louis the Ger- 
manic, who kept his court in Bavaria, the 
other tribes, Saxons, Swabians, and Franks, 
on this side the Carbonaria, gathered around 
his banner ; for the first time they were united 
in one great object. As they were aided by 
an analogous, though much feebler, movement 
in the south of France, the bishops soon found 
themselves compelled to absolve the emperor 
from the penance they had imposed, and to 
acknowledge him again as their lord. The 
first historical act of the united nation is this 
rising in favour of their born prince against 
the spiritual power. Nor were they any longer 
inclined to consent to such a deviation from 
their own law of succession, as was involved 
in the acknowledgment of a single heir to the 
whole monarchy. When, after the death of 
Louis the Pious, Lothair, in spite of all that 
had passed, made an attempt to seize the reins 
of the whole empire, he found in the Germans 
a resistance, at first doubtful, but every moment 
increasing, and finally victorious. From them 
his troops received their first important defeat 
on the Riess, which laid the foundation of the 
severance of Germany from the great mon- 
archy.! 

Lothair relied on his claims recognised by 
the clergy; the Germans, combined with the 
southern French, challenged him to submit 
them to the judgment of heaven by battle. 
Then it was that the great array of the Frankic 

* Riihs Erläuterung der zehn ersten Capitel von Taci- 
tus Germania, p. 103; Mone Geschichte des Heidenthums 
im Nördlichen Europa. Th. ii. p. 6. 

t In Retiense. (Annales Ruodolfi Fuldensis ; Monu- 
menta Germanioe Hist. i. p. 352.) According to Lang 
(Baierische Gauen, p. 78.) belonging to the Svvabian ter- 
ritory. 



empire split into two hostile masses ; the one 
containing a preponderance of Romanz, ■ the 
other of Germanic elements. The former de- 
fended the unity of the Empire ; the latter 
demanded, according to their German ideas, its 
separation. There is a ballad extant on the 
battle of Fontenay, in which one of the com- 
batants expresses his grief at this bloody war 
of fellow-citizens and brethren; "on that bit- 
ter night in which the brave fell, the skilful 
in fight." For the destiny of the West it was 
decisive.:];: The judgment of heaven was tri- 
umiphantly pronounced against the claims of 
the clergy ; three kingdoms were now actually 
established instead of* one. The secular Ger- 
manic principles which, from the time of the 
great migration of tribes, had extended widely 
I into the Romanz world, remained in possession 
] of the field : they were steadfastly maintained 
' in the subsequent troubles. 
i On the extinction of one of the three lines 
i in which the unity of the empire should have 
rested, dissensions broke out between the two 
others, a main feature of which was the con- 
flict betv/een the spiritual and secular princi- 
ples. 

j The king of the French, Charles the Bald, 
I had allied himself with the clergy ; his armies 
I were led to the field by bishops, and he aban- 
doned the administration of his kingdom in a 
; great measure to Hinkmar, archbishop of 
] Rheims. Hence, when the throne of Lothar- 
ingia became vacant in the year 869, he expe- 
rienced the warmest support #om the bishops 
of that country. " After," ^ say they, " they 
had called on God, w4io bestows kingdoms on 
i whom he will, to point out to them a Idng after 
his own heart ; after they bad then, with God's 
help, perceived that the crown was of right his 
to whom they meant to confide it," they elected 
Charles the Bald to be their lord.§ But the 
Germans were as far now as before from being 
convinced by this sort of public lav,'. The 
elder brother thought his claims at least as 
valid as those of the younger ; by force of 
' arms he compelled Charles to consent to the 
treaty of Marsna, by which he first united 
transrhenane Germany with that on the right 
; bank of the Rhine. This same course of 
; events was repeated in the year 875, when the 
thrones of Italy and the Empire became vacant. 
At first, Charles the Bald, aided now by the 
' pope, as heretofore by the bishops, took pos- 
; session of the crown without difficulty. || But 
j Carlmann, son of Louis the Germanic, resting 
I his claim on the right of the elder line, and 
I also on his nomination as heir by the last em- 
peror, hastened with his Bavarians and high 
Germans to Italy ; and in spite of the opposi- 
tion of the pope, took possession of it as his 
unquestionable inheritance. If this were the 
case in Italy, still less could Charles the Bald 
succeed in his attempts on the German fron- 

X Angilbertus de bella quas fuit Fontaneto. 

§ " Caroli Secundi Coronatio in Regno Hlotharii, 869."— 
Monum. iii, 512. 

II " Papa invitante Romain perrexit. Beato Petro multa 
et pretiosa munera ofFerens, in imperatoreni unctus est." 
— Annales Hincmari Remensis, 875 et 876 ; Monum. Germ. 



CAROLINGIAN TIMES, 



29 



tiers. He was defeated in both countries ; the I 
superiority of the Germans in arms was so de- , 
cisive that, at length, they became masters of | 
the whole Lotharingian territory. Even unde? 
the Carolingian sovereigns, they marked the 
boundaries of the mighty empire ; the crown 
of Charlemagne, and two-thirds of his domin- 
ions, fell into their hands : they maintained the 
independence of the secular power with daunt- 
less energy^ and brilliant success. 



SAXON AND FRANKIC EMPERORS. 

The question which next presents itself is, 
what course was to be pursued if the ruling 
house either became extinct, or proved itself 
incapable of conducting the government of so 
vast an empire, attacked on every side from 
without, and fermenting within. 

In the years from 879 to 887, the several 
nations determined, one after another, to aban- 
don the cause of Charles the Fat. The cha- 
racteristic differences of the mode in which 
they accomplished this are well worthy of 
remark. 

In the Romanz part of Europe the clergy 
had a universal ascendancy. In Cisjurane 
Burgundy it was " the holy fathers assembled 
at Mantala, the holy synod, together with the 
nobles," who "under the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit,", elected Count Boso king.* We 
find from the decretal for the election of Guido 
of Spoleto, that "the humble bishops assem- 
bled together from various parts at Pavia chose 
him to be their lord and king,j" principally be- 
cause he had promised to exalt the holy Roman 
church, and to maintain the ecclesiastical rights 
and privileges." The conditions to which 
Odo of Paris gave his assent at his coronation 
are chiefly in favour of the clergy ; he promises 
not only to defend the rights of the church, 
but to extend them to the utmost of *his inform- 
ation and ability.t Totally different was the 
state of things in Germany. Here it was 
more especially the temporal lords, Saxons, 
Franks and Bavarians, who, under the guid- 
ance of a disaffected minister of the emperor, 
assembled around Arnulf and transferred the 
crown to him. The bishops (even the bishap 
of Mainz) were rather opposed to the measure ; 
nor was it till some years afterwards that they 
■entered into a formal negotiation§ with the 
new ruler : they had not elected him ; they 
submitted to his authority. 

The rights and privileges which were on 
every occasion claimed by the clergy, were as 
constantly and as resolutely ignored by the 
Germans. They held as close to the legiti- 
mate succession as possible ; even after the 
com.plete extinction of the Carolingian race, 

* " jVutu Dei, per suffragia sanctorum, ob instantem 
necessitatera." — Electio Bosonis ; Jilonum. Wi. 547. 

t " Nos humiles episcopos ex diversis partibus Papias 
convenientibiis pro ecclesiarum nostrarum ereptione et 
omnis Christianitatis salvatione," &cc.— Electio Widonis 
Regis, jMonum. iii. 554. 

1 Capitulum Odonis Regis. Ibid. 

§ '-De collegio'sacerdotum gnaros direxerunt media- 
tores ad pr;efatum reeem," &LC.—Jirjiulfi Concilium Tri- 
lurience, Monum. iii. 560. He says, " Nos, quibus regni 
cura et solicitudo ecclesiarum commissa est." 

C* 



the degree of ^indred with it was one of the 
most important considerations which deter- 
mined the choice of the people, first to Conrad, 
and then to Henry I. of Saxony. 
j Conrad had, indeed, at one time, the idea of 
I attaching himself to the clergy, who, even in 
I Germany, were a ver}- powerful body : Henry, 
j on the contrary, was always opposed to them. 
I They took no share in his election ; the conse- 
cration by the holy oil, upon which Pepin and 
Charlemagne had set so high a value, he de- 
clined ; as matters stood in Germany, it could 
be of no importance to him. On the contrary, 
we find that as in his own land of Saxony he 
kept his clergy within the strict bounds of 
obedience, so in other parts of his dominions 
he placed them in subjection to the dukes ; l| 
so that their dependence on the civil power 
was more complete than ever. His only soli- 
citude was to stand well with these great 
feudatories, whose power was almost equal to 
his own, and to fulfil other duties imperatively 
demanded by the moment. As he succeeded 
in these objects, — as he obtained a decisive 
victory over his most dangerous enemies, re- 
established the Marches, which had been 
broken at all points, and suffered nothing on 
the other side the Rhine that bore the German 
name to be wrested from him, — the clergy 
were compelled by necessity to adhere to him : 
he bequeathed an undisputed sceptre to his 
house. It was by an agreement of the court 
and the secular nobles that Otho was selected 
from among Henry's sons as his successor to 
the throne. The ceremony of election was 
attended only by the dukes, princes, great offi- 
cers of state, and warriors ; the elected mon- 
arch then received the assembled body of the 
clergy.** Otho could receive the unction with- 
out scruple ; the clergy could no longer imagine 
that they conferred a right upon him by that 
ceremony. Whether anointed or not, Otho 
would have been king, as his father had been 
before him. And so firmly was this sovereign- 
ty established, that Otho was now in a position 
to revive and carry through the claims founded 
by his Carolingian predecessors. He first 
completely realised the idea of a Germanic 
empire, which they had only conceived and 
prepared. He governed Lotharingia and ad- 
ministered Burgundy ; a short campaign suf- 
ficed to re-establish the rights of his Carolin- 
gian predecessors to the supreme power in 
Lombardy. Like Charlemagne, he was called 
to aid by" a pope oppressed by the factions of 
Rome; like him, he received in return for his 
succour the crown of the western empire (2d 
February, 962.) The principle of the temporal 
government, the autocracy, which from the 
earliest times had held in check the usurpations 
of ecclesiastical ambition, thus attained its 



\\ " Totius Bajoarise pontifices tuee suhjaceant potes- 
tati," is the promise of Liutprand the king to Duke Ar- 
nulf. Buchner, Geschichte der Baiern. iii. 7,8. shous what 
use the latter made of it. See Waiz, Henry I., p. 49. 

** WidukiveJi Annales, lib. ii. " Duces ac pr^efectorum 
principes cum cetera principiim railitumque manu — fece- 
runt eum regem; dum ea geruntur a ducibus ac cEetero 
magistratu, pontifex maxiinus cum universe sacerdotali 
ordiae prasstolabatur." 



20 



INTRODUCTION. 



culminating' point, and was triumphantly as- 
serted and recognised in Europe. 

At the first glai^ce it would seem as if the 
relation in which Otho now stood to the pope 
was the same as that occupied by Charle- 
magne ; on a closer inspection, however, we 
find a wide difference. | 

Charlemagne's connection with the see of ' 
Rome was produced by mutual need ; it was 
the result of long epochs of a political combi- 
nation embracing the development of various 
nations ; their mutual understanding rested on 
an internal necessity, before which all opposing 
views and interests gave way. The sovereign- 
ty of Otho the Great, on the contrary, rested 
on a principle fundamentally opposed to the 
encroachment of spiritual influences. The al- 
liance was momentary ; the disruption of it 
inevitable. But when, soon after, the same 
pope v/ho had invoked his aid, John XIL, 
placed himself at the head of a rebellious 
faction, Otho was compelled to cause him to 
be formally deposed, and to crush the faction 
that supported him by repeated exertions of 
force, before he could obtain perfect obedience ; 
he was obliged to raise to the papal chair a 
pope on whose co-operation he could rely. 
The popes have often asserted that they trans- 
ferred the empire to the Germans ; and if they 
confined this assertion to tlie Garolingian race, 
they are not entirely wrong. The coronation 
of Charlemagne was the result of their free 
determination. But if they allude to the Ger- 
man emperors, properly so called, the contrary 
of their statement is just as true; not only 
Carlmann and Otho the Great, but their suc- 
cessors, constantly had to conquer the imperial 
throne, and to defend it, when conquered, 
sword in hand. 

It has been said that the Germans would 
have done more wisely if they had not meddled 
with the empire ; or at least, if they had first 
worked out their own internal political institu- 
tions, and then, with matured minds, taken 
part in the general affairs of Europe. But the 
things of this world are not wont to develop 
themselves so methodically. A nation is often 
compelled by circumstances to increase its ter- 
ritorial extent, before its internal growth is 
completed. For w^as it of slight importance to 
its inward progress, that Germany thus re- 
mained in unbroken connexion with Italy "? — 
the depository of all that remained of ancient 
civilisation, the source whence all the forms of 
Christianity had been derived. The mind of 
Germany has always unfolded itself by contact 
wdth the spirit of antiquity, and of the nations 
of Roman origin. It was from the contrasts 
which so continually presented themselves 
during this uninterrupted connexion, that Ger- 
many learned to distinguish ecclesiastical do- 
mination from Christianity. 

For however signal had been the ascendancy 
of the secular power, the German people did 
not depart a hair's breadth either from the doc- 
trines of Christianity, the ideas upon which a 
Christian church is founded, or even from the 
forms in which they had first received those 
doctrines and ideas. In them the nation had 



first risen to a consciousness of its existence 
as a united body ; its whole intellectual and 
moral life was bound up with them. The Ger- 
man imperial government revived the civilising 
and Christianising tendencies which had dis- 
tinguished the reigns of Charles Martell and 
Charlemagne. Otho the Great, in following 
the course marked out by his illustrious prede- 
cessors, gave it a fresh national importance by 
planting German colonies in Slavonian coun- 
tries, simultaneously wnih the diffusion of 
Christianity. He Germanised as well as con- 
verted the population he had subdued. He 
confirmed his father's conquests on the Saale 
and the Elbe, by the establishment of the 
bishoprics of Meissen and Osterland. After 
having conquered the tribes on the other side 
the Elbe in those long and perilous campaigns 
where he commanded in person, he established 
there, too, three bishoprics, which for a time 
gave an extraordinary impulse to the progress 
of conversion.* In the midst of all his difli- 
culties and perplexities in Italy, he never lost 
siglft of this grand object; it was indeed while 
in that country that he founded the archbishop- 
ric of Magdeburg, whose jurisdiction extended 
over all those other foundations. And even 
where the project of Germanising the popula- 
tion was out of the question, the supremacy of 
the German name was firmly and actively 
maintained. In Bohemia and Poland bishop- 
rics were erected under German metropolitans ; 
from Hamburg Christianity found its way into 
the north ; missionaries from Passau traversed 
Hungary, nor is it improbable that the influence 
of these vast and sublime eff"orts extended even 
to Russia. The German empire was the cen- 
tre of the conquering religion ; as itself ad- 
vanced, it extended the ecclesiasti co-military 
State of which the Church was an integral 
part; it was the chief representative of the 
unity of w'estern Christendom, and hence arose 
the necessity under which it lay of acquiring 
a decided ascendancy over the papacy. 

This secular and Germanic principle long 
retained the predominancy it had triumphantly 
acquired. Otho the Second offered the papal 
chair to the abbot of Clugny ; and Otho the 
Third bestowed it first on one of his kinsmen, 
and then on his instructor Gerbert. All the 
factions which threatened to deprive the empe- 
ror of this right were overthrown; under the 
patronage of Henry III., a German pope de- 
feated three Roman candidates for the tiara. 
In the year 1048, when the see of Rome became 
vacant, ambassadors from the Romans, says a 
contemporaneous chronicler, proceeded to Sax- 
ony, found the emperor there, and entreated 
him to give them a new pope. He chose the 
Bishop of Toul, (afterwards Leo IX.), of the 
house of Egisheim, from which he himself 
was descended on the maternal side. What 
took place with regard to the head of the 
church was of course still more certain to be- 
fall the rest of the clergy. Since Otho the 
Great, in all the troubles of the early years of 
his reign, succeeded in breaking down the re- 



* Adami Brem. Histor. Ecclesiastica, lib. ii. c. 17. 



CAROLINGIAN TIMES 



31 



sistance which the duchies were enabled by 
their clan-like composition to offer him, the 
ecclesistical appointments remained' without 
dispute in the hand of the emperor. 

How magnificent was the position now occu- 
pied by the German nation, represented in tha 
persons of the mightiest princes of Europe and 
united under their sceptre ; at the head of an 
advancing civilisation, and of the whole of 
western Christendom ; in the fulness of youth- 
ful, aspiring strength ! 

We must here however remark and confess, 
that Germany did not wholly understand her 
position, nor fulfil her mission. Above all, she 
did not succeed in giving complete reality to 
the idea of a western empire, such as appeared 
about to be established under Otho I. Inde- 
pendent and often hostile, though Christian 
powers arose through all the borders of Ger- 
many ; in Hungary, and in Poland, in the 
northern as well as in the southern possessions 
of the Normans ; England and France were 
snatched again from German influence. Spain 



which they propped their power was again 
principally the clergy. Even Otho the Greai 
owed his triumph over intestine revolt and dis- 
cord, in great measure to the support of the 
bishops ; for example, of his brother Bruno, 
whom he had created Archbishop of Cologne, 
and who, in return, held Lotharingia in alle- 
giance to him : it was only by the aid of the 
clergy that Otho conquered the Pope.f Tlie 
emperors found it expedient to govern by 
means of the bishops ; to make them the in- 
struments of their will. The bishops were at 
once their chancellors and their counsellors ; 
the monasteries, imperial farms. The uncon- 
trollable tendency, at that time, of all power 
and office to become hereditary would naturally 
render the heads of the church desirous of com- 
bining secular rights, which they could dis- 
pose of at pleasure, with their bishoprics. 
Hence it happened, that just at the time when 
the subjection of the clergy to the imperial 
authority was the most complete, their power 
acquired the greatest extension and solidity, 



laughed at the German claims to a universal -> Otho I. already began to unite the temporal. 



supremacy ; her kings thought themselves em- 
perors ; even the enterprises nearest home — 
those across the Elbe — were for a time station- 
ary or retrograde. 

If we seek for the causes of these unfavour- 
able results, we need only turn our eyes on the 
internal condition of the empire, where we find 
an incessant and tempestuous struggle of all 
the forces of the nation, unfortunately the 
establishment of a fixed rule of succession to 



powers of the count with the proper spiritual 
authority of the bishop. We see from the 
registers of Henry II. that he bestowed on 
many churches two and three countships ; on 
that of Gandersheim, the countship in seven 
Gauen or districts. As early as the eleventh 
century the bishops of W'ürzburg succeeded 
in totally supplanting the secular counts in 
their diocese, and in uniting the spiritual and 
temporal power ; a state of things which the 



the imperial crown was continually prevented i other bishops now strove to emulate, 
by events. The son and grand-son of Otho j It is evident that the station of an emperor 
the Great died in the bloom of youth, and the of Germany was no less perilous than august 
nation was thus compelled to elect a chief, i The magnates by whom he was surrounded, 
The very first election threw Germany and the possessors of the secular power out of 
Italy into a universal ferment ; and this was whose ranks he himself had arisen, he could 
shortly succeeded by a second still more stormy, ; hold in check only by an unceasing struggle, 
since it was necessary to resort to a new line — ' and not without force. He must find a prop 
the Franconian. How was it possible to expect | in another quarter, and seek support from the 
implicit obedience from the powerful and re- j very body who were in principle opposed to 
fractory nobles, out of whose ranks, and by j him. This rendered it impossible for him ever 
whose will, the emperor was raised to the to attain to that predominant influence in the 



throne 1 Was it likely that the Saxon race, 
which had hitherto held the reins of govern- 
ment, would readily and quietly submit to a 
foreign family "? It followed that two factions 
arose, the one obedient, the other opposed, to 
the Franconian emperor, and filled the empire 
with their strife. The severe character of 
Henry III. excited universal discontent.* A 
vision, related to us by his own chancellor, 
affords a lively picture of the state of things. 
He saw the emperor, seated on his throne, 
draw his sword, exclaiming aloud, that he 
trusted he should still avenge himself on all 
his enemies. How could the emperors, thus 
occupied during their whole lives with intes- 
tine dissensions, place themselves at the head 
of Europe in the important work of social im- 
provement, or really merit the title of supreme 
Lords of the West I 

It is ren»arkable that the social element on 



* Hermannus Contractus ad an. 1053. " Regni tarn 
primores quam inferiores magis magisque mussitantes, 
regem se ipso deteriorem fore causabantur " 



general affairs of Europe which the imperial 
dignity would naturally have given him. How 
strongly does this everlasting ebb and flow of 
contending parties, this continual upstarting of 
refractory powers, contrast with the tranquil- 
lity and self-sufficiency of the empire swa5"ed 
by Charlemagne ! It required matchless vigour 
and fortitude in an emperor even to hold his 
seat. 

In this posture of affairs, the prince who 
possessed the requisite vigour and fortitude^ 
Henry III., died young (A. D. 105G), and a 
child, six years old, in whose name the gov- 
ernment was carried on by a tottering regency, 
filled his place : — one of those incidents which 
turn the fortunes of a world. 

EMANCIPATION OF THE PAPACY. 

The ideas which had been repressed in the 



t Rescriptum patrum in concilio, in Liutprand, lib. vi. 
contains tlie remarkable declaration : " Exconimunica- 
tionem vestram parvipendemus, eam potius in vos retor- 
quebimus." 



32 



INTRODUCTION. 



ninth century now began to revive ; and with 
redoubled strength, since the clergy, from the 
highest to the lowest, were become so much 
more powerful. 

Generally speaking, this was the age in 
which the various modifications of spiritual 
power throughout the world began to assume 
form and stability; in which mankind found 
repose and satisfaction in these conditions of 
existence. In the eleventh century Buddhaism 
was re-established in Thibet ; and the hierar- 
chy which, down to the present day, prevails 
over so large a portion of Eastern Asia, was 
founded by the Lama Dschu-Adhischa. The 
Califate of Bagdad, heretofore a vast empire, 
then took the character of a spiritual authority, 
and was greatly indebted to that change for j 
the ready reception it met with. At the same j 
period, in Africa and Syria arose the Fatimite : 
Califate, founded on a doctrine of which its j 
adherents said, that it was to the Koran what j 
the kernel is to the shell. 

In the West the idea of the unity of the 
Christian faith was the pervading one, and had 
taken strong hold on all minds (for the various j 
conversions which awakened this or that more ' 
susceptible nation to fresh enthusiasm belong 
to a later period). This idea manifested itself j 
in the general efforts to crush Mahommedan- i 
ism : inadequately represented by the imperial : 
authority, which commanded but a limited 
obedience, it now came in povverful aid of the 
projects and efforts of the hierarchy. For to 
whom could such an idea attach itself but to 
the bishop of the Roman Church, to which, as 
to a common source, all other churches traced 
back their foundation ; which all western Eu- 
ropeans regarded with a singular reverence? 
Hitherto the Bishop of Rome had been thrown 
into the shade by the rise and development of 
the imperial power. But favouring circum- 
stances and the main course of events now 
united to impel the papacy to claim universal 
and supreme dominion. 

The minority of the infant emperor decided 
the result. At the court of Rome, the man 
who most loudly proclaimed the necessity of | 
reform — the great champion of the independent 
existence of the church — the man ordained by 
destiny to make his opinion the law of ages, — 
Hildebrand, the son of a carpenter in Tuscany, 
acquired supreme influence over all affairs. He 
was the author and instigator of decrees, in 
virtue of which the papal elections were no 
longer to depend on the emperor, but on the 
clergy of the Church of Rome and the cardi- 
nals. He delayed not a moment to put them 
in force ; the very next election was conducted 
in accordance with them. 

In Germany, on the contrary, people were 
at this time entirely occupied with the conflicts 
of the factions about the court ; the opposition 
which was spread over Italy and Germany 
(and to which Hildebrand also belonged) at 
length got a firm footing in the court itself: 
the adherents of the old Saxon and Salic prin- 
ciples (for example. Chancellor Guibert) were 
defeated ; the court actually sanctioned an elec- 
tion which had taken place against its own 



most urgent interest; the German rulers, 
plunged in the di^ssensions of the moment, 
abandoned to his fate an anti-pope who main- 
tained himself with considerable success and 
who was the representative of the ancient 
maxims. 

Affairs, however, changed their aspect when 
the youthful Salian, with all his spirit and 
talents, took iRe reins of government into his 
own hand. He knew his rights, and was de- 
termined to assert them at any price. But 
things had gone so far that he fell into the most 
perilous situation at the very outset of his 
career. 

The accession to the throne of a young mo- 
narch, by nature despotic and violent, and 
hurried along by vehement passions, quickly 
brought the long-fermenting internal discords 
of Germany to an open breach. The German 
nobles aspired after the sort of independence 
which those of France had just acquired. In 
the year 1073 the Saxon princes revolted ; the 
whole of Saxony, says a contemporary, deserted 
the king like one man. Meanwhile at Rome 
the leader of the hostile party had himself 
gained possession of the tiara, and now ad- 
vanced without delay to the great work of 
emancipating not only the papacy but the 
clergy from the control of the emperor. In 
the year 1074 he caused a law to be pro- 
claimed by his synod, the purpose and effect 
of which was to wrest the nomination to spiri- 
tual offices from the laity ; that is, in the first 
place, from the emperor. 

Scarcely was Henry IV. seated on his throne 
when he saw its best prerogatives, the crown 
and consummation of his power, attacked and 
threatened with annihilation. He seemed 
doomed to succumb without a contest. The 
discord between the Saxons and Upper Ger- 
mans, which for a time had been of advantage 
to him, was allayed, and their swords, yet wet 
with each other's blood, were turned in concert 
against the emperor; he was compelled to j?ro- 
pitiate the pope who had excommunicated 
him, to travel in the depth of winter to do that 
penance at Canossa hj which he so profoundly 
degraded the imperial name. 

Yet from that very moment we may date his 
most strenuous resistance. 

We should fall into a complete error were 
we to represent him to ourselves as crossing 
the Alps in remorse and contrition, or as con- 
vinced of the rightfulness of the claims ad- 
vanced by the pope. His only object was to 
wrest from his adversaries the support of the 
spiritual authority, the pretext under which 
they threatened his highest dignity. As he 
did not succeed in this, — as the absolution he 
received from Gregory was not so complete as 
to restrain the German princes from all further 
hostilities,* — as, on the contrary, they elected^ 
another sovereign in spite of it, — he plunged 
into the most determined struggle against the 
assumptions of his spiritual as well as of his 

* Lambertus Scliaffiiahurgensis : {Pistor. i. p. 420.) 
" His conditionibus absolutus est ut .... accusationibus 
respoiideret et ad papte sententiam vel retineret regiium 
.... vel aequo animo amitteret." » 



EMANCIPATION OF THE PAPACY. 



33 



temporal foes. Opposition and injury roused 
the man within him. Across those iVlps which 
he had traversed in penitential lowliness, he 
hurried hack burning with warlike ardour ; in 
Carinthia an invincible band of devoted fol- 
lowers gathered around him. It is interesting 
to follow him with our e3'e, subduing the spiri- 
tual power in Bavaria, the hostile aristocratical 
clans in Swabia ; to see him next marching 
upon Franconia and driving his rival before 
him. ; then into Thuringia and the r\Ieissen 
colonies, and at length forcing him to a battle 
on the banks of the Elster, in which he fell. 
Henry gained no great victories ; even on the 
Elster he did not so much as keep the field ; 
but he was continually advancing ; his party 
was continually gaining strength ; he held the 
banner of the empire aloft with a steady and 
vigorous grasp. After a few years he vras able 
to return to Italy (a. d. 1081). The empire 
had been so long and so intimately allied with 
the episcopal power that its chief could not be 
without adherents among the higher clergy : 
synods were held in the emperor's behalf, in 
which it was resolved to maintain the old 
order of things. The excommunications of the 
pope were met by counter-excommunications. 
Chancellor Quibert, who had suffered for his 
adherence to Salic principles, was nominated 
pope under the auspices of the emperor ; and 
after various alternations of success in war, 
was at length conducted in triumph to Rome. 
Henry, like so many of his predecessors, was 
crowned by a pope of his own creation. The 
second rival king whom the Saxons opposed 
to him could gain no substantial power, and 
held it expedient voluntarily to withdraw^ his 
pretensions. 

"VVe see that the em.peror had attained to all 
that is attainable by war and policy, yet his 
triumph was far from being as complete and 
conclusive as we might thence infer ; for the 
result of a contest is not always decided on a 
field of battle. The ideas of which Gregory 
was the champion were intimately blended 
with the most powerful impulses of the general 
development of society ; while he was a fugi- 
tive from Rome, they gained possession of the 
world. No later than ten years after his death 
his second successor w^s able to take the 
initiative in the general affairs of the West — a 
powder which was conclusive as to results. 
One of the gi-eatest social movements recorded 
in history — the Crusades — was mainly the 
result of his policy ; and from that time -he 
appeared, as the natural head of the Romano- 
Germanic sacerdotal and military community 
of the West. To such weapons the emperor 
had nothiifg to oppose. 

The life of Henry, from this time till its 
close, has something in it which reminds us 
of the antique traged)^, in v;hich the hero sinks, 
in all the glory of manhood and the fulness of 
his powers, under an inevitable doom. For 
what can be more like an overwhelming fate 
than the power of opinion, v;hich extends its 
invisible grasp on every side, takes complete 
possession of the minds of men, and suddenly 



appears in the field with a force beyond all 
control! Henry saw the world go over, be- 
fore his eyes, from the empire to the papacy. 
An army brought together by one of the blind 
popular impulses which led to the crusades, 
drove out of Rome the pope he had placed on 
the throne : nay, even in his own house he 
was encountered by hostile opinions. His 
elder son was infected with the zeal of the 
bigots, by whom he was incited to revolt 
against his father ; the younger v/as swayed 
by the influence of the German aristocracy, 
and, by a union of cunning and violence, 
compelled his own father to abdicate. The 
aged warrior went broken-hearted to his grave. 

I do not think it necessary to trace all the 
various alternations of the conflict respecting 
the rights of the church. 

Even in Rome it was sometimes deemed 
impossible to force the emperor to renounce 
his claims. Pope Paschal at one time enter- 
tained the bold idea of giving back all that 
the emperors had ever granted to the church,, 
in order to effect the radical separation of the 
latter from the state.* 

As this proved to be impracticable, the af- 
fairs of the church were again administered 
for a time by the imperial court under Henry 
v., as they had been under Henry IV. f 

But this too was soon found to be intolera- 
ble ; new disputes arose, and after long con- 
tention, both parties agreed to the concordat 
of Worms, according to which the preporiderr 
ant influence was yielded to the emperor in 
Germany, and to the pope in Italy; an agree- - 
ment, however, which was not expressed with 
precision, and which contained the germ of 
new disputes. 

But though these results were little calcula- 
ted to determine the rights of the contending 
powers, the advantages which gradually ac- 
crued to the papacy from the course of events 
vrere incalculable. From a state of total de- 
pendence, it had now attained to a no less 
complete emancipation ; or rather to a prepon 
derance, not indeed as yet absolute, or defined, 
but unquestionable, and every momient acquir- 
ing strength and consistency from favouring 
circumstances. 

RELATION OF THE PAPACY TO THE FRINGES OF 
THE EMPIRE. 

The most important assistance which the pa- 
pacy received in this work of self-emancipation 
and aggrandisement arose from the natural and 
tacit league subsisting between it and the 
princes of the Germanic empire. 

The secular aristocracy of Germany had, at 
one time, made the strongest opposition, on 

* Heinrici Encyclica de Controversia sua cum Papa. 
Monum. iv. 70. The emperor asked, most justly, what 
was to become of the imperial authority, if it were to 
lose the right of investiture after the emperors had trans- 
ferred so large a share of their privileges to the bishops. 

t Epistola Friderici Coloniensis archiepiscopi : Codex 
Vdalrici Babenbergeusis, n. 277. " Synodales episcoporum 
conventus, annua consilia, omnes denique ecclesiastici 
ordinis administrationes in regalera curiam translata 
sunt." 



34 



INTRODUCTION, 



behalf of their head, to the encroachments of 
the Church; they had erected the imperial 
throne, and had invested it with all its power : 
but this power had at length became oppressive 
to them ; the supremacy of the imperial govern- 
ment over the clergy, which was employed to 
keep themselves in subjection, became their 
most intolerable grievance. It followed that 
they at length beheld their own advantage in 
the emancipation of the papacy. 

It is to be observed that the power of the 
German princes and that of the popes rose in 
parallel steps. 

Under Henry III., and during the minority 
of his successor, botli had laid the foundation 
of their independence : they began their active 
career together. Scarcely had Gregory YII. 
established the first principles of his new sys- 
tem, when the princes also proclaimed theirs ; 
— the principle, that the empire should no 
longer be hereditary. Henry IV. maintained 
his power chiefly by admitting in detail the 
claims which he denied in the aggregate : his 
victories had as little effect in arresting the pro- 
gress of the independence of the great nobles 
as of the hierarchy. Even as early as the reign 
of Henry V. these sentiments had gained such 
force that the unity of the empire was regarded 
as residing rather in the collective body of the 
princes than in the person of the emperor. For 
what else are we to understand from the decla- 
ration of that prince — that it v/as less danger- 
ous to insult the head of the empire than to 
give offence to the princes'?* — an opinion 
which they themselves sometimes expressed. 
In Würzburg they agreed to adhere to their 
decrees, even if the king refused his assent to 
them. They took into their own hands the 
arrangement of the disputes with the pope 
which Henry found it impossible to terminate : 
they were the real authors of the concordat of 
Worms. 

In the succeeding collisions of the papacy 
with the empire every thing depended on the 
degree of support the emperor could, on each 
occasion, calculate on receiving from the 
princes. 

I shall not here attempt to give a complete 
view of the timics of the W^elfs -and the Ho- 
henstaufen ; it would not be possible, without 
entering into a more elaborate examination of 
particulars than is consistent with the object 
of this short survey : let us only direct our 
attention for a moment to the grandest and 
most imposing figure with which that epoch 
presents us — Frederic I. 

So long as Frederic I. stood well with his 
princes he might reasonably entertain the pro- 
ject of reviving the prerogatives of the em- 
pire, such as they were conceived and laid 
down by the emperors and jurists of ancient 
Rome. He held himself entitled, like Justi- 
nian andTheodosius, to summon ecclesiastical 
assemblies ; he reminded the popes that their 
possessions were derived from the favour and 



* " Uniiis capitis licet summi dejectio reparabile damp- 
num est, principum autem coiicultatio ruina regni est." 
Fraginentum de Hoste facienda.— JJfo7iM77i. iv. 03. 



bounty of the emperor, and admonished them 
to attend to their ecclesiastical duties. A dis- 
puted election furnished him with a favourable 
occasion of acquiring fresh influence in the 
choice of a pope. 

His position was, however, very different 
after the fresh rupture with his powerful vas- 
sal, Henry the Lion. The claims of that 
prince to a little town in the north of Germ.any, 
— Gosslar in the Harz, — which the emperor 
refused to admit, decided the affairs of Italy, 
and hence of the w^hole of western Christen- 
dom. * In consequence of this, the emperor 
was first stripped of his wonted support ; he 
was beaten in the field ; and, lastly, he v^as 
compelled to violate his oath, and to recognise 
the pope he had rejected. 

It is true that, having turned his arms against 
his rebellious vassal, he succeeded in breaking 
up Henry's collective pow-er : but this very 
success again was advantageous to the princes 
of the second rank, by whose assistance he 
obtained it, and whom, in return, he enriched 
with the spoils of his rival ; Avinle the advan- 
tage which the papacy thus gained was never 
afterwards to be counter-balanced. 

The meeting of Frederic I. and Alexander 
HI. at Venice is, in my opinion, far more im- 
portant than the scene at Canossa. At Canossa, 
a young and passionate prince sought only to 
hurry through the penance enjoined upon him : 
at Venice, it was a mature man who renounced 
the ideas which he had earnestly and strenu- 
ously maintained for a quarter of a century ; 
he v^■as compelled to acknowledge that his 
conduct towards the church had been dictated 
rather by love of power than of justice. f Ca- 
nossa was the spot on which the combat be- 
gan ; Venice beheld the triumph of the church 
fully established. 

For whatever might be the indirect share 
which the Germans had in bringing about this 
result, both the glory and the chief profit of 
the victory fell entirely to the share of the 
papacy. From this moment its domination 
began. 

This became apparent on the first important 
incident that occurred ; viz., when, at the end 
of the twelfth century, a contest for the crown 
arose in Germany. 

The papac)'', represented by one of the most 
able, ambitious, and daring priests that ever 
lived, who regarded himself as the natural 
master of the world, — Innocent III., did not 
hesitate an instant to claim the right of deci- 
ding the question. 

The German princes were not so blinded as 
not to understand what this cl^ym meant. 
They reminded Innocent that the empire, out 
of reverence for the see of Rome, had waived 
the right which it incontestably possessed to 
interfere in the election of the pope ; that_ it 
would be an unheard-of return for this mode- 
ration, for the pope to assume an influence 



t " Dum in facto ecclesiae potius virtutem potentits 
quam rationera justitice volumus exercere, constat nos in 
enorem merito devenisse." Oratio Imperatoris in Cou ■■ 
ventu YQneio.—Monum. iv. 154. 



THE PAPACY AND THE PRINCES. 



35 



over the election of the emperor, to which he 
had no right whatever. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, they were in a position in which they 
could take no serious steps to prevent the en- 
croachment ihey deprecated. They must first 
have placed on the throne an emperor equally 
strong by nature and by external circumstances, 
have rallied round him, and have fought the 
papacy under his banners. For such a course 
they had neither the inclination, nor, in the 
actual state of things, was it practicable. 
They had no love for the papacy, for its own 
sake ; they hated the domination of tlie clergy ; 
but they had not courage to brave it. Inno- 
cent's resolute spirit was again victorious. In 
the struggle between the two rivals, the one a 
Well', the other a Hohenstaufe, he at first sup- 
ported the Welf, because that family was well 
inclined to the church; but vrhen, after the 
accession of this prince to power, and his 
appearance in Italy, he manifested the usual 
antipathy of the empire to the papacy, Inno- 
cent did not hesitate to set up a Hohenstaufe 
in opposition to him. He had contended 
against the Hohenstaufen with the resources 
of the Welfic party: he now attacked the 
Welfs with those of the Hohenstaufen. It 
was a struggle in which the agitations of the 
rest of Europe were mingled. Events, both 
near and remote, took a turn so favourable, that 
Innocent's candidate again remained master 
of the field. 

From that time the papacy exercised a lead- 
ing influence over all German elections. 

When, after the lapse of many years, Fred- 
eric II., (the Hohenstaufe whom he had raised 
to power,) attempted in some particulars to 
restore the independence of the empire, the 
})ope thought himself justified in again depo- 
sing him. Rome now openly avowed her 
claim to hold the reins of secular as well as 
spiritual authority. 

" ^Ve command you," writes Innocent IV. 
to the German princes in 1246, "since our 
beloved son, the Lnnci grave of Thuringia, is 
ready to take upon himself the office of empe- 
ror, that you proceed to elect him unanimously 
without delay."* 

He formally signifies his approbation of 
those who took part in the election of William 
of Holland ; he admonishes the cities to be 
faithful to the newly-elected emperor, that so 
they may merit the apostolical as well as the 
royal favour. 

In a very short time no trace of any other 
order of things remained in Germany. Even 
at the ceremony of homage, Richard of Corn- 
wall was compelled to dispense with the alle- 
giance of the cities, until it should be seen 
whether or not the pope might choose to pre- 
fer another aspirant to the throne. 

After Richard's death, Gregory X. called 
upon the German princes to prepare for a new 
election : he threatened that if they delayed, 
he and his cardinals would nominate an em- 
peror. The election being terminated, it was 



* Ex Actis Inaocentii. Monum. 



again the pope who induced the pretender, 
Alfonso of Castile, to abandon his claim and 
to give up the insignia of the empire ; and wiio 
caused the chosen candidate, Rudolf of Habs- 
burg, to be universally acknowledged.! 

What trace of independence can a nation 
retain after submitting to receive its head from 
the-hands of a foreign power] It is manifest 
that the same influence which determines the 
elections, must be resistless in every other 
department of the state. 

The povrer of the princes of Germany had, 
it is true, been meanwhile on the increase. In 
the thirteenth century, during the struggles 
between the several pretenders to the tlfrone, 
and between the papacy and the em-pire, they 
had got possession of almost all the preroga- 
tives of sovereignty; they likewise took the 
most provident measures to prevent the impe- 
rial^ power from regaining its vast preponder- 
ance. At the end of the thirteenth and the 
beginning of the fourteenth century, the empe- 
rors w^ere chosen almost systematically out of 
different houses. Consciously or unconscious- 
ly, the princes acted on the maxim, that when 
povv-er began to be consolidated in one quarter, 
it must be counterbalanced by an increase of 
authority in another; as, for example, they 
curbed the already considerable power of Bo- 
hemia by means of the house of Habsburg, 
and this again, by those of Nassau, Luxem- 
burg, or Bavaria. None of these could attain 
to more than tfansient superiority, and in con- 
sequence of this policy, no princely race rose to 
independence : the spiritual princes, who con- 
ducted the larger portion of the public busi- 
ness, were almost of more weight than the 
temporal. 

This state of things tended greatly to in- 
crease the power of the papacy, on which the 
spiritual princes depended ; and to which tlie 
temporal became very subordinate and submis- 
sive. In the thirteenth century they even made 
the abject declaration that they were planted 
in Germany by the church of Rome, and had 
been fostered and exalted by her favour.^ The 
pope was, at least, as much indebted to the 
German princes as they were to him ; but he 
took good care not to allude to his obligations, 
and nobody ventured to remind him of them. 
His successive victories over the empire had 
been gained by the assistance of many of the 
temporal powers. He now possessed, tmcon- 
tested, the supreme sovereignty of Europe. 
Those plans of papal aggrandisement which 
were first avowed in the ninth century, and 
afterwards revived in the eleventh, were, in 
the thirteenth, crowned with complete success. 

During that long period a state of things had 
been evolved, the outlines of which may, I 
think, be traced in a few words. 

The pretensions of the clergy to govern Eu= 
rope according to their hierarchical views — 
pretensions which arose directly out^ of the 



Cod. Epist. Rudolfi, c. iv 



V. 3G1. 



t Gerbert, Introductio 
n.30. 

J Tractatus cum Nicolao III. Papa, 1279. "Romana 
ecclesia Geimaniam decoravit plantans in ea principes 
tanquam arbores electas."— .¥o?i?m. iv. 421. 



INTRODUCTION. 



ecclesiastical institutions of Charlemagne — 
were encountered and resisted by the united 
body of the German people, still thoroughly 
imbued with the national ideas of ancient Ger- 
mania. On this combined resistance the .im- 
perial throne was founded. Unfortunately, 
however, it failed to acquire perfect security 
and stability ; and the divisions which soon 
broke out between the domineering chief and 
his refractory vassals, had the effect of making 
both parties contribute to the aggrandisement 
of that spiritual power which they had previ- 
ously sought to depress. At first the emperors 
beheld in a powerful clergy a means of hold- 
ing their great vassals in check, and endowed 
the church with liberal grants of lands and 
lordships ; but afterwards, when ideas of 
emancipation began to prevail, not only in the 
papacy but in all spiritual corporations, the 
temporal aristocracy thought it not expedient 
that the emperor should be stripped of the re- 
source and assistance such a body afforded 
him ; the ehfeebling of the imperial authority 
was of great advantage, not only to the church, 
but to them. Thus it came to pass that the 
ecclesiastical element, strengthened by the di- 
visions of its opponents, at length obtained a 
decided preponderance. 

Unquestionably the result was far different 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from 
what it vv^ould have been in the ninth. The 
secular power might be humbled, but could 
not be annihilated ; a purely Merarchical go- 
vernment, such as might have been established 
at the earlier period, was now no longer within 
the region of possibility. The national deve- 
lopment of Germany had been too deep and 
extensive to be stifled by the ecclesiastical 
spirit; while, on the other hand, the influence 
of ecclesiastical ideas and institutions unques- 
tionably contributed largely to its extension. 
The period in question displayed a fulness of 
life and intelligence, an activity in every branch 
of human industry, a creative vigour, which 
we can hardly imagine to have arisen under 
any other course of events. Nevertheless, this 
was not a state which ought to satisfy a great 
nation. There could be no true political free- 
dom so long as the most powerful impulse to 
all public activity emanated from a foreign 
head. The domain of mind, too, was enclosed 
within rigid and narrow boundaries. The im- 
mediate relation in which every intellectual 
being stands to the Divine Intelligence was 
veiled from the people in deep and abiding 
obscurity. 

Those mighty developments of the human 
mind which extend over all generations, must, 
of necessity, be accomplished slowly; nor is it 
always easy to follow them in their progress. 

Circumstances at length occurred which 
awakened in the German nation a conscious- 
ness of the position for which nature designed 
it. 

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT RESISTANCE TO THE 
ENCROACHMENTS OF THE PAPA.CY. 

The first important circumstance was, that the 



papacy, forgetting its high vocation in the plea- 
sures of Avignon, displayed all the qualities of 
a prodigal and rapacious court, centralizing its 
pov/er for the sake of immediate profit. 

Pope John XXII. enforced his pecuniary 
claims with the coarsest avidity, and interfered 
in an unheard-of manner with the presentation 
to German benefices : he took care to express 
himself in very ambiguous terms as to the rights 
of the electoral princes ; while on the contrary, 
he seriously claimed the privilege of examin- 
ing into the merits of the emperor they had 
elected, and of rejecting him if he thought fit; 
nay, in case of a disputed election, such as then 
occurred, of administering the government him- 
self till the contest should be decided* : lastly, 
he actually entered i^nto negotiations, the object 
of which was to raise a French prince to the 
imperial throne. 

The German princes at length saw what they 
had to expect from such a course of policy. 
On this occasion they rallied round their empe- 
ror, and rendered him real and energetic assis- 
tance. In the year 1338 they unanimously 
came to the celebrated resolution, that whoever 
should be elected by the majority of the prince- 
electors should be regarded as the true and legi- 
timate emperor. When Louis the Bavarian, 
wearied by the long conflict, wavered for a 
moment, they kept him firm ; they reproached 
him at the imperial diet in 1334 with having 
shown a disposition to accede to humiliating 
conditions. A change easily accounted for; 
the pope having now encroached, not only on 
the Tights of the emperor, but on the prescrip- 
tive rights of their own body — on the rights of 
the whole nation. 

Nor were these sentiments confined to the 
princes. In the fourteenth century a plebeian 
power had grown up in Germany, as in the rest 
of Europe, by the side of »the aristocratic fami- 
lies which had hitherto exercised almost des- 
potic power: not only were the cities sum- 
moned to the imperial diets, but, in a great 
proportion of them, the guilds, or trades, had 
got the municipal government into their own 
hands. These plebeians embraced the cause 
of their emperor with even more ardour than 
most of the princes. The priests who asserted 
the power of the pope to excommunicate the 
emperor were frequently driven out of the cities ; 
these were then, in their turn, laid under ex- 
communication ; but they never wouU ac- 
knowledge its validity ; they refused to accept 
absolution when it was oflTered them.| 

Thus it happened that in the present instance 



* " Atteridentes quod imperii Romani rejrimen, cura ßt 
administratio (another time be says, imperii Romani 
jurisdictio, regimen et administratio), tempore quo illiid 
vacare contingit, ad nos pertineat, sicut di^noscitur per- 
üiiere.''—Literce Johannis in J^ninaldus, 1319; and Olen- 
schluger. Qesckichte des Rom.-Kaiscrthums, S(C., in der 
ersten Hälfte des 14ten Jahrhunderts, p. 102. In the year 
1323 lie declares that he has instituted a suit against 
Lewis the Bavarian; "super eo quod electione sua p^r 
quosdnm qui vocem in electione hujusmodi habere dicuntur, 
per sedem apostolicam, ad quam electionis hujusmodi et 
persona; electee examinatio, approhatio, admissio acetiani 
reprobatio et repulsio noscitur pertinere, non adniissa," 
tz.c.—Olenscklüger, Urk. n. 36. 

t e.g. Basel. Albertus Argentinensjs in Urstisius, 142. 



OPPOSITION TO THE PAPACY. 



37 



the pope could not carry the election of his 
candidate, Charles of Luxemburg; nobles and 
commons adhered almost unanimously to Louis 
of Bavaria: nor was it till after his death, and 
then only after repeated election and coronation, 
that Charles IV. was gradually recognised. 

"Whatever he might previously have promised 
the pope, that sovereign could not make con- 
cessions injurious to the interests of his princes ; 
on the contrary, he solemnly and firmly estab- 
lished the rights of the electors, even to the 
long-disputed vicariate (at least in all German 
states). A germ of resistance was thus formed. 
This was fostered and developed by the dis- 
orders of the great schism, and by the disposi- 
tions evinced by the general councils. 

It was now, for the first time, evident that 
the actual church no longer corresponded with 
the ideal that existed in men's minds. Nations 
assumed the attitude of independent members 
of it ; popes were brought to trial and deposed ; 
the aristocratico-republican spirit, Vv^hich played 
so great apart in the temporal states of Europe, 
extended even to the papacy (the nature of 
which is so completely monarchical), and 
threatened to change its form and character. 

The ecclesiastical assembly of Basle enter- 
tained the project of establishing at once the 
freedom of nations and the authority of coun- 
cils ; a project hailed with peculiar approba- 
tion by Germany, Its decretals of reformation 
were solemnly adopted by the assembly of the 
imperial diet*= : the Germans determined to 
remain neutral during its controversies with 
Eugenius IV. ; the immediate consequence of 
which was, that they were for a time emanci- 
pated from the court of yRome.| By threaten- 
ing to go over to his adversary, they forced the 
pope, who had ventared to depose two spiritual 
electors, to revoke the sentence of deposition. 

Had this course been persevered in with 
union and constancy, the German Catholic 
church, established in so many great principa- 
lities, and splendidly provided with the most 
munificent endowments in the world, would 
have acquired a perfectly independent position, 
in which she might have resisted the subse- 
quent polemical storms with as much firmness 
as that of England. 

Various circumstances conspired to prevent 
so desirable a result. 

In the first place, it appears to me that the 
disputes between France and Burgundy react- 
ed on this matter. France was in favour of 
the ideas of the council, which, indeed, she 
embodied in the pragmatic sanction ; Burgun- 
dy was for the pope. Among the German 
princes, some were in the most intimate alli- 
ance with the king, others Vv^ith the duke. 

The pope employed by far the most dexter- 
ous and able negotiator. If we consider the 
character of the representative and organ of 

* Johannes de Segovia; Koch, Sanctio pragmatica, p. 
256. 

t Declaration in Müller, Reichstagstheater, unter Fred. 
III. p. 31. "In sola ordinaria jurisdictione citra prrefa- 
tomm t£in papse quam concilii supreniani aucturitatem 
ecclesiastica' politife gubernacula per dioceses et territoria 
nostra gubernabimus." 



the German opposition, Gregory of Heimburg, 
who thought himself secure of victory, and, 
when sent to Rome, burst forth at the very foot 
of the Vatican into a thousand execrations on 
the Curia ; — if we follow him there as lie went 
about with neglected garb, bare neck, and un- 
covered head, bidding defiance to the court, — 
and then compare him with the polished and 
supple ^Eneas Sylvius, full of profound quiet 
ambition, and gifted with the happiest talents 
for rising in the world ; the servant of so many 
masters, and the dexterous confidant of them 
all ; we shall be at no loss to divine which 
must be the successful party. Heimburg died 
a living death in exile, and dependent on for- 
eign bounty ; ^Eneas Sylvius ended his career, 
wearing the triple crov/n he had so ably served. 
At the very time we are treating of, ^Eneas 
had found means to gain over some councillors, 
and through them their sovereigns, and thus 
to secure their defection from the great scheme 
of national emancipation. He relates this 
himself Math great satisfaction and self-com- 
placency ; nor did he disdain to employ bribe- 
ry.t 

The main thing, however, was, that the 
head of the empire. King Frederic III., ad- 
hered to the papal cause. The union of the 
princes, which, while it served as a barrier 
against the encroachments of the church, might 
have proved no less perilous to himself, was 
as hateful to him as to the pope. iEneas Syl- 
vius conducted the negotiation in a manner no 
less agreeable to the inferests and v.ishes of 
the emperor than to those of the pope: the 
imperial cofiTers furnished him with the means 
of corruption. 

Hence it happened that on this occasion also 
the nation fi^iled to attain its object. 

At the first moment, indeed, the Easle de- 
cretals Vv'ere accepted at Rome, but under the 
condition that the Holy See should receive 
compensation for its losses. This com.pensa- 
tion, however, was not forthcoming ; and Fred- 
eric III., who treated on the part of the empire, 
at length conceded anew to Rome all her old 
privileges, which the nation had been endea- 
vouring to wrest from her.§ It vv^ould have 
been impossible to carry such a m.easure at the 
diet; the expedient of obtaining the separate 
consent of the princes to this agreement was 
therefore resorted to. 

The old state of things was thus perpetuated. 



X Historia Frederici III. ap. Kollar, Aiialecta, ii.p. 127. 

§ In the (=econd half of the foregoing century attention 
had been strongly drawn to the assertion, that all the 
decrees of the council of Bnsle, whicli had not been ex- 
pressly altered by the concordat, acquired Ippal validity 
in virtue of the same. Against this, Spittlcr has made 
the objection, that the brief runs thus: "donee per lega- 
tum concordatum fuerit vel per legatnm nliter fuerit or- 
dinatum;" and, assuming that an " aüter" is wanting in 
the first part of the sentence, has concluded tiiat the 
whole of tlie decrees had only been suffered to hold good 
till the conclusion of the concordat. (Werke, viii. p. 47.1.) 
But in the relation of ,^neas Sylvius in Koch, Sanctio 
pragmatica, p. 323, the " alitcr" missed by Spittler stands 
expressly next to "concordatum;" " usque quo cum legato 
aliter fuerit concordatum." (Vide Koch, ii. § 24.) The 
sense of these woi-ds cannot therefore be doubted. P'or 
in no case can it be supposed that •' aliter" had been left 
out with any sinister design. 



38 



INTRODUCTION. 



Ordinances which the papal see had published 
in 1335, and which it had repeated in 1418, 
once more formed, in the year 1448, the basis 
of the German concordat. It is hardly neces- 
sary to say that the opposition was not crashed. 
It no longer appeared on the surface of events ; 
but deep below it, it only struck root faster and 
acquired greater strength. The nation was 
exasperated by a constant sense of wrong and 
injustice. 

ALTERED CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE. 

Ti-iE most remarlv&ble fact now was, that the 
imperial throne was no longer able to afford 
support and protection. The empire had as-: 
sumed a position analogous to j^at of the pa- 
pacy, but extremely subordinate in power and 
authority. 

It is important to remark, that for more than 
a century after Charles IV. had fixed his seat 
in Bohemia, no emperor appeared, endowed 
with the vigour necessary to uphold and govern 
the empire. The bare fact that Charles's suc- 
cessor, Wenceslas, w^as a prisoner in the hands 
of the Bohemians, remained for a long time 
unknown in Germany : a simple decree of the 
electors sufficed to dethrone him. Rupert the 
Palatine only escaped a similar fate by death. 
VV^hen Sigismund of Luxemburg, (who, after 
many disputed elections, kept possession of the 
field,) four years after his election, entered the 
territory of the empire of which he was to be 
crow^ned sovereign, he found so little sympathy 
that he was for a montent inclined to return to 
Hungary without accomplishing the object of 
his journey. The active part he took In the 
affairs of Bohemia, and of Europe generally, 
has given him a name ; but in and for the em- 
pire, he did nothing worthy of note. Between 
the years ,1422 and 1430 he never made his 
appearance beyond Vienna; from the autumn 
of 1431 to that of 1433 he was occupied with 
his coronation journey to Rome; and during 
the three years from 1434 to his death he never 
got beyond Bohemia and Moravia*: nor did 
Albert II., who has been the subject of such 
lavish eulogy, ever visit the dominions of the 
empire. Frederick III., however, far outdid 
all his predecessors. During seven-and-twenty 
years, from 1444 to 1471, he was never seen 
within the boundaries of the empire. 

Hence it happened that the central action 
and the visible manifestation of sovereignty, 
inasfar as any such existed in the empire, fell 
to the share of the princes, and more especially 
of the prince-electors. In the reign of Sigis- 
mund we find them convoking the diets, and 
leading the armies into the field against the 
Hussites : the operations against the Bohemi- 
ans were attributed entirely to them.f 

In this manner the empire became, like the 
papacy, a power which acted from a distance, 

* The acts of his reign are dated from Ofen, Stuhlweis- 
senburg, from Cronstadt " in Transylvanian Würzland," 
from the army before the castle of Taubenburg in Sirfey 
(Servia), Häberlin, Reichsgescliichte, v. 429, 439. 

t Matthias Döring in Mencken, iii. p. 4. " Eodem 
anno principes electores exercitum grandem habentes 
contra Bohemos se transtulerunt ad Bohemiam." 



and rested chiefly upon opinion. The throne, 
founded on conquest and arms, had now a pa- 
cific character and a conservative tendency. 
Nothing is so transient as the notions which 
are handed down with a name, or associated 
with a title ; and yet, especially in times when 
unwritten law has so much force, the whole 
influence of rank or station depends on the na- 
ture of these notions. Let us turn our atten- 
tion for a moment to the ideas of Empire and 
Papacy entertained in the fifteenth century. 

The emperor was regarded, in the first place, 
as the supreme feudal lord, who conferred on 
property its highest and most sacred sanction; 
as the supreme fountain of justice, from whom, 
as the expression was, all the compulsory force 
of law emanated. It is very curious to observe 
how the choice that had fallen upon him was 
announced to Frederic III., — by no means the 
mightiest prince in the empire ; how immedi- 
ately therefore the natural relations of things 
are reversed, and " his royal high mightiness" 
promises confirmation in their rights and dig- 
nities to the very men who had just raised him 
to the throne.^ All hastened to obtain his re- 
cognition of their privileges and possessions ; 
nor did the cities perform their act of homage 
till that had taken place. Upon his supreme 
guarantee rested that feeling of legitimacy, 
security and permanence, which is necessary 
to all men, and more especially dear to Ger- 
mans. "Take away from us the rights of the 
emperor," says a law-book of that time, "and 
who can say, this house is mine, this village 
belongs to me ?" A remark of profound truth ; 
but it foUovv'ed thence that the emperor could 
not arbitrarily exercise rights of which he was 
deemed the source. He might give them up; 
but he himself must enforce them only within 
the narrow limits prescribed by traditional 
usage, and by the superior control of his sub- 
jects. Although he was regarded as the head 
and source of all temporal jurisdiction, yet no 
tribunal found more doubtful obedience than 
his own. 

The fact that royalty existed in Germany 
had almost been suffered to fall into oblivion ; 
even the title had been lost. Henry VII. 
thought it an affront to be called King of Ger- 
many, and not, as he had a right to be called 
before any ceremony of coronation. King of 
the Romans. § In the fifteenth century the 
emperor was regarded pre-eminently as the 
successor of the ancient Roman Caesars, whose 
rights and dignities had been transferred, first 
to the Greeks, and then to the Germans in the 
persons of Charlemagne and Otho the Great; 
as the true secular head of Christendom. Em- 
peror Sigismund commanded that his corpse 
should be exposed to view for some days ; in 
order that every one might see that " the Lord 
of all the world was dead and departed." || 



X Letter of the Frankfort Deputies, July 5, 1440. Frank- 
furter Arch. 

§ Henrici VII. Bannitio Florentise, Pertz, iv. 520, " sup- 
primentes (it is there said) ipsius veri nominis (Regis 
Romanorum) dignitatem in ipsius opprobrium et despec- 
tum." 

]J Eberhard Windeck in Mencken, Scrip«, i. 1278. 



ALTERED CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE. 



39 



"We have chosen your royal grace," say 
the electors to Frederic III. (a. d. 1440), "to 
be the head, protector, and g-overnor of all 
Christendom." They go on to express the 
hope that this choice may be profitable to the 
Roman church, to the whole of Christendom, 
to the holy empire, and the community of 
Christian people.-*^ Even a forei'vn monarch, 
Wladislas of Poland, extols the felicity of the 
newly-elected emperor, in that he was about 
to receive the diadem of the monarchy of the 
world. ]■ The opinion was confidently enter- 
tained in Germany that the other sovereigns 
of Christendom, especially those of England, 
Spain, and France, were legally subject to the 
orown of the empire : the only controversy 
was, whether their disobedience was venial, 
or ought to be regarded as sinful. 4: The Eng- 
lish endeavoured to shovr that IVum the time 
of the introduction of Christiaidty tbey had 
never been subject to the empire. § The Ger- 
m^ans, on the contrary, jiot onl}' did what the 
other nations of the West were bound to do — 
they not only acknov/ledged the holy empire, 
but they had secured to themselves th.e faculty 
of giving it a head ; and the strange notion 
was current that the electoral princes had suc- 
ceeded to the rights and dignities of the Roman 
senate and people. They themselves expressed 
this opinion in the thirteenth century. " We," 
say they, J' wbo occupy the place of the Roman 
senate, who are the fathers and the lights of 
the empire»" II .... In the fifteenth century 
they repeated the same opinion,** '' The Ger- 
mans," says the author of a scheme for dimin- 
ishing the burthens of the empire, " who have 
possessed themselves of the dignities of the 
Roman empire, and thence of the sovereignty 
over all lands. "|| .... When the prince-elec- 
tors proceeded to the vote, the}^ swore that 
"according to the best of their understanding, 
they would choose the temporal head of all 
Christian people, i. e. a Roman king and fu- 
ture emperor." Thereupon the elected sove- 
reign was anointed and crowned by the Arch- 
bishop of Cologne, who enjoyed that right on 
this side the Alps. Even when seated on the 
coronation chair at Rheims, the King of France 
took an oath of fealty to the Roman empire. ^:J: 



* Letter of the Pritice-Electors, Feb. 2, 1440, h\ Chmel's 
Materialien zur Oestreich. Gesch. No. ji. p. 70. 
+ Liteiffi Vladislai ap. KuUar Ana!, ii. p. 830. 
X Petrus fie Andlo de Romano Imperio : an important 
book, not indeed vrith reference to the actual state of 
German J', but to the ideas of the time in which it was 
written. It dates from between 14.5ß, which year is ex- 
pressly mentioned, and 1459, in which year happened 
the death of Diedricli of Mainz, of whum it speaks. The 
author says, ii. c. 8 : " Hodie plurimi reges plus de facto 
quam rfe j'm?-«?' imperatorem in superiorem lion recogno- 
scunt et suprema jura imperii usiirpant." 

§ Ciithbert Tunsrall to Kiü^ Henry VIII., Feb. 12, 1517, 
in Ellis's Letters, series ], vol. i. p. ISG. " Your Grace is 
not nor never sitheu the Christen faith the kines of Ens- 
land wer s;ibgiet to t,h' En:|)ire, but the crown of England 
is an Empire of hitself, myth hettyr tJian now the Em- 
pire of Rome : for wliich cause your Grace werith a close 
crown." 

II Conradi IV. electio 1237: Pertz, iv. 322. 

** P. de Andlo ii.. iii. " Isti principes electores succes- 
serunt, in locum senatus populique Komani." 

tt Intelliffentia Principum super Gravaminibus A^a- 
tioais GermaniccE. MS. at Coblenz, See Appendix. 

XX /Eneas Sylvius (Historia Friderici III. in Kollar's 



It is obvious in what a totally different rela- 
tion the Germans stood to the emperor, who 
was elevated to his high dignity from amidst 
themselves, and by their own choice, from that 
of even the most puissant nobles of other coun- 
tries to their natural hereditär}'" lord and master. 
The imperial dignity, stripped of all direct ex- 
ecutive power, had indeed no other significancy 
than that which results from opinion. It gave 
to law and order their living sanction; to jus- 
tice its highest authority ; to the sovereignties 
of Germany their position in the world. It had 
properties which, for that period, were indis- 
pensable and sacred. It had a manifest analogy 
with the papacy, and was bound to it by the 
most intimate connection. 

The main difference between the two powers 
w^as, that the papal enjoyed that universal 
recognition of the Romano-Germanic world 
which the imperial had not been able to obtain : 
but the holy Roman church and the holy Roman 
empire v^ere indissolubly united in idea ; and 
the Germ^ans thought they stood in a peculiarly 
intimate relation to the church as well as to the 
empire. There is extant a treaty of alliance of 
the Rhenish princes, the assigned object of 
vvhich was to maintain their endowments, dio- 
ceses, chapters, and principalities, in dignity 
and honour with the holy Roman empire and 
the holy Roman church. The electors lay 
claim to a peculiar privilege in ecclesiastical 
affairs. In the year 14-24, and again in 1446, 
they declare that the Almighty has appointed 
and authorised them, that they should endea- 
vour, together with the Roman king, the princes, 
lords, knights, and cities of the empire, and 
with all faithful Christian people, to abate all 
crimes that arise in the holy church and Chris- 
tian community, and in the holy empire. §§ 

Hence we see that the German people 
thought themselves bound in allegiance to the 
papal, no less than to the imperial authority ; 
but as the former had, in all the long struggles 
of successive ages, invariably come off victori- 
ous, while the latter had so often succumbed, 
the pope exercised a far stronger and more 
wide-spread influence, even in temporal things, 
than the emperor. An act of arbitrary power, 
which no emperor could ever have so much as 
contemplated — the deposition of an electoral 
prince of the empire — was repeatedly attempt- 
ed, and occasionally even accomplished, by the 
popes. They bestowed on Italian prelates 
bishoprics as remote as that of Camin. By 
their annates, pallia, and all the manifold dues 
exacted by the curia, they drew a far larger 
(Maximilian I. said, a hundred times larger) 
revenue from the empire, than the emperor: 
their vendors of indulgences incessantly tra- 
versed the several provinces of the empire. 
Spiritual and temporal principalities and juris- 
dictions were so closely interwoven as to afford 
them continual opportunities of interfering in 



Anal. ii. 288.) tries to make a distinction between the 
three crowns, and to assign them to the different king- 
doms ; but in this case we do not ask what is true, but 
what was commonly thought. The opinions which he 
disputes are exactly thoseof importance in our eyes: 
namely, those generally entertained. 
§S Müller Rlth. Fr. iii. 305. 



40 



INTRODUCTION. 



the civil affairs of Germany. The dispute be- 
tween Cleves and Cologne* about Soest, that 
between Utrecht and East Friesland about 
Groningen, and a vast number of others, were 
evoked by the pope before his tribunal. In 
1472 he confirmed a toll, levied in the electo- 
rate of Treves f : like the emperor, he granted 
privilegia de nnn evocando. 

Gregory VII.'s comparison of the papacy to 
the sun and the empire to the moon was now 
verified. The Germans regarded the papal 
power as in every respect the higher. When, 
for example, the town of Basle founded its high 
school, it was debated whether, after the re- 
ceipt of the brief containing the pope's appro- 
bation, the confirmation of the emperor was 
still necessary ; and at length decided that it 
was not so, since the inferior power could not 
confirm the decisions of the superior, and the 
papal see was the well-head of Christendom.:!: 
The pretender to the Palatinate, Frederic the 
Victorious, whose electoral rank the emperor 
refused to acknowledge, held it sufficient to 
obtain the pope's sanction, and received no fur- 
ther molestation in the exercise of his privileges 
as member of the empire. The judge of the 
king's court having on some occasion pro- 
nounced the ban of the empire on the council 
of Lübeck, the council obtained a cassation of 
this sentence from the pope.§ 

It was assuredly to be expected that the em- 
peror would feel the humiliation of his position, 
and would resist the pope as often and as 
strenuously as possible. 

However great was the devotion of the 
princes to the see of Rome, they felt the op- 
pressiveness of its pecuniary exactions; and 
more than once the spirit of the Basle decrees, 
or the recollections of the proceedings at Con- 
stance, manifested themselves anev/. We find 
draughts of a league to prevent the constitution 
of Constance, according to which a council 
should be held every ten years, from falling 
into utter desuetude. [] After the death of 
Nicholas V. the princes urged the emperor to 
seize the favourable moment for asserting the 
freedom of the nation, and at least to take mea- 
sures for the complete execution of the agree- 
ment entered into with Eugenius; but Frederic 
III. was deaf to their entreaties. yEneas Syl- 
vius persuaded him that it was necessary for 
him to keep well with the pope. He brought 
forward a few common-places concerning the 
instability of the multitude, and their natural 
hatred of their chief; — just as if the princes of 
the empire were a sort of democracy : the em- 
peror, said he, stands in need of the pope, and 
the pope of the emperor ; it would be ridiculous 
to offend the man from whom we want assist- 
ance.** He himself vv^as sent in 1456 to tender 



* Schüren, Chronik von Cleve, p. 288. 

t Hontheim, Prodromus Historias Trevirensis, p. 320. 

t Ochs, Geschichte von Basel, iv. p. 60. 

§ Sartoriiis, Gesch. des Hanse, ii. p. 222. 

II e. g. Resolution of the spiritual Electors, &c. : Pro- 
perly, a report upon the means of restoring tranquillity 
to the empire, and upon the necessity of a council, of 
about the year 1453, in the archives of Coblenz. See 
Appendix. 

** Gobellini Commentarii de Vita Pii.ii. p. 44. 



unconditional obedience to Pope Calixlus. 
This immediately revived the old spirit of re- 
sistance. An outline was drav/n of a prag- 
matic sanction, in which net only all the 
charges against the papal see were recapitu- 
lated in detail, and redress of grievances pro- 
posed, but it was also determined what was to 
be done in case of a refusal; what appeal was 
to be made, and how the desired end was to be 
attained.]"! But what result could be antici- 
pated while the emperor, far from taking part 
in this plan, did every thing he could to thwart 
if? He sincerely regarded himself as the na- 
tural ally of the papacy:. 

The inevitable efifect of this conduct on his 
part was, that the discontent of the electors, 
already excited by the inactivity and the absence 
of the emperor, occasionally burst out violently 
against him. As early as the year 1456 they 
required him to repair on a given day to Nürn- 
berg, for that it was his ofiice and duty to bear 
the burthen of the ©inpire in an honourable 
manner : if he did not appear, th(^^ would, at 
an}'" rate, meet, and do what was incumbent 
on them.±:|: As he neither appeared then nor 
afterwards, in 1460 they sent him word that 
it was no longer consistent with their dignity 
and honour to remain without a head. They 
repeated tiieir summons that he would appear 
on the Tuesda}^ after Epiphany", and accompa- 
nied it with still more vehement threats. 'I'hey 
began seriously to take measures for setting 
up a king of the Romans in opposition to him. 

From the fact that George Podiebrad, king 
of Bohemia, was the man on whom they cast 
their eyes, it is evident that the opposition was 
directed against both emperor and pope jointly. 
What must have been the consequence of 
placing a Utraquist at the head of the ern])ire] 
This increased the zeal and activity of Pope 
Pius II. (vvhom we have hitherto knov/n as 
J^neas Sylvius), in consolidating the alliance 
of the see of Rome with the emperor, who, on 
his side, was scarcely less deeply interested in 
it. The independence of the prince-electors 
was odious to both. As one of the claims of 
the emperor had always been, that no electoral 
diet should be held without his consent, so 
Pius IL, in like manner, now wanted to bind 
Diether, Elector of Mainz, to summon no such 
assembly without tlie approbation of the papal 
see. Diether's refusal to enter into any such 
engagement was the main cause of their quar- 
rel. Pius did not conceal from the emperor 
that he thought his ov/n powder endangered by 
the agitations which prevailed in the empire. 
It was chiefly ov/ing to his influence, and to 
the valour of Markgrave Albert Achilles of 
Brandenburg, that they ended in nothing. 

From this time we find the imperial and the 
papal povv'ers, w^hich had come to a sense of 
their common interest and reciprocal utility, 
more closely united than ever. 

The diets of the empire were held under 
their joint authority ; they were called royal 



ft Mne^ Sylvii Apologia ad Martinum, Mayer, p. 710 ; 
and the above-cited Intelligentia. 

XX Frankfurt, Sep. 10, 1456; a hitherto unknown and 
very remarkable document. Frankf. Arch. 



THE EMPIRE IN THE 15TH CENTURY. 



41 



and papal, papal and royal diets. In the 
reign of Frederic, as formerly in that of Sigis- 
mund, we find the papal legates present at the 
meetings of the empire, which were not opened 
till they appeared. The spiritual princes took 
their seats on the right, the temporal on the 
left, of the legates : it was not till a later 
period that the imperial commissioners were 
introduced, and proposed measures in concert 
with the papal functionaries. 

It remains for us to inquire how far this very 
singular form of government Vv^as fitted to sat- 
isfy the v.-ants of the empire. 

STATE OF GERMANY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

We have seen what a mighty influence had, 
from the remotest times, been exercised by the 
princes of Germany. 

First, the imperial power and dignity had 
arisen out of their body, and by their aid ; then, 
they had supported the emancipation of the 
papacy, which involved their own : now, they 
stood opposed to both. Although strongly at- 
tached to, and deeply imbued with, the ideas 
of Empire and Papacy, they were resolved to 
repel the encroachments of either : their power 
was already so independent, that the emperor 
and the pope deemed it necessary to combine 
against them. 

If we proceed to inquire who were these 
magnates, and upon what their power rested, 
we shall find that the temporal hereditär}" 
sovereignty, the germ of which had long ex- 
isted in secret and grown unperceived, shot up 
in full vigour in the fifteenth century ; and (if 
we may be allowed to continue the metaphor), 
after it had long struck its roots deep into the 
earth, it now began to rear its head into the 
free air, and to tower above all the surrounding 
plants. 

All the puissant houses which have since 
held sovereign sway date their establishment 
from this epoch. 

In the eastern part of North Germany ap- 
peared the race of Hohenzollern ; and though 
the land its princes had to govern and to defend 
was in the last stage of distraction and ruin, 
they acted with such sedate vigour and cau- 
tious determination, that they soon succeeded 
in driving back their neighbours within their 
ancient bounds, pacifying and restoring the 
marches, and re-establishing the very peculiar 
bases of sovereign power which already existed 
in the country. 

Near this remarkable family arose that of 
Weitin, and by the acquisition of the electorate 
of Saxon}^, soon attained to the highest rank 
among the princes of the empire, and to the 
zenith of its power. It possessed the most 
extensive and at the same time the most 
flourishing of German principalities, as long 
as the brothers, Ernest and Albert, held their 
imited court at Dresden and shared the govern- 
ment; and even when they separated, both 
lines remained sufficiently considerable to play 
a part in the affairs of Germany, and indeed 
of Europe. 

6 , D* 



In the Palatinate we find Frederic the Vic- 
torious. It is necessary to read the long list 
of castles, jurisdictions, and lands which he 
vron from all his neighbours, partly by con 
quest, partly by purchase or treaty, but which 
iiis superiority in arms rendered emphatically 
his own, to form a conception what a German 
prince could in that age achieve, and how 
widely he could extend his sway. 

The conquests of Hessen were of a more 
peaceful nature. By the inheritance of Ziegen- 
hain and Nidda, but more especially of Katzen- 
elnbogen, a fertile, highly cultivated district, 
from which the old counts had never sutfered 
a village or a farm to be taken, whether by 
force or purchase, it acquired an addition 
nearly equal to its original territory. 

A similar spirit of extension and fusion was 
also at work in many other places. Juliers 
and Berg formed a junction. Bavaria-Lands- 
hut was strengthened by its union with Ingol- 
stadt ; in Bavaria-^Munich, Albert the Wise 
maintained the unity of the land under the 
most difficult circumstances ; not without 
violence, but, at least in this case, with bene- 
ficial results. In Wiirtemberg, too, a multi- 
tude of separate estates were gradually incor- 
porated into one district, and assumed the 
form of a German principality. 

New territorial powers also arose. In East 
Friesland a chieftain at length appeared, be- 
fore whom all the rest bowed ; Junker* Ulrich 
Cirksena, who, by his own conquests, ex- 
tended and consolidated the power founded on 
those of his brother and his father. He also 
conciliated the adherents of the old Fokko 
Uken, who were opposed to him, by a mar- 
riage with Theta, the granddaughter of that 
chief. Hereupon he was solemnly proclaimed 
count at Emden, in the year 1463. But it was 
to Theta, who was left to rule the country 
alone during twenty-eight years, that the nev/ 
sovereignty chiefly owed its strength and sta- 
bility. This illustrious woman, Vv-hose pale, 
beautiful countenance, brilliant eyes and raven 
hair survive in her portrait, was endowed with 
a vast understanding and a singular capacity 
for governing, as all her conduct and actions 
prove. 

Already had several German princes raised 
themselves to foreign thrones. In the year 
1448, Christian I., Count of Oldenburg, sign- 
ed the declaration or contract which made him 
king of Denmark: in 1450, he was invested 
with the crown of St. Olaf, at Drontheim ; in 
1457, the Swedes acknowledged him as their 
sovereign; in 1460, Holstein did homage to 
him, and was raised on his account to the rank 
of a German duchy. These acquisitions were 
not, it is true, of so stable and secure a char- 
acter as they at first appeared ; but, at all 
events, they conferred upon a German princely 
house a completely new position both in Ger- 
many and in Europe. 

The rise of the princely power and sove- 

* Junker, literally, the younger son of a noble house, 
became the title of the lesser aristocracy of Germany. It 
corresponds pretty nearly to squire in its common Englisll 
accept ation .—Tr Ä.NSL. 



42 



INTRODUCTION, 



reignty was, as we see, not the mere result of 
the steady course of events ; the noiseless and 
progressive development of political institu- 
tions ; it was brought about mainly by adroit 
policy, successful war and the might of per- 
sonal character. 

Yet the secular princes by no means pos- 
sessed absolute sovereignty; they were still 
involved in an incessant struggle with the 
other powers of the empire. 

These were, in the first place, the spiritual 
principalities (whose privileges and internal 
organization were the same as those of the se- 
cular, but whose rank in the hierarchy of the 
empire was higher), in which nobles of the 
high or even the inferior aristocracy composed 
the chapter and filled the principal places. In 
the fifteenth century, indeed, the bishoprics 
began to be commonly conferred on the young- 
er sons of sovereign princes : the court of 
Rome favoured this practice, from the convic- 
tion that the chapters could only be kept in 
order by the strong hand a^d the authority of 
sovereign power;* but it was neither univer- 
sal, nor was the fundamental principle of the 
spiritual principalities by any means abandon- 
ed in consequence of its adoption. 

There was also a numerous body of nobles 
who received their investiture wi!h the banner, 
like the princes, and had a right to sit in the 
same tribunal with them ; mf, there were 
even families or clans, which, from all time, 
claimed exemption from those general feudal 
relations that formed the bond of the state, and 
held their lands in fee from God and his bless- 
ed sun. They were overshadowed by the 
princely order; but they enjoyed perfect inde- 
pendence notwithstanding. 

Next to this class came the powerful body 
of knights of the Empire, vrhoso castles crown- 
ed the hills on the Rhine, in Swabia and Fran- 
conia ; they lived in haughty loneliness amidst 
the wildest scenes ; girt round by an impreg- 
nable circle of deep fosses, and within walls 
four-and-twenty feet thick, where they could 
set all authority at defiance: the bond of fel- 
lowship among them was but the stricter for 
their isolation. Another portion of the nobility, 
especially in the eastern and colonized princi- 
palities in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, Meis- 
sen and the Marches, were, hov/eyer, brought 
into undisputed subjection; though this, as we 
see in the example of the Priegnitz, was not 
brought about without toil and combat. 

There was also a third class who constantly 
refused to acknowledge any feudal lord. The 
Craichgauer and the Mortenauer would not ac- 
knowledge the sovereignty of the Palatine, nor 
the ßökler and Lövven-ritter,f that of Bavaria. 
We find that the Electors of Mainz and Treves, 
on occasion of some decision by arbitration, 
feared that their nobles would refuse to abide 



* " Si episcopum potentem sorliantur, virgam correc- 
tionis timent." — JEneas Sylvius. 

t In 14S8, Albert IV., of Bavaria, imposed a tax.instead 
of personal service. Tlie Order of Knigiits having vainly- 
protested against this, formed the association called the 
Lion League (Löwenbund), and entered into alliance 
with the Swabian League. The other associations v^'ere 
probably of a similar kind. — Transl. 



by it, and knew not what measure to resort to 
in this contingency, except to rid themselves 
of these refractory vassals and withdraw their 
protection from them-ij: It seems, in some 
cases, as if the relation of subject and ruler 
had become nothing more than a sort of alli- 
ance. 

Still more completely independent was the 
attitude assumed by the cities. Opposed to all 
these difleient classes of nobles, which they 
regarded as but one body, they were founded 
on a totally different principle, and had strug- 
gled into importance in the midst of incessant 
hostility. A curious spectacle is aflforded by 
this old enmity constantly pervading all the 
provinces of Germany, yet in each one taking 
a different form. In Prussia, the opposition 
of the cities gave rise to the great national 
league against the supreme power, which was 
here in the hands of the Teutonic Order. On 
the Wendish coasts was then the centre of the 
Hanse, by which the Scandinavian kings, and 
still more the surrounding German princes, 
were overpowered. The i)uke of Pomerania 
himself was struck with terror, when, on com- 
ing to succour Henry the Elder of Brunswick, 
he perceived by what powerful and closely 
allied cities his friend was encompassed and 
enchained on every side. On the Rhine, we 
find an unceasing struggle for municipal inde- 
pendence, which the chief cities of the eccle- 
siastical principalities claimed, and the Elect- 
ors refused to grant. In Franconia, Nürnberg 
set itself in opposition to the rising power of 
Brandenburg, which it rivalled in successful 
schemes of aggrandisement. Then followed 
in Swabia and the Upper Danube (the true 
arena of the struggles and the leagues of im- 
perial free cities), the same groups of knights, 
lords, prelates, and princes, who here approach- 
ed most nearly to each other. Among the Alps, 
the confederacy formed against Austria had 
already grown into a regular constitutional 
government, and attained to almost complete 
independence. On every side we find differ- 
ent relations, different claims and disputes, dif- 
ferent means of carrying on the conflict; but 
on all, men felt themselves surrounded by hos- 
tile passions v/hich any moment might blow 
into a flame, and held themselves ready for 
battle. It seemed not impossible that the mu- 
nici])al principle might eventually get the upper 
hand in all these conflicts, and prove as de- 
structive to the aristocratical, as that had been 
to the imperial, power. 

In this universal shock of efforts and pow- 
ers, — with a distant and feeble chief, and inev- 
itable divisions even among those naturally 
connected and allied, a state of things arose 
which presents a somewhat chaotic aspect; 
it was the acre of universal private warfare.' 
The Fehde^ is a middle term between duel and 

t Jan. 12, 1458. Document in Hontheim, ii. p. 432. 
" So sail der von uns, des updersaiss he ist, siner missig 
gain und iine queine schirm, zulegunge oder handha- 
bunge Widder den anderen von uns doin." — " Then shall 
that one of us, whose vassal he is, abandon him and yield 
him no protection, support or defence, against the rest 
of us." 

§ Some resemblance in sound probably led to the use 



THE EMPIRE IN THE 15TH CENTURY. 



43 



war. Every affront or injury led, after certain 
formalities, to the declaration, addressed to the 
offending- party, that the aggrieved party would 
be his foe, and that of his helpers and helpers'- 
helpers. The imperial authorities felt them- 
selves so little able to arrest this torrent, that 
they endeavoured only to direct its course ; and, 
while imposing limitations, or forbidding par- 
ticular act3, they confirmed the general permis- 
sion of the established practice.* 

The right which the supreme, independent 
power had hitherto reserved to itself, of resort- 
ing to arms when no means of conciliation re- 
mained, had descended in Germany to the infe- 
rior classes, and was claimed by nobles and 
cities against each other ; by subjects against 
their lords, nay, by private persons, as far as 
their means and connections permitted, against 
each other. 

In the middle of the fifteenth century this 
universal tempest of contending powders was 
arrested by a conflict of a higher and more im- 
portant nature — the opposition of the princes 
to the emperor and the pope; and it remained 
to be decided from whose hands the world 
could hope for any restoration to order. 

Two princes appeared on the stage, each of 
them the hero of his nation, each at the head 
of a numerous party ; each possessed of per- 
sonal qualities strikingly characteristic of the 
epoch — Frederic of the Palatinate, and Albert 
of Brandenburg. They took opposite courses. 
Frederic the Victorious, distinguished rather 
for address and agility of body than for size 
and strength, owed his fame and his success to 
the forethought and caution -with which he pre- 
pared his battles and sieges. In time of peace 
he busied himself with the study of antiquity, 
or the mysteries of alchemy; poets and min- 
strels found ready access to him, as in the 
spring-time of poetry : he lived under the same 
roof with his friend and songstress, Clara Det- 
tin, of Augsburg, whose sweetness and sense 
not only captivated the prince, but were the 

of the word feud (feodum), as the equivalent of Fehde 
(faida), a confusion which, however sanctioned bv cus- 
tom, 1 liave thouirht it better to avoid. Eichliorn (Deutsche 
Staats und Rechtsgeschichte, vol. i. p. 441,) says : — " In 
case of robbery, murder, &c., the injured party, or his 
heirs, was not bound to pursue the injurer at law: but 
private help or self-revenjre (rrivathulfe und Selbstraclie"! 
— Fehde (faida), was lawful ; and the Befehdete (faidosus) 
could only escape this by paying the appointed fine." 



For the earliest mention ofJhis fine, he refers to Taciti 
(Germ. 21). It is remarkable, too, that the authority 
from which he quotes these terms, is the laws of Fries- 
land, a country where, as is well known, feudalism never 
existed. And indeed the parties by whom diffidations 
{Fehdebriefe) were often sent, were obviously subject to 
no feudal relations. Although we appear to have lost 
the English cognate of the Anglo-Sa.Ton Foehthe {capitaljs 
inimicitia), it is found in the Scotch feid,fede,feijde, (see 
Gawin Douglas, Jamieson's Diet., &:c.), and in most of 
the Teutonic languages.— Transl. 

* e. g. the " Reformation" of Frederic III. of 1442 or- 
ders, "(lass nymand dem andern Schaden' tun oder zufü- 
gen soll, er habe ihn denn ztivor— zu landläufigen Rech- 
ten erfordert." — "^Ihat none should do, or caiise to be 
done, injury to another, unless iie have previously chal- 
lenged him, according to the customary laws of the land." 
Tlie clause of the golden bull, de Diffidationibus, is then 
repeated.— [This clause is as follows :— " Eos qui de cetero 
adversus aliquos Justam diffidationis causam se habere 
fingentes, ipsos in locis, ubi domicilia non obtinent aut 
ea communiter non inhabitant, intenipestive diffidant ; 
declaramus damna per incendia, spolia, vel rapinas, diffi- 
datis ipsis, cum honore suo inferre non posse." Bulla 
Aurea, cap, xvii.— Transl.] 



charm and delight of all around him. He had 
expressly renounced the comforts of equal 
marriage and legitimate heirs ; all that he ac- 
complished or acquired was for the advantage 
of his nephew Philip. 

The towering and athletic frame of Mark- 
grave Albert of Brandenburg (surnamed Achil- 
les), on the contrary, announced, at the first 
glance, his gigantic strength : he had been vic- 
tor in countless tournaments, and stories of his 
courage and warlike prowess, bordeiing on the 
fabulous, were current among the people ; — 
how, for example, at some siege he had mount- 
ed the walls alone, and leaped down into the 
midst of the terrified garrison; how, hurried 
on by a slight success over an advanced party 
of the enemy, he had rushed almost unattended 
into their main body of 800 horsemen, had 
forced his way up to their standard, snatched 
it from its bearer, and after a momentary feel- 
ing of the desperateness of hife position, rallied 
his courage and defended it, till his people 
could come up and complete the victory. 
Ji^neas 8)^1 vi us declares that the Markgrave 
himself assured him of the fact.j- His letters 
breathe a passion for war. Even after a defeat 
he had experienced, he relates to his friends 
with evident pleasure, how long he and four 
others held out on the field of battle ; how he 
then cut his way through with great labour 
and severe fighting, and how he w^as deter- 
mined to re-appear as soon as possible in the 
field. In time of peace he busied himself with 
the affairs of the^ empire, in which he took a 
more lively and efficient part than the emperor 
himself. We find him sharing in all the pro- 
ceedings of the diets ; or holding- a magnificent 
and hospitable court in his Franconian territo- 
ries ; or directing his attention to his posses- 
sions in the Mark, which were governed by his 
son with all the vigilance dictated by the awe 
of a grave and austere father. Albert is the 
worthy progenitor of the warlike house of 
Brandenburg. He bequeathed to it not only 
wise maxims, but, what is of more value, a 
great example. 

About the year 1461 these two princes em- 
braced, as vv'e have said, different parties. 
Frederic, v.'ho as yet possessed no distinctly 
recognised power, and in all things obeyed his 
personal impulses, put himself at the head of 
the opposition. Albert, who always follov/ed 
the trodden path of existing relations, under- 
took the defence of the emperor and the pope ;:|: 

t Historia Frederici III., in the part first published by 
Kollar, Anal. ii. p. 166. 

X In the collection of imperial documents in the Frank- 
furt Archives, vol. v. there is a very remarkable report by 
Johannes Brun, of an audience which he had of Albrecht 
Achilles, in Oct. 1461. He had to entreat him for a re- 
mission of the succours demanded. Markgrave Albrecht 
would not grant this ; " Auch erzalte er, was Furnemen 
gen unssen gn. Herrn den Keyser gevvest wäre und wy 
ein Gedenken nach dem Ryche sy, auch der Kunigvon 
Behemen ganz Meynung habe zu Mittensommer für 
Francfort zu sin und das Rych zu erobern, und darnach 
wie u. g. H. der Keiser yne, sine Schweher von Baden 
und Wirtenberg angerufen und yne des Ryches Banyer 
bevolhen habe, über Herzog Ludwig, um der Geschieht 
willen mit dem Bischof von Eystett, den von Werde und 
Dinkelsböl und umb die Pene, darin er deshalben verfal- 
len sy ;— in den Dingen er uf niemant gebeitet oder gese- 
hen, sondern zu Stund mit den sinen und des von Wirten- 



44 



INTRODUCTION. 



fortune wavered for a time between them. 
But at last the Jorsika, as George Podiebrad 
was called, abandoned his daring plans. Die- 
ther of Isenburg v/as succeeded by his antag- 
onist, Adolf of Nassau; and Frederic the 
Palatine consented to give up his prisoners : 
victory leaned, in the main, to the side of 
Brandenburg. The ancient authorities of the 
Empire and the Church were once more upheld. 

These authorities, too, now seemed seriously 
bent on introducing a better order of things. 
By the aid of the victorious party, the emperor 
found himself, for the first time, in a position 
to exercise a certain influence in the empire ; 
Pope Paul II. wished to fit out an expedition 
against the Turks : with united strengrth they 
proceeded to the work at the diet of Nürnberg 
(a.,d. 146G).* 

It was an assembly which distinctly be- 
trayed the state of parties under which it had 
been convoked. • Frederick the Palatine ap- 
peared neither in person nor by deputy ; the 
ambassadors of Podiebrad, who had fallen 
into fresh disputes with the papal see, were 
not admitted : nevertheless, the resolutions 
passed there were of great importance. It 
was determined for the next five years to re- 
gard every breach of the Public Peace| as a 



Wrg mit des Ryclis Banyer zu Feld gelegen und uiiscrn 
Herrn den Keyser gelediget und die Last uf sich genom- 
men, darin angesehen sine Ffliclit, und was er habe das 
er das vom Ryclie habe, und meyne Lip und Gut von,u. 
H. dem Kaiser nit zu scheiden." — "He also recounted 
what manner of enterprise there l)ad been against our 
gracious lord the emperor, and how there was a design 
npon the empire; also how the king of Hohemia had the 
full intention of being at Frankfort at midsummer, and 
of getting possession of the empire: and hou', thereupon, 
our gracious lord the emperor had summoned him, his 
brothers-in-law of Baden and Wirtenburg, and committed 
the banner of the empire to him rather than to Duke 
Ludwig, by reason of tlie affair with the bishop of Eystett, 
those of VVerde and Dinkelsböl, and of the punisiiment 
he had incurred on that account; in these things he had 
tarried or looked for no one, but forthwith taken the field 
with his men and those of h#m of Wirtenberg, with the 
banner of the empire, and relieved our lord the emperor, 
and taken the burthen upon himself, and had therein be- 
held his duty; and that what he had, he had -from the 
empire, and had no thought of separating his life and 
lands from the cause of the emperor." As to the prayer 
of the cities, he says; — " wywol yme das Geld nutzer 
wäre und er mer schicken wolle mit den die er in den 
Sold gewönne denn mit den die in von^den Städten zu- 
geschicket werden, ye doch so stehe es ime nit zu und 
habe nit Macht eynich Geld zu dehmen und des Keilers 
Gebote" abzustellen." "Although money v\'as needful to 
him, and he should spend more with troops he took into 
his pay than with those the cities should send him, still 
it would not become him, and he had not power anyhow 
to take money and to set aside the emperor's command." 
Dispositions such as befit a prince of the empire. It were 
much to he wished there were some one capable of giving 
a more full and accurate account of the life and deeds of 
this remarkable prince. 

* Proceedings at the papal and imperial diet held at 
Nürnberg on account of the Turkish campaign, in the 4th 
vol. of the Frankfort Acts of the Diet of the Empire, as 
published by Schilter and Müller, with some small varila- 
tions. 

t Landfriede—Vence of the land. The expression, pub- 
lic peace, which, in deference to numerous and high au- 
thorities, I have generally used in the text, is liable to 
important objections. M breach of the public peace means, 
in England, any open disorder or outrage. But the Land- 
friede (Pax publica) was a special act or provision di- 
rected against the abuse of an ancient and established 
institution,— the Fehderecht (jus diffidationis, or right of 
private warfare). The attempts to restrain this abuse 
were, for a long time, local and temporary; as, for exam- 
ple, in the year 1382, Markgrave Sigismund of Branden- 
burg, and some of the neighbouring princes, concluded a 
Landfriede for six years. In such cases tribunals called 



crime against the majesty of the empire, and 
to punish it with the ban. It was found that 
the spiritual tribunals must come in aid of the 
temporal sword; and accordingly the pope 
denounced the heaviest spiritual penalties 
against violators of the Public Peace. The 
emperor formally adopted these resolutions at 
an assembly at Neustadt, in the year 14G7,and 
for the first time revoked the articles of the 
Golden Bull and the Reformation of 1412, in 
which private wars were, under certain con- 
ditions, permitted.:!: A peace was proclaimed, 
"enjoined by our most gracious lord the king 
of the Romans, and confirmed by our holy 
father the pope," as the electors express them- 
selves. 

Sometime afterwards — at Regensbnrg, in the 
year 1471 — the allied powers ventured on a 
second yet more impqrtant step, for the further- 
ance of the war against the Turks, which they 
declared themselves'at length about to under- 
take : 'they attempted to impose a sort of 
property tax on the whole empire, called the 
Common Penny, § and actually obtained an 
edict in its favour. They named in concert 
the officers charged with the collection of it in 
the archiepiscopal and episcopal sees ; and the 
papal legate threatened the refractory with the 
sum of all spiritual punishments, exclusion 
from the community of the church.]] 

These measures undoubtedly embraced what 
was most immediately necessary to the in- 
ternal and external interests of the empire. 
But how was it possible to imagine that they 
would be executed 1 The combined powers 
were by no means strong enough to carry 
through such extensive and radical innovations. 
The diets had not been attended by nearly suf- 



Peace Courts (FriedensgericJite), for trying offences against 
the Landfried&^^vere instituted and expired together with 
the peace. The first energetic measure of the general 
government to put down private wars was that of the 
diet of Nürnberg (]466). 

Peace of the realm, internal or domestic peace (as dis- 
tinguished from foreign or iiiternational), would come 
nearer to the meaning of Landfriede. It is sufficient, 
however, if the reader bears in mind that it is opposed 
not to chance disorder or tumult, but to a mode of void- 
ing differences recognised by the law, and limited by cer- 
tain forms and conditions ; as e. g. that a Befehdete (fai- 
dosus) could not be attacked and killed in church or in 
his own house. See Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats-und- 
Rechtsgeschichte, vol. ii. p. 453. — Transl. 

t The constitution of the 18th of August, 1467, in Mül- 
ler Rtth. ii. 293. The provisions for the maintenance of 
peace contained in those lam's were not to be annulled, 
"dann allain in den Artickel der gulden Bull, der do 
inhellt von Widersagen, und in den ersten Artickel der 
Reformation, der da inhellt von Angreifen und Beschedi- 
gen; dieselben Artickel sollen die obgemeldten fünf Jar 
ruhen,— auf dass zu Vehde Krieg und Aufrur Anlass ver- 
mitten und der Fride Stracks gehrlten werde." "Then 
alone in th.e article of the Golden Bull, concerniiig chal- 
lenges, and the first article of the Reformation, concern- 
ing assaults and damages : these articles shall remain 
unaltered the above-mentioned five years,— that all occa- 
sion of challenge, war, and disorder, be avoided, and peace 
be thoroughly maintained." Unluckily the worthy Mül- 
ler read Milbenstadt for Neuenstadt in this important 
passage, a mistake which has found its way into a num. 
ber of histories of the empire. 

§ Das gemeine Pfennig. — I have not been able to find in 
any French or English writer the literal translation of 
this name given to the first attempt at general taxation 
in the empire ; but I have retained it as characteristic of 
the age, and of the nature of the tax.— Transl. 

II Tlie Duke of Cleves was named executor for Bremen. 
Münster, and Utrecht ; Duke Ludwig of Bavaria, for Rtt 
gensburg and Passau. 



THE EMPIRE IN THE 15TH CENTURY. 



45 



ficient numbers, and the people did not hold 
themselves bound by the resolutions of a party. 
The opposition to the emperor and the pope 
had not attained its object, but it still subsisted : 
Frederic the Victorious still lived, and had now 
an inflnence over the very cities which had 
formerly opposed him. The colJection of the 
Common Penny was, in a short time, not even 
talked of; it was treated as a project of Paul 
II., to whom it was not deemed expedient to 
grant such extensive powers. 

The proclamation of the Public Peace had 
also produced little or no effect. After some 
time the cities declared that it had occasioned 
them more annoj'ance and damage than they 
had endured before.* It was contrar}'^ to their 
wishes that, in the year 1474, it was renewed 
with all its actual provisions. The private 
wars went on as before. Soon afterwards one 
of the most powerful imperial cities, Regens- 
burg, the very place where the Public Peace 
was proclaimed, fell into the hands of the Ba- 
varians. The combined powers gradually lost 
all their consideration. In the j^ear 1479 the 
propositions of the emperor and the pope were 
rejected in a mass by the estates of the em- 
pire, and were answered v,'ith a number of 
complaints. 

And yet never could stringent measures be 
more im.periously demanded. 

I shall not go into an elaborate description 
of the evils attendant on the right of diifidation 
or private warfare {Fekderecht) : they were pro- 
bably not so great as is commonly im.agined. 
Even in the century we are treating of, there 
Vv'ere Italians to whom the situation of Germany 
appeared happy and secure in comparison with 
that of their own country, where, in all parts, 
one faction drove out another.| It was only 
the level country and the hioh roads which 
were exposed to robbery and devastation. But 
even so, the state of things was disgraceful 
and insupportable to a great nation. It ex- 
hibited the strongest contrast to the ideas of 
lav/ and of religion upon v.'hich the Empire 
was so peculiarly founded. 

One consequence of it was, that as every 
man was exclusively occupied with the care of 
his own security and defence, or could ot best 
not extend his view beyond the horizon imme- 
diately surrounding him, no one had any atten- 
tion to bestow on the common weal ; not only 
were no more great enterprises achieved, but 
even the frontiers were hardly defended. In 
the East, the old contlict between the Germans 



* "Dass die erbb. Städte und die jren in Zeitten sol- 
lichs gemainen Friden und wider des tnlialt tmd Mainuiiir 
mer Unsremachs Beschädigung verderbiicher Rost Schaden 
und Unfrid an jren Leuten Leiben und Guten s^elitten, 
dann sy vorher in vil Jaren und Ze\ tten je empfansen." 
" That the hereditary cities and their people, in times of 
such common peace, and contrary to the intent and 
nieanin», had suffered under more inconvenience, damage, 
cost, mischief, and disturbance, to the persons and pos- 
sessions of their inhabitants, than had been undergone 
before during many years and se,a.sonsr— Proceedings at 
Regensburg, 1474. Frankfurter AA., vol. viii. 

t ^neas Sylvius, Dialogi de Autoritate Concijii, intro- 
duces in the second of these dialogues a Novanese, who 
calls out to the Germans : " Bona vestra vere vestra sunt 
pace omnesfruimini et libertate in communi, magisque 
ad naturam quam ad opinionem vivitis. Fugi ego illos 
Italise turbines."— Ä?War, jinal. ii. 704. 



and the Lettish and Slavonian tribes was de- 
cided in favour of the latter. As the King of 
Poland found allies in Prussia itself, he ob- 
tained an easy victory over the Order, and com- 
pelled the knights to conclude the peace of 
Thorrr (a. d. 1466), by which the greater part 
of the territories of the Order were ceded to 
him, and the rest were held of him in fee. 
Neither emperor nor empire stirred to avert this 
incalculable loss. In the West, the idea of 
obtaining the Rhine as a boundary first awoke 
in the minds of the French, and the attacks of 
the Dauphin and the Armagnacs were onl)' 
foiled by local resistance. But what the one 
line of the house of Valois failed in, the other, 
that of Burgundy, accomplished with brilliant 
success. As the wars between France and 
England were gradually terminated, and no- 
thing more was to be gained in that field, this 
house, with all its am^bition^and all its good 
fortune, threw itself on the territory of Lower 
Germany. In direct defiance of the imperial 
authorit}', it took possession of Brabant and 
Holland ; then Philip the Good took Luxem- 
burg, placed his natural son in Utrecht, and 
his nephev/ on the episcopal throne of Liege; 
after which an unfortunate quarrel betv.'een 
father and son gave Charles the Bold an op- 
portunity to seize upon Guelders. A power 
was formed such as had not arisen since the 
time of the great duchies, and the interests and 
tendencies of which were naturally opposed to 
those of the empire. This state the restless, 
Charles resolved to extend, on the one side, 
towards Friesland, on the other, along thtj 
Upper Rhine. When ät length he fell upon 
the archbishopric of Cologne and besieged 
Neuss, some opposition was made to him, but 
not in consequence of any concerted scheme or 
regular armament, but of a sudden levy in the 
presence of imminent danger. The favourable 
moment for driving him back v.'ithin his own 
frontiers had been neglected. Shortl}'- after, 
on his attacking Lotharingia, Alsatia, and 
Switzerland, those countries v/ere left to defend 
themselves. Meanwhile, Italy had in fact 
completel}^ emancipated herself If the em^- 
peror desired to be crowned there, he must go 
unarmed like a mere traveller ; his ideal power 
could only be manifested in acts of grace and 
favour. The King of Bohemia, who also pos- 
sessed the tvro Lusatias and Silesia, and an 
extensive feudal dominion within the empire, 
insisted loudly on his rights, and would hear 
nothing of the corresponding obligations. 

The life of the nation must have been already 
extinct, had it not, even in the midst of all 
these calamities, and vrith the prospect of fur- 
ther imminent peril before it, taken m.easures 
to establish its internal order and to restore its 
external power; — objects, however, not to be 
attained v/ithout a revolution in both its spir- 
itual and temporal affairs. 

The tendency to development and progress 
in Europe is sometimes more active and pow- 
erful in. oiie direction, sometimes in another. 
At this moment temporal interests were most 
prominent; and these, therefore, must first 
claim our attention. 



BOOK I. 

ATTEMPT TO REFORM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE EMPIRE. 

1486—1517. 



Similar disorders, arising from kindred 
sources and an analogous train of events, 
existed in all the other nations of Europe. It 
may be said, that the offspring and products 
of the middle ages were engaged in a universal 
conflict which seemed likely to end in their 
common destruction. 

The ideas upon which human society is 
based are but partially and imperfectly embued 
with the divine and eternal Essence from which 
they emanate ; for a time they are beneficent 
and vivifying, and new creations spring up un- 
der their tfreath. But on earth nothing attains 
to a pure and perfect existence, and therefore 
nothing is immortal. When the times are 
accomplished, higher aspirations and m.ore en- 
lightened schemes spring up out of the totter- 
ing remains of former institutions, which they 
utterly overthrow and efface; for so has God 
ordered the world. 

If the disorders in question were universal, 
the efforts to put an end to them v/ere not less 
so. Powers called into life by the necessity 
of a change, or growing up spontaneously, 
arose out of the general confusion, and v/ith 
vigorous and unbidden hand imposed order on 
the chaos. 

This is the great event of the fifteenth cen- 
tury. The names of the energetic princes of 
that time, whose task it was first to awaken 
the nations of Europe to a consciousness of 
their own existence and importance, are known 
to all. In France we find Charles VII. and 
Louis XI. The land was at length delivered 
from the enemy v^ho had so long held divided 
sv/ay in it, and was united under the standard 
of the Lilies; the monarchy was founded on a 
military and financial basis ; crafty, calculating 
policy came in aid of the practical straightfor- 
ward sense v/hich attained its ends, because it 
aimed only at what was necessary; all" the 
daring and insolent powers that had bid defi- 
ance to the supreme authority were subdued 
or overthrowm : the new order of things had 
already attained to sufficient strength to endure 
a long and stormy minority. 

Henry VII. of England, without attempting 
to destroy the ancient liberties of the nation, 
laid the foundation of the power of the Tudors 
on the ruins of the two factions of the aristo- 
cracy, with a resolution nothing could shake 
and a vigour nothing could resist. The Nor- 
man times were over; — modern England be- 
gan. At the same time Isabella of Castile 
reduced her refractory vassals to submission, 
by her union with a powerful neighbour, by 



the share she had acquired in the spiritual 
power, and by the natural ascendency of her 
own grand and womanly character, in which 
austere domestic virtue and a high chivalrous 
spirit were so singularly blended. She suc- 
ceeded in completely driving out the Moors 
and pacifying the Peninsula. Even in Italy, 
some stronger governments were consolidated; 
five considerable states were formed, united by 
a free alliance, and for a while capable of 
counteracting all foreign influence. At the 
same time Poland, doubly strong through her 
union with Lithuania, climbed to the highest 
pinnacle of power she ever possessed ; while 
in Hungary, a native king maintained the 
honour and the unity of his nation at the head 
of the powerful army he had assembled under 
his banner. 

However various were the resources and the 
circumstances by which it was surrounded, 
Monarchy — the central power — was every 
where strong enough to put down the resisting 
independencies; to exclude foreign influence ; 
to rally the people around its standard, by ap- 
pealing to the national spirit under whose guid- 
ance it acted ; and thus to give them a feeling 
of unity. 

In Germany, however, this was not possible. 
The two powders which might have effected the 
most were so far carried along by the general 
tendency of the age, that they endeavoured to 
introduce some degree of order; we have seen 
with what small success. At the very time in 
which all the monarchies of Europe consolida- 
ted themselves, the emperor was driven out of 
his hereditary states, and wandered about the 
other parts of the empire as a fugitive.* He 
was dependent for his daily repast on the 
bounty of convents, or of the burghers of the 
imperial cities ; his other wants were supplied 
from the slender revenues of his chancery : he 
might sometimes be seen travelling along the 
roads of his own dominions in a carriage 
drawn by oxen ; never — and this he himself 
felt — was the majesty of the empire dragged 
about in meaner form : the possessor of a power 
which, according to the received idea, ruled the 
vv^orld, was become an object of contemptuous 
pity. 

If any thing was to be done in Germany, it 
must be by other means, upon other principles, 
with other objects, than any that had hitherto 
been contemplated or employed. 



* See Unrest, Chronicon Austriacum; Hahn. 660-^688. 
Kurz, Oestreich unter Friedrich III. vol. ii. 

(46) 



)kI. 



FOUNDATION OF A NEW CONSTITUTION. 



47 



FOUNDATION OF A NEW CONSTITUTION. 

It is obvious at the first glance, that no 
ttempt at reform could be successful which 
id not originate with the States themselves, 
ince they had taken up so strong a position 
gainst the two co-ordinate higher powers, they 
?ere bound to show how far that position was 
.kely to prove beneficial to the public interests. 

It was greatly in their favour that the empe- 
3r had sunk into so deplorable a situation. 

Not that it was their intention to make use 
f this to his entire overthrow or destruction ; 
n the contrary, they were determined not to 
How him to fall. What for centuries only 
ne emperor had accomplished, and he, in the 
ulness of his power and by dispensing extra- 
rdinary favours (viz. to secure the su<5cession 
his son), Frederic III. achieved in the mo- 
ncnt of the deepest humiliation and vreakness. 
^'he prince-electors met in the year 1486, to 
hoose his son IMaximilian king of the Romans, 
n this measure, Albert Achilles, of Branden- 
lurg, took the most prominent and active part. 
'Notwithstanding his advanced age, he came 
mce more in person to Frankfurt : he caused 
limself to be carried into the electoral chapel 
tn a litter, whence, at the close of the proceed- 
ngs, he presented the sceptre; he was in the 
ict of performing his high function as arch- 
;hamberlain of the empire, when he expired, 
t could not escape the electors, that the clai'ms 
if the house of Austria to the support of the 
'rapire were greatly strengthened by this event, 
vlaxirailian, the son-in-law of Charles the 
3old, who had undertaken to uphold the rights 
;f the house of Burgundy in the Netherlands, 
mcountered there difficulties and misfortunes 
lot much inferior to those which beset his 
ather in Austria, and must, on no account, be 
abandoned. His election could hardly be re- 
garded as fully accomplished, until the coun- 
ries which had hitherto maintained a hostile 
ittitude were subjected to him, and thus re- 
stored to the empire. It was precisely by de- 
ermining to send isuccours in both directions, 
hat the states acquired a two-fold right to dis- 
cuss internal affairs according to their ovvn 
judgment. They had rendered fresh services 

the reigning house, which could not defend 
ts hereditary possessions without their aid, 
md their voices must now be heard. 

At this moment, too, a coolness arose be- 
Aveen the emperor and the pope. There was 

1 large party in Europe which had always re- 
garded the rise of the Austrian power with dis- 
ike, and was now greatly offended at the elec- 
ion of IMaximilian to the Roman throne. To 
;his party, in consequence of the turn Italian 
ifFairs had taken, Pope Innocent VII. belong- 
3d. He refused the emperor aid against the 
Hungarians, and even against the Turks. The 
■mperial am.bassador found him, as Frederic 
3omplained to the diet, " very awkward to deal 
with" {gar ungeschickt,"^) and could do nothing 
with him. There was also a difference with 
bhe pope about the nomination to the see of 

* Muller, Rtth. unter Friedrich III., v. 122. 



Passau, as well as about a newly-imposed 
tithe. In short, the intervention of the Roman 
see was, for a moment, suspended. For the 
first time, during a long period, we find nume- 
rous assemblies of German princes without the 
presence of a papal legate. 

Under these circumstances the deliberations 
of the States were opened with a better pros- 
pect of useful results. 

It was evidently not necessary to begin from 
the beginning; all the elements «of a great 
commonw'ealth were at hand. The diets had 
long; been regarded as the focus of legislation 
and of the general government : peace (Land- 
frieden had been proclaimed throughout the 
realm; an imperial court of justice existed; 
as long ago as the Hussite war a census had 
been taken with a view to the general defence 
of the empire. , Nothing remained but to give 
to these institutions that steady and pervading 
action v/hich they had liitherto entirely wanted. 

To this effect deliberations were incessantly 
held from the year 1486 to 1489. Ideas em^ 
bracing the whole land of the German people, 
and directed to the restoration of its unity and 
strength, were in active circulation. In order 
to obtain a more complete and accurate concep- 
tion of the several important points, we v,-ill 
consider them, not in their historical connexion 
either with each other or with contemporane- 
ous events, but each separately. 

The first was the Public Peace, which had 
again been broken on every side, and now, 
proclaimed anew in 1486, had been rendered 
clear by some more precise provisions annexed 
in 1487; yet it differed little from those which 
had gone before it. The execution of it Vv^as 
now, as heretofore, left to the tumultuous levy 
of the neighbourhood within a circle of from^ 
six to ten miles (German) ; nay, the declara- 
tion of 1437 expressly declares that a party in 
Vv'hose favour sentence had been pronounced 
might use force to secure its execution.f The 
only difference was that the co-operation of the 
pope was no longer invited. There was no 
further m.ention of sending papal conservators 
with peculiar powers of executing justice, in 
order to the raaintena^nce of the Public Peace. 
This, however, rendered it doubtful whether 
the clergy, to whom the pope and the church 
were much more proximate and formidable 
than the emperor and the state, would choose 
to regard themselves as bound by the peace. 
No other means could be found to obviate this 
evil than that the emperor should declare, as 
the bishops had done in regard to their own 
j nobility, that he Vv-ould put the disobedient out 
I of the favour and protection of the law, and 
j would not defend them from any aggression or 
injury. 

W^e see what a state of violence, insubordi- 
nation, and mutual independence still prevail- 
ed, and even manifested itself in the laws : 

t Muller, Rtth. Fr. VI., 115. " Wo aber tier, der eewal- 
tisre Tate tiirnenie imd ube, das thete uf beliapte Urtheil, 
so solt darüber nyemaiit dem Bekriegten das mahl Hilf 

I zuzi!j<:liicken schuldig: seyu." '• When, however, any one, 
undertaking and exercising acts of violence, does so upon 
judgment received in his fav(?ur, then shall no one be 

) bound to send help thereupon to him who is attacked." 



48 



FOUNDATION OF 



Book I. 



and how necessary it was to establish internal 
regulations, by the firmness and energy of 
which arbitrary power might be held in check, 
and the encroachments of an authority which, 
at the very first meeting of the estates, was 
regarded as foreign, might be repelled. 

The most essential point was to give to the 
imperial diets more regular forms and greater 
dignity; and especially to put an end to the 
resistance offered to their edicts by the cities. 

The cities, which were so often hostilely 
treated by the other estates, and which had in- 
terests of so peculiar a nature to defend, held 
themselves from the earliest period studiously 
aloof. During the Hussite war they were even 
permitted to send into the field a separate mu- 
nicipal army under a captain of their own ap- 
pointment.* In the year 1460 they declined 
going to council with the pripces, or uniting 
in a^common answer to the emperor's propo- 
sals.! ■'■" ^^^ J^^^ 14:74: the deputies refused 
to approve the Public Peace concluded by the 
emperor and princes, and obstinately persisted 
that they would say nothing to it till they had 
consulted their friends. ^ In 148G the princes 
having granted some subsidies to the emperor 
10 which the cities were called upon to contri- 
bute, they resisted, and the more strenuously, 
aince the}^ had not even been summoned to the 
meeting at which the grant was made. Fred- 
eric replied that this had not been done, be- 
cause they would have done nothing without 
sending home for instructions. 

It was evident that this state of things could 
not be maintained. The imperial cities justly 
deemed it an intolerable grievance that they 
should be taxed according to an arbitrary as- 
sessment, and a contribution demanded of them 
as if it were a debt; on the other hand, it was 
*just as little to be endured that they should 
obstruct ßvery definitive decision, and send 
home to consult their constituents on every in- 
dividual grant. 

So powerful was the influence of the pre- 
vailing spirit of the times, that, in the year 
•1487, the cities came to a resolution to abandon 
the course they had hitherto pursued. 

The emperor had summoned only a small 



* In the 3'ear T431. Datt de Pace Publica, 167. 

t Protocol in Müller, i. p. 782 : with this atliiition-, how- 
ever, " Sie weiten solch frandlich Furbringen ihren Frun- 
den berumen." " They would commend so friendly a pro- 
position to their friends." 

J The answer given »by them in Müller, ii. p. 623, is 
vague and obscure. In the Frankfurt Archives (vol. viii.) 
it runs thus : " Als die des Friedens notlmrfiis und beger- 
lich sind, setzen sy (die Städte) in kein Zweifel, E. K. I\I. 
(werde) gnediglich darob und daran seyn, dass der vestig- 
]ich gehandhabt und gehalten werde : dazu sy aber irent- 
halb zu reden nit bedacht sind, auch kein ßefel haben, 
unterteniglich bittend, das S. K. M. das also in Gnaden 
und Guten von in versten und sy als ir allerünedigster 
Herr bedenken wolle." — "As they have need, and are 
desirous of peace, they (the cities) niake no doubt, your 
Imperial Majesty will graciously strive to bring about 
that it be firmly maintained and kept ; but beyond this 
they have no thought of speaking on their own behalf, 
nor have any command so to do, subuiissively entreating, 
that his Imperial Majesty will therefore take this in good 
and gracious understanding from them, and think of them 
like their most gracious master." It is evident that tlieir 
acceptance is only very general, and that they would not 
suffer the more essential resolutions to be pressed upon 
them; the emperor at last concedes the point relating to 
the instructions. 



number of them to the diet of this year ;. they 
determined, however, this time to send the 
whole body of their deputies, and not to re- 
quire them to send home for instructions. The 
Emperor Frederic received them at the castle 
of Nürnberg, sitting on his bed, " of a feeble 
countenance," as ^they express themselves,§ 
and caused it to be said to them that he was 
glad to see them, and would graciously ac- 
knowledge their coming. The princes too 
were v/ell satisfied therewith, and allowed the 
cities to take part in their deliberations. Com- 
mittees were formed — a practice that afterwards 
became the prevailing one — in which the cities 
too were included. The first which sat to de- 
liberate on the Public Peace consisted of six 
electors, ten princes, and three burghers. 
From the second, — to consider the measures to 
be adopted against the Hungarians,— the cities 
were at first excluded, but afterwards were 
summoned at the express desire of the empe- 
ror. Our reporter, Dr. Paradeis of Frankfurt, 
was one of the members of this committee. 
Nor was the share taken by the burgher dele- 
gates barren of substantial results ; of the 
general grant of 100,000 gulden, nearly the 
entire half, (49,390 gulden) was at first as- 
sessed to them : they struck off about a fxfth 
from this estimate, and reduced it to 40,000 
gulden, which they apportioned to each city at 
their own discretion. 

At the next diet, in 1489, the forms of gene- 
ral deliberation were settled. For the first 
time, the three colleges, electors, princes, and 
burghers, separated as soon as a measure was 
proposed ; each party retired to its own room, 
the answer was drawn up by the electoral col- 
lege, and then presented for acceptance to the 
others. Thenceforth this continued to be the 
regular practice. At this juncture there was 
a possibility of the constitution of the empire 
assuming a form like that which arose out of 
similar institutions in other countries, viz. that 
the commons, who regarded themselves (in 
Germany as elsewhere) as the emperor's lieges 
(Leute), — as in an especial manner his sub- 
jects, — might have made common cause with 
him against the aristocracy, and have formed 
a third estate, or Commons' House. Sigis- 
mund was very fond of joining his complaints 
of the princely power v/ith theirs : he reminded 
them that the empire had nothing left but 
them, since everything else had fallen into the 
hands of the princes; he liked particularly to 
treat with them, and invited them to come to 
him with all their grievances, j] But the im- 
perial power was far too weak to foster these 
sympathies to any practical maturity, or to 
give a precise and consistent form to their 
union ; it was incapable of affording to the 
cities that protection which vv^ould have excited 



§ Dr. Ludwig zum Paradeis of Frankfurt, Monday after 
Juilica, April 2, 1487. With this diet of the empire begin 
the detailed reports of the Frankfurt deputies. The ear- 
lier ones were more fragmentary.— Us. j9., vol. xii. 

11 See Sigismund's Speech to the Friends of the Council 
at Frankfurt. Printed by Aschbach, ATeschichte Kaiser 
Sigmunds, i. 453. He there says, he will discuss witfi 
them "was ir Brest (Gebrechen) sy," — "what may be 
their wants." 



Book I. 



A NEW CONSTITUTION. 



49 



or justified a voluntary adherence to the head 
of the empire on their part. The German Es- 
tates generally assumed a very different form 
from all others. Elsewhere the lords spiritual 
and temporal used to meet separately : in Ger- 
many, on the contrar)-, the electors, who united 
the spiritual and temporal pov.'er in their own 
persons, had so thoroughly defined a position, 
such distinct common privileges, that it was 
not possible to divide them. Hence it hap- 
pened that the princes formed a single college 
of spiritual and temporal members : the com- 
mittees were generally composed of an equal 
number of each. The cities in Germany were 
not opposed, but allied to the magnates. These 
two estates together formed a compact cor- 
poration, against which no emperor could 
carry any measure, and which represented the 
aggregate power of the empire. 

in the consciousness of their own strength 
and of the necessity of the case, they now made 
a proposal to the emperor, which, however 
moderate in its tone, opened the widest pros- 
pect of a radical change in the constitution. 

It was obvious that if order and tranquillity 
were really restored, and all were compelled to 
acknovv'ledge him as the supreme fountain of 
justice, the emperor would necessarily acquire 
an immense accession of power. This the es- 
tates werer little inclined to concede to him ; the 
less, since justice was so arbitrarily adminis- 
tered in his tribunal, which was therefore ex- 
tremely discredited throughout the empire. As 
early as the year 1467, at the moment of the 
first serious proclamation of the Public Peace, 
a proposal was made to the emperor to establish 
a supreme tribunal of a new kind for the en- 
forcement of it, to which the several estates 
should nominate twenty-four inferior judges * 
from all parts of Germany, and the emperor 
onl)'' one as president. | To this Frederick 
paid no attention : he appointed his tribunal 
after, as he had Irefore, alone ; caused it to fol- 
low his court, and even decided some causes 
in person; revoked judgm.ents that had been 
pronounced, and determined the amount of costs 
and fees at his pleasure. He of course excited 
universal discontent by these proceedings ; 
people saw clearly that if any thing was to be 
done for the empire, the first step must be to 
establish a better administration of justice. 
The subsidies which they granted the emperor 
in the year 1486 v.-ere saddled with a condition 
to that effect. The estates were not so anxious 
to appoint the judges of the court, as to secure 
to it first a certain degree of independence ; 
they w-ere even willing to grant the judge and 
his assessors a right of co-optation for the offices 
becoming vacant. The main thing, however, 
\vas, that the judge should have the faculty of 
sentencing the breakers of the Public Peace to 

* The passage, as Harpprecht, Archiv, i. par. 109, gives 
it, is quite unintelligible, for instead of urtailsprecher 
(utterer of a sentence), urtel sprechen (to pronounce sen- 
tence) is printed, just as if the states themselves were to 
sit in judgment. It is more exact and connected in 
König von Königsthal, ii. p. 13. 

t The words in the text are Urtheiler and Richter. As 
Urtheil is judffment or decision, and Recht, law or right, 
these titles seem to imply some analogy with the oflices 
of the English jury and judge.— Transl. 
7 E 



the punishment upon which the penal force of 
the law for the preservation of that peace — the 
punishment of the ban — mainly rested, as well 
as the emperor himself; and also that it should 
rest with him to take the necessary measures 
for its execution. So intolerable was the per- 
sonal interference of the emperor esteemed, that 
people thought they should have gained every 
thing if they could secure themselves from this 
evil. They then intended in some degree to 
limit the power of the tribunal, by referring it 
to the statutes of the particular part of the em- 
pire in which the particular case arose, and by 
having a fixed tax for the costs and fees.ij: 

But the aged emperor had no mind to re- 
nounce one jot of his traditional power. He 
replied, that he should reserve to himself the 
right of proclaiming the ban, " in like manner 
as that had been done of old" {iminaassen das 
vor Alters geweseri). The appointmxcnt of as- 
sessors also must in future take place only with 
his knowledge and consent. Local statutes 
and customs should only be recognised by the 
court in as far as they were consistent with the 
imperial written law, i. e. the Roman (a curious 
proof how much the Idea of the Empire con- 
tributed to thejntroduction of the Roman law): 
vrith regard to taxing the costs and fees, he 
would be unrestrained, as other princes were, 
in their courts of justice and chanceries. § He 
regarded the supreme tribunal of the realm in 
the light. of a patrimonial court. It was in 
vain that the electors observed to him that a 
reform of the supreme court was the condition 
attached to their grants ; in vain they actually 
stopped their payments, and proposed other and 
m.ore moderate conditions : the aged monarch 
"\vas inflexible. 

Frederic III. had accustomed himself in the 
course of a long life to regard the affairs of the 
world with perfect serenity of mind. His co- 
temporaries have painted him to us ; — one 
while weighing precious stones in a gold- 
smith's scales ; another, with a celestial globe 
in his hand, discoursing with learned men on 
the positions of the stars. He loved to mix 
metals, compound healing drugs, and in impor- 
tant crises, predicted the future himself from 
the aspects of the constellations : he read a 
man's destiny in his features or in the lines of 
his hand. He w^as a believer in the hidden 
powers that govern nature and fortune. In his 
youth his Portuguese wife, with the violent 
temper and the habitual opinions of a native of 
the South, urged him in terms of bitter scorn 
to take vengeance for some injury : he onl}" 
answered, that every thing was rewarded, and 
punished, and avenged in tim.e. |j Complaints 
of the abuses in his courts of justice made little 
impression on him: he said " things did not 
go quite right or smooth anywhere." On one 
occasion representations were made to him by 
the princes of the empire, against the influence 
which he allowed his councillor Prüschenk to 



J Essav on an Ordinance of the Imperial Chamber ; 
Müller, vi. 29. 

§ Moruta Cassareanorum ; Müller, vi. 69. 

II Grunbeck, Historia Frederic! et Maximilian! in 
Chmel, Oestreichischer Geschichtsforscher, i. p. C9. 



50 



FOUNDATION OF 



Book I. 



exercise: he replied, "every one of them had 
his own Priischenk at home." In all the per- 
plexities of affairs he evinced the same calm- 
ness and equanimity. In 1449, when the cities 
and princes, on the eve of war, refused to ac- 
cept him as a mediator, he was content : he 
said he would wait till they had burnt each 
other's houses and destroyed each other's 
crops ; then they would come to him of their 
own accord, and beg him to bring about a re- 
conciliation between them ; — which shortly 
after happened. 

The violences and cruelties which his here- 
ditary dominions of Austria suffered from King 
Matthias did not even excite his pity : he said 
they deserved it ; they Vv'ould not obey him, 
and therefore they must have a stork as king, 
like the frogs in the fable. In his own affairs 
he was more like an observer than a party in- 
terested ; in all events he saw the rule by which 
they are governed, — the universal, inflexible 
principle which, after short interruptions, inva- 
riably recovers its empire. From his youth he 
had been inured to trouble and adversity. 
When compelled to yield, he never gave up a 
point, and always gained the mastery in the 
end. The maintenance of his prerogatives was 
the governing principle of all his actions; the 
more, because they acquired an ideal value 
from their connection with the imperial dignity. 
It cost bim a long and severe struggle to allow 
his son to be crowned king of the Romans ; he 
wished to take the supreme authority undivided 
with him to the grave: in no case would he 
grant Maximilian any independent share in the 
administration of government, but kept him, 
even after he was king, still as " son of the 
house;"* nor would he ever give him anything 
but the countship of Cilli: "for the rest, he 
would have time enough." His frugality bor- 
dered on avarice, his slowness on inertness, his 
stubbornness on the most determined selfish- 
ness : yet all these faults are rescued from vul- 
garity by high qualities. He had at bottom a 
sober depth of judgment, a sedate and inflexi- 
ble honour ; the aged prince, even when a fu- 
gitive imploring succour, had a personal hear- 
ing which never ailov%^ed the majesty of the 
empire to sink. All his pleasures were charac- 
teristic. Once, when he was in Nürnberg, he 
had all the children in the city, even the infants 
who could but just walk, brought to him in the 
'city ditches; he feasted his eyes on the rising 
generation, the heirs of the future ; then he 
ordered cakes to be brought and distributed, 
that the children might remember their old 
master, whom they had seen, as long as tbey 
lived. Occasionally he gave the prihces his 
friends a feast in his castle. In proportion to 
his usual extreme frugality was now the mag- 
nificence of the entertainment: he kept his 
guests with him till late in the night (always 
his most vivacious time), w^hen even his wonted 
taciturnity ceased, and he began to relate the 
history of his past life, interspersed with 
strange incidents, decent jests and wise saws. 

* Letter from Maximilian to Albert of Saxony, 1492, 
in tlie Dresden Archives. 



He looked like a patriarch among the princes, 
who were all much younger tban himself. 

The Estates saw clearly that with this sort 
of character, with this resolute inflexible being, 
nothing was to be gained by negotiation or 
stipulation. If they wished to carry their point 
they must turn to the young king, who had 
indeed no power as yet, but who must shortly 
succeed to it. On his way from the Nether- 
lands, whence he was hastening to rescue 
Austria from the Hungarians, for wliich end he 
had the most urgent need of the assistance of 
the empire, they laid their requests before him 
and made a compliance with these the condi- 
tions of their succours. Maximilian, reared 
in the constant sight of the troubles and cala- 
mities into which his father had fallen, had, as 
often happens, adopted contrary'- maxims of 
conduct; he looked only to the consequences 
of the moment : he had all the buoyant confi.- 
dence of youth ; nor did he think the safety of 
the empire involved in a tenacious adherence 
1 to certain privileges. His first appearance in 
I public life was at the diet at Nürnberg, in 1439, 
I where he requited the support granted him by 
the empire with ready concessions as to the 
administration of justice. He could indeed only 
promise to use every means to induce his father 
to have the Imperial Chamber (Kammerge- 
richt) established as soon as possible on the 
plan proposed. In this, as v/as to be expected, 
he did not succeed ; but he was at all events 
morally bound to fulfil the expectations he had 
raised : it was a first step, though the conse- 
quences of it lay at a distance. This promise 
was registered in the recess of the diet."|" 

This was the most important point of the 
administration of the empire. All internal 
order depended on the supreme court of justice. 
It was of the highest moment that it should be 
shielded from the arbitrary will of the emperor, 
and that a considerable share in the constitu- 
tion of it should be given to the States. 

Maximilian too now received the succours 
he required for the restoration of the Austrian 
power. While one of the bravest of German 
princes, Albert of Saxony, called the Right 
Arm of the empire, gradually, to use his own 
expression, " brought the rebellious Nether- 
lands to^eace,":i[: Maximilian himself hastened 
to his ancestral domains. Shortly before, the 
aged Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol had al- 
lowed himself to be persuaded to give the 
emperor's daughter, who had been confided to 
him, in marriage to Duke Albert of Bavaria- 
Munich ; and had held out to that prince the 
hope that he would leave him Tyrol and the 
Vorlande as an inheritance. But the sight of 
Maximilian awakened in the kindhearted and 
childless old man a natural tenderness for the 
manly and blooming scion of his own race ; 
he now dwelt with joy on the thought that this 
was the rightful heir to the country, and in- 
stantly determined to bequeath it to him. At 
this moment King Matthias of Hungary, who 



t Muller, vi. p. 171. A register of this imperial diet in 
the Frankfurt Archives, vol. xiii. 

J-From a letter of Albrecht to his son, in Langenn, 
Duke Albert, p. 205, 



Book I. 



A NEW CONSTITUTION. 



51 



was still in possession of Austria, died. Tiie 
land breathed again, when the rightful young 
prince appeared in the field surrounded by the 
forces of the empire and by his own merce- 
naries ; drove the Hungarians before him, de- 
livered Vienna from their hands, and pursued 
them over their own borders. We find this 
event recorded, even in the journals of private 
persons, as the happiest of their lives:* — a 
district that had been mortgaged raised the 
mortgage money itself, that it might belong 
once more to its ancient lords. I 

Such was the vast influence of the good un- j 
derstanding between Maximilian and the States 
of the empire, on the re-establishment of the 
power of Austria. ' It had, at the same time, 
another great effect in conducing to the con- 
ciliation of^ one of the most eminent of the 
princes, and to the consolidation of all internal 
affairs. 

The Dukes of Bavaria, spite of the family 
alliance into which they had been forced with 
the emperor by the marriage above mentioned, 
adhered to the opponents of Austria — the Ro- 
man see, and King Matthias. f They would 
hear nothing of furnishing aids to the emperor 
against the king ; they refused to attend the 
diets,- or to accept their edicts : on the con- 
trary, they made encroachments on the domains 
of their neighbours, enlarged the jurisdiction 
of their own courts of justice, and threatened 
neighbouring imperial cities — for example, 
Memmingen and Bibrach. Regensburg had 
already fallen into the possession of Duke Al- 
bert of Munich.if 

Immediately after the renewal of the Public 
Peace, m the year 1487, it became evident that 
there -yvas no chance of its being observed if 
these partial and turbulent proceedings were 
not pat an end to. 

This was the immediate and pressing cause 
of the Swabian league, concluded in February 
1488, by the mediation of the emperor,§ and 

* Diarium Joannis Tichtelii, in Raucli, Scriptt. Tier. 
Auslriacarum, ii. 559, He writes the name of Maximi- 
lian four times, one after the other, as if unable to write 
it often enough for his own satisfaction. 

t In I.ent, 1482, Albert and George determined, " with 
their several states, that, without the countenance of the 
holy father, help should not be civen to Kin^ Matthias 
against the emperor." " Mit ihr beder Landschaft dass 
man ohne Gunst des h. Vaters dem Kaiser wider König 
Matthias nit helfen sollte." Anonymous contemporary 
Chronicle in Freiberg's Collection "of Historical Papers 
and Documents, i. 159. All these circumstances'deserved 
a closer examination. For the modern relations and po- 
litical system of these states did not !)egin so late as is 
believed. From Hagek, Pohsnischer Chronik, p. 828, it 
appears that the Bohemians would not put up with their 
exclusion from the election of IMaximiüau. They entered 
into a league with Matthias, drawing Poland into it also. 
(Pelzel. Geschichte von Böhmen, i. 49-1). The deputies of 
Matthias tried to set the Italian princes in motion. (Phi- 
lippus Bergomas. Supplemcntum Chronicorum.) France 
likev.'ise belonged to this party. The reason why Bava- 
ria joined it is evident. T!ie eyes of her dukes were 
always turned either towards Loa^bardy or the N^ether- 
lands. Freiberg : Geschichte der ßaierischen Landstünde, 
1. 655. 

X Pfister, Geschichte von Schwaben, v. p. 272. 

§ In his very first address the emperor declares the object 
of the league to be, that the states, " bei dem heiligen 
Reiche und ihren Freiheiten bleiben," "should remain 
in adherence to the holy empire, and in possession of 
their liberties."— Da«, de Pace Pub. 272. Who could be- 
lieve, that for the history of this most important of all 
early leagues we have still to refer chiefly to Datt ? 



some of the more powerful princes. The order 
of knights, who the year before had renewed 
their old company of St. George's shield, 
quickly joined the league, as did also the 
cities. They mutually promised to oppose a 
common resistance to all strangers who sought 
to impose foreign (/. e. not Swabian) laws 
upon them, or otherwise to injure or offend 
them. But in order to secure themselves from 
disputes or disorders among themselves, and 
at the same time to observe the Public Peace 
— for this general object was, from the very 
first, included among the more particular ones, 
and gave the whole union |l legitimate charac- 
ter, — they determined to settle their mutual 
differences by the decision of arbitrators, and 
appointed a council of the league, composed 
of an equal number of members chosen from 
each body. In a very short time the league 
was joined by neighbouring princes, especially 
Würtenberg and Brandenburg, and formed, as 
contra-distinguished from the knights and the 
cities, a third body, taking equal share in its 
council, submitting to the decisions of the 
arbitrators, and promising, in case of a war, to 
send the contingent agreed upon into the field. 
Here, in the very focus of the old quarrels, a 
firm and compact union of the several classes 
arose, affording a noble representation of the 
Ideas of the constitution of the empire, and of 
public order and security; though its main 
and proximate object was resistance to the 
encroachments of Bavaria. Nevertheless, 
Duke Albert held himself aloof in haughty 
defiance, while the emperor, relying on the 
league, would hear of no reconciliation till the 
pride of the Duke was humbled. At length 
resort was had to arms.' In the spring of 1492 
the troops of the league and of the empire 
assembled on the Lechfeld. Frederic of Bran- 
denburg, " whose doublet had long been hot 
: against Bavaria," carried the banner of the 
: empire ; Maximilian was there in person. At 
I this moment Albert, abandoned by his kins- 
1 men, at strife v/ith his knights, felt that he 
i could not withstand such an overwhelming 
I force; he relinquished the opposition which 
j he had hitherto maintained, consented to give 
I up Regensburg, and to abandon all claims 
j founded on the assignments made by Sigis- 
I mund. By degrees even the old emperor wag' 
I appeased, and received his son-in-law and his 
I granddaughters with cordiality. After some 
j time Albert himself found it expedient to join 
I the Sv/abian league. 

We see that the reign of Frederic III. was 
by no means so insignificant as is commonly 
believed. His latter years especially, so full 
of difficulties and reverses, were rich in great 
results. The house of Habsburg, by the ac- 
quisition of Austria and the Netherlands, had 
I acquired a high rank in Europe. A short 
campaign of Maximilian's sufficed to establish 
its claims to Hungary. || The intestine wars 

|[ The treaty of Oedenburg, 1463, July 29, had already 
secured the succession to the liouse of Austria, upon the 
extinction of the Hunniads. The new treaty, 1491, 
Nov. 7, the Monday after the feast of St. Leonard, re- 
newed this right in case of failure of male issue froia 
Wladislas. 



52 



DIET OF WORMS, 1495. 



Book I. 



of Germany were almost entirely suppressed. I 
The Svvabian league gave to the house of 
Austria a legitimate influence over Germany, 
such as it had not possessed since the time of 
Albert I. The diets had acquired a regular 
form, the Public Peace was established and 
tolerably secured, and important steps were 
taken towards the formation of a general con- 
stitution. What form and character this should 
assume, mainly depended on the conduct of 
Maximilian, on whom, at the death of his 
father (August 19, 1493), the administration 
of the empire now devolved. 

DIET OF WORMS, 1495. 

Ideas had long been universally current, and 
schemes suggested, pregnant with far more 
extensive and important consequences than any 
we have yet contemplated. 

Among the most remarkable were those put 
forth by Nicholas von Kus, whose capacious 
and prophetic mind was a storehouse of new 
and just views on the most various subjects. 
At the time of the council of Basle he devoted 
himself with earnest zeal and perspicacious 
judgment to the internal politics of the empire. 
He began by observing that it was impossible 
to improve the church without reforming the 
empire ; since it was impossible to sever them, 
even in thought.* He therefore urgently re- 
commends, though an ecclesiastic, the eman- 
cipation of the secular authority. He is en- 
tirely opposed to the right claimed by the 
papacy, of transferring the, empire to whom it 
will : he ascribes to the latter a mystical re- 
lation to God and Christ, absolute independ- 
ence, and even the right and the duty of taking 
part in the government of the church. He 
desires that the confusion arising from the 
jurisdiction of the spiritual and temporal courts 
be put an end to. He proposes a plan for su- j 
perior courts of justice, each provfded with j 
three assessors, chosen from the nobles, clergy, | 
and citizens respective! y,f and empowered not ! 
only to hear appeals from the inferior courts, 
but to decide the differences between the 
princes in the first instance : it was only by 
such means, he thought, that the legal prac- 
tice could be brought into greater harmony 
with the principles of natural justice. Above 
all, however, he looked to the establishment 
of yearly diets for the revival of the authority, 
unity, and strength of the empire {Reich) \ for 
he clearl}'' perceived that no such- results were 
to be expected from the power of the emperor 

* Nicolai Cusani de Concordantia Cathnlica, lib. iii. 
Schardius, Sylloge de Jurisdictione Imperiali, f. 465. 

t Lib. iii. c. xxxiii. " Pronunciet et citet quisque 
judicum secundum conditionem disceptantium peisoa- 
arutn, nobilis inter nohiles, ecclesiasticns inter eccie- 
eiasticos, pnpularis inter populäres; nulla tarnen defi- 
nitiva feratur nisi ex communi deliberatione omninm 
trium. Si vero unus ducbus dissenserit, vincat opinio 
majoris numeri." It is not to be believed that the cus- 
toms of German law also had not given rise to many 
complaints. It is here said; '-Scepe siniplices paupores 
percavillationes causidicorum extra causam ducuntur, et 
a lota causa cadunt, quoniam qui cadit a syllaha, cadit a 
causa ; ut srepe vidi par Treverensem diocesim accidere. 
ToUanturconsuetudinesqus adniittuntjuramentum con- 
tra quoscunque et cujuscunque numeri testes."— iii. c. 
38. 



(Kaiserthiim) alone. :|: Either in May or in 
September he would have a general meeting 
of the Estates held at Frankfurt, or other con- 
venient city, in order to arrange any existing 
dissensions, and to pass general laws, to which 
every prince should affix his signature and 
seal, and engage his honour to observe them. 
He strenuously contends that no ecclesiastic 
shall be exempted from their operation ; other- 
wise he would want to have a share in the 
secular power, which was to be exercised for 
the general g^ood. He goes on to remark that, 
in order seriously to maintain order and law 
and to chastise the refractory, it is necessary 
to have a standing army ; for to what end is a 
law without the penal sanction 1 He thinks 
that a part of the revenues of the numerous 
tolls granted to individuals might be kept back 
by the state, and a fund thus formed, the ap- 
plication of which should be every year de- 
termined at the diet. There would then be no 
more violence ; the bishops would devote them- 
selves to their spiritual duties; peace and 
prosperity and power would return. 

It is clear that the reforms suggested by this 
remarkable man were precisely those which it 
was the most important to put in practice; in- 
deed the ideas which are destined to agitate 
the world are always first thrown out by some 
one original and luminous mind. In the course 
of time some approach was made, even on the 
part of the authorities of the empire, to the exe- 
cution of these projects. 

Even during their opposition to Frederic III. 
in 1450 — 1460, the Electors were of opinion 
that the most salutary measure for the empire 
would be, when they were with the emperor in 
person — for example, in an imperial city, — to 
form a sort of consistory around him, like that 
of the cardinals around the pope, and from this 
central point to take the government of the em- 
pire into their own hands, and to provide for 
the preservation of public order. It was their 
notion that a permanent court of justice should 
be established, like that of the parliament of 
Paris, whose judgments should be executed by 
certain temporal princes in the several circles 
of the empire; the ban should be pronounced 
by the emperor according to justice and con- 
science, and should then be duly executed and 
obeyed. § 

Similar suggestions appeared from time to 
time. In the archives of Dresden there is a 
report of a consultation of the year 1491, in 



X This is one passage among many in which the want 
of two words corresponding to Reich and Kaiserthum, 
both Englished by empire, is grievously felt : Reich, and 
its numerous derivatives and compounds, Reichstag, 
Reichsabschied, &c., always relate to the great Germanic 
bodv called the Empire. Kaiserlhum, to the office and 
state of Kaiser, relates to the personal dignity, power, 
functions, &c., of (he individual occujjying the imperial 
throne. As it is impossible every time these words occur 
to resort to a long paraphrase, the meaning is often lost 
or obscured. Reich is also applied to a monarchical 
state, and then stands in a like relation to Konigthum 
(the kinglv office or state) ; somewhat as reabn does to 
roi/alty. "''The title of a former section presents a diffi- 
cu'ltv of a somewhat similar nature,— it is, Papsthum 
andFurstenlhuni-^Popedom and Princedom ; for the for- 
mer we have Papacy ; for the latter abstraction, nothing. 
— Transl. 

§ Final Edict of the spiritual Electors. See j). 58. n. 1. 



Book I. 



DIET OF WORMS, 1495. 



53 



which dissatisfaction is expressed with the 
plan of a supreme court of justice, and a scheme 
of a general government and military constitu- 
tion for the whole empire, not unlike that of 
Nicholas von Kus, is proposed ; an annual diet 
for the more important business of the general 
government, and a military force, ready for ser- 
vice at a moment's notice, proportioned to the 
six circles into which it was proposed to divide 
the empire, and under twelve captains or chiefs. 

With the accession of a young and intelli- 
gent prince, a tendency to improvement and a 
leaning tov/ards innovation took the place of 
the invincible apathy of the old emperor; and 
these dispositions, both in the chief of the em- 
pire and the Estates, were strengthened by 
other circumstances attending the new reign. 

Maximilian had received some offences of an 
entirely personal nature from the King of 
France. According to the terms of a treaty of 
peace, that prince was to marry Maximilian's 
daughter, and, till she reached years of matu- 
rity, she was confided to French guardianship : 
Charles now sent her back. On the other 
hand, Maximiilian was betrothed to the princess 
and heiress of Bretagne, an alliance on which 
the people of Germany founded various plans 
reaching far into the future, and hoped to draw 
that province under the same institutions as 
they intended to give to the empire. Charles 
yill., however, got the young princess into liis 
power by violence, and forced her to acbept his 
hand.* The rights of the empire were imme- 
diately affected by these hostile acts. AVhilst 
Maximilian was preparing to go to Rome to 
be crowned, and cherished the hope of resto- 
ring the imperial dignity and consideration in 
Italy, the French, anticipating him, crossed the 
Alps, marched unchecked through the Penin- 
sula from north to south, and conquered Naples. 
We cannot affirm that Charles YIII. had any 
positive design of seizing the imperial crown ; 
but it is undeniable that a power, §uch as he 
acquired throughout Italy by the nature and 
the success of his enterprise, was calculated to 
oppose a direct obstacle to the revival of the 
authority of the German empire. 

Irritated by such reiterated wrongs, and 
deeply impressed with the necessity of making 
a stand against French aggression ; availing 
himself of his incontestable right to demand 
succours from the States for his journey to 
Rome ; urged likewise by his Italian allies, 
Maximilian now appeared at Worms, and on 
the 2Gth March opened his diet with a descrip- 
tion of the political state of Europe. " If we 
continue," exclaimed he, " to look on passively 
at the proceedings of the French, the holy 
Roman Empire will be wrested from the Ger- 
man nation, and no man will be secure of his 

* The old emperor says in liis proclamation of the 4th 
of June, 1492, "Rather would we depart in peace and 
blessedness from this world, than suffer so unchristiun- 
like and foul a deed to remain unpunished, and the Holy 
Empire and German people to put up with this scanda- 
lous and irreparable injury under our rule." "Wir — 
lieber von dieser Welt seliglich scheiden, dann einen sol- 
chen unkristlichen snoden Handel ungestrafft beleiben 
■und das heil Reich und deutsche Nation in diesen lester- 
lichen und unwiederpringlichen Vall bei unserer Regie- 
rung wachsen lassen wollen." 



honour, his dignity, or his liberties." He 
wished to invoke the whole might and energy 
of the empire to take part in this struggle, in- 
dependent of a hasty levy to keep alive the 
resistance of Italy, he likewise demanded a 
permanent military establishment for the next 
ten or twelve years, in order that he might be 
able to defend himself, " whenever an attack 
was -attempted against the Holy Empire." He 
pressed for it with impetuous earnestness; he 
was in a position in which the interests of the 
public were identical with his own. 

The Estates also, which had assembled in 
unusual numbers, were full}^ impressed with 
the necessity of resisting the French. But in 
the first place, they regarded affairs with more 
coolness than the young emperor ; and, second- 
ly, they deemed the accession of a new sove- 
reign who had already pledged himself to them 
and was now in need of considerable assist- 
ance, a moment well adapted for the prosecu- 
tion of their schemes of reform and the intro- 
duction of order into their internal affairs. 
They met the warlike demands of the king 
with one of the most comprehensive schemes 
ever drawn up for the constitution of the em- 
pire. 

They too assumed the necessity of a strong 
military organization, but they found the feu- 
dal system, now in its decline, no longer avail- 
able ; they deem.ed it better to impose a gene- 
ral tax, called the Common Penny. This tax 
was to be levied not according to the territorial 
extent, but the population of the several parts 
o£ the empire. The application of it was not 
to devolve on the king, but to be entrusted to 
a council of the empire composed of members 
of the States, the cities included. This coun- 
cil was to be invested with large general pow- 
ers. It was to execute the laws, to put down 
rebellion and tumult; to provide for the rein- 
tegration of any domains that had been sub- 
tracted from the empire ; to conduct the defen- 
sive war against the Turks and other enemies 
of the Holy Empire and of the German na- 
tion; in short, it is evident that it v."as to have 
the sum of the powers of government in its 
hands ;f and certainly a large share of inde- 
pendence was to be awarded to it for that pur- 
pose. The weightiest affairs it was bound to 
lay before the king and the electors, subject to 
the revision of the latter ; but in all other re- 
spects the members were to be freed from the 
oath whereby they were hound to the king and 
the Estates, and act only in conformity with 
the duties of their office. :f 

The ideas by which this project was dictated 
show a very strong public spirit ; for it was 



t See the first schense which the elector of Mainz com- 
municated first to the kiiiir. and then to the cities. Pro- 
tocol ill Datt, de Pace Pub. p. 630. The protocol is the 
same with that found in the Frankfurt Acts, vol. xv. 

J: The latter is a provision of thelartrer draft, p. 838, nr. 
17. '• Sollen dieselben President und Personen des vorge- 
nieldten Rathes aller Geliibd und Aide — damit sie uns 
oder inen (denen von welchen sie gesetzt u'orden) ver- 
bur^len oder verstrickt wären, genfzlich ledig seyn." 
"The same president and persons of the before men- 
tioned council shall be wholly freed from all promise and 
oath, having the effect of binding them to, or connecting 
them with, us or them" (those by whom they had been 
appointed). 



54 



DIET OF WORMS, 1495. 



Book I. 



by no means the king alone whose poyi^er was 
limited. The general interests of the country- 
were represented in a manner which would 
admit of no division or exclusion. How utter- 
ly, for example, is the idea of a general tax, 
to be collected by the parish priest, and deliv- 
ered under his responsibility to the bishop, at 
variance with any further augmentation of the 
inÜuence of the territorial lords ! Which among 
the'ui would have been strong enough to resist 
a central national power, such as this must 
have become"? 

Tiie first result, however, would have beqn 
that the power of the monarch — not indeed that 
which he exercised in the usual troubled state 
of things, but that which he claimed for bet- 
ter times — would have been limited. 

It remained now to be seen what he would 
say to this project. The fiefs which he granted 
out, the knightly festivities devised in his 
honour, or given by him in return, the mani- 
fold disputes between German princes which 
he had to accommodate, occupied him fully. 
It was not till the 2'2d of June that he gave 
his answer, v/hich he published as an amend- 
ment of the project. On closer examination, 
however, its effect was in fact entirely to an- 
nul it. He had said at the beginning that he 
would accept the project with reservation of 
his sovereign prerogatives ; novv^, he declared 
that he thought these assailed in every clause. 
I will give an example of the alterations he 
made. According to the project, the council 
of the empire was charged t(^ sec that no new 
tolls were erected without' the previous know- 
ledge of the electors; a precaution suggested 
by the tolls continually granted by Frederic 
and Maximilian. The clause, in its altered 
state, set forth that the council of the empire 
should itself take care to erect no toll without 
the previous knowledge of the king. 

Strange that such a complete reversal of an 
original scheme should be announced as an 
amendment! but such were the manners, such 
the courtesy of that time. The opposition in 
temper and opinion was not the less violent on 
that account. A visible irritation and ill- 
humour prevailed at the diet. The king one 
day summoned to his presence the princes on 
whose friendship he could most confidently 
rely, — Albert of Saxony, Frederic of Branden- 
burg, and Eberhard of Würtenberg, to consult 
them on the means of maintaining his sove- 
reign dignity,* 

So directly opposed were the views of the 
monarch and those of the States at the very 
commencement of this reign. Both parties, 
however, made the discovery that they could 
not attain their ends in the way they had pro- 
posed to themselves. Maximilian clearly per- 
ceived that he should obtain no subsidies 
without concessions. The States saw that, at 
present at least, they would not be able to 
carry through their scheme of a general gov- 
ernment.-j- While trying, however, to hit upon 



some middle course, they came back to experi- 
ments attempted under Frederic III. 

In the first place, they settled the basis of 
that Public Peace which has rendered this diet 
so celebrated. On a more accurate examina- 
tion, we find indeed that it is in detail rather 
less pacific than the former ones ; as, for ex- 
ample, it restores a right, lately abrogated, of 
the injured party to make forcible seizure of a 
mortgaged estate; the only advantage was, 
that this peace was proclaimed, not as before 
for a term of years, but for ever. By this act 
the law, in fact, ceased to contemplate the pos- 
sibility of any return to the old fist law 
(Faustrecht). 

The question of the Imperial Chamber 
(Kammergericht), or supreme court of justice 
for the empire, was next discussed. Maxi- 
milian had hitherto treated this tribunal ex- 
actly as his father had done : he made it fol- 
low his court; in 1493 it accompanied him to 
Regensburg, in 1494 to Mechlin and Antwerp, 
in 1495 to Worms. We have, however, seen 
that he was bound by the concessions he made 
in 1489 to reform the administration of justice. 
When, therefore, the proposals formerly laid 
before his father were submitted to him, he felt 
himself compelled to accept them. Under 
what pretext, indeed, could he have rejected 
an institution, the establishment of which he 
had so solemnly undertaken to promote with 
all his might] This, however, was one of the 
most important events in the history of the 
empire. Maximilian gave his assent to the 
maxim that the statute lav/ should have force 
in the supreme court, and that no more than 
the regular fees should be exacted ; above all, 
he ceded to the judge the office of proclaiming, 
the ban of the empire in his name ; nay, he 
bound himself not to remove the ban when 
pronounced, without the consent of the injured 
party. When we reflect that the judicial 
power was the highest attribute of the impe- 
rial crown, we feel all the importance of this 
step. Nor was it only that the supreme court 
of .the empire was secured from the arbitrary 
interference which had hitherto been so inju- 
rious to it — its ofl[ices were also appointed by 
the Estates. The king nominated only the 
president (Kammerrichter) ; the assessors v/ere 
appointed by the Estates ; and the cities, to 
their great joy, were invited to propose certain 
candidates for that office : a committee was 
then appointed to examine and decide on the 
presentations.:}: Later jurists have disputed 
whether the court derived its penal sanction 



* Notice in the Archives of Berlin, which contains, 
however, only fragmentary remarks upon this imperial 
diet. 

t Later Declaration of the Elector Berthold of Mainz 



in Datt, p. 871. " Dariif wäre erst fürgenommen ain 
Ordnung im Reich aufzurichten und Sr. ko. Mt. furge- 
halten, darab S. M. etwas Beswtrung und Missfallens 
gehabt, hetten die Stende davon gestanden." "There- 
upon it was first determi ned to establish a regular govern- 
ment in the empire and submitted to his Royal Majesty, 
so that if H. M. had any objection or dislike to it, the 
States would have desisted from it." Whether Müller, 
Rtth. unter M. (i. 329), be right in maintaining that a 
second scheme of a similar kind had also been presented, 
whereupon Maximilian had offered to appoint, instead 
of the imperial council, a court council, I must leave un- 
determined. It would, in fact, have been but another 
evasive proposition. 

X Notice from a document of later date in Harpprecht, 
Staats-archiv, des Reichskaramergerichts, ii. p. 249. 



Book I. 



DIET OF WORMS. 1495. 



55 



solely from the emperor, or from the emperor 
and the princes : but thus much is certain, that 
it changed its whole chara(tter ; and from a 
simply monarchical institution, became de- 
pendent on the whole body of the States. It 
followed, of course, that it was no longer an 
appendage to the court and a companion of the 
emperor's travels ; but held its stated sittings 
in one fixed spot in the empire. 

This great concession was met by the States 
•with a grant of the Common Pcüny, on the 
produce of which they allowed tlie king-, who 
seemed intensely desirous of it on accuunt of 
the state of his aflairs in Italy, to raise a loan. 
The tax itself is a combination of poll-tax and 
property-tax, not ver}:^ different from that for- 
merly levied by the kings of Jerusalem, and 
also occasionally proposed in Germany ; for 
example, in the year 1207, by King Philip. 
In the fifteenth century, frequent mention of 
such taxes is made as being applied sonietimes 
to the maintenance of the Hus&ite, sonietii'jes 
of the Turkish war. The Common Penny 
was levied on the following plan: — Plalf a 
gulden was levied on every five hundred, a 
whole one on every thousand, gulden ; among 
persons of small means, every four-and-twenty 
above fifteen years of age, v.ithout exception, 
men and women, priests and layn^ien, wtre to 
contribute one gulden; the more woalth5Mvere 
to p^iy according to their own estijnate of their 
property. The idea of taxation was still in 
some degree mixed up with that of alms;* 
the priests v/ere to admonish the people from 
the pulpit to give something more than what 
was demanded. The whole plan v.-as still 
extremely imperfect. Its importance consisted 
only in its being (as the whole course of -the 
transaction proved) a serious attempt at a ge- 
neral systematic taxation of the empire, des- 
tined for purposes both of peace and war, for 
1,he maintenance of the supreme court of jus- 
tice, the payment of the Italian allies, and the 
equipment of an army against the Turks. 

It was in accordance with this character of 
a general tax that the choice of the treasurer 
of the empire, w^hose oflice it was to receive 
the money from the commissioners or collect- 
ors stationed in all parts of the country, was 
also entrusted to the States. Maximilian en- 
gaged to levy the Common Penny in the Aus- 
trian and Burgundian dominions upon the same 
plan, and to set the example herein to all other 
sovereigns. 

But if the collection of the money could not 
safely be entrusted to the king, still less could 
its application. After the proposal for a coun- 
cil of the empire had been suffered to drop, the 
idea of a yearly meeting of the Estates of the 
empire for the purpose of controlling the pub- 
lic expenditure, first suggested by Nicholas 
von Kus, and then proposed in the project of 
1491, was revived. This assembly was to 
meet every year on the first of February, to 
deliberate on the most important affairs, inter- 
nal and external. To this body the treasurer 



* So the taxes levied by the contemporary King of 
England, Henry VIII., were called " benevol^ncesl" — 
Transl. 



of the empire was to deliver the money he had 
received from the taxes ; and in it v.'as to be 
vested :the exclusive power of deciding on the 
a)ipli<'aiicn of the same: neither ihe king nor 
his son V. vis to declare war without its consent ; 
every conquest was to accrue to the empire.j 
To this bodv was also committed a peremptory 
authorit}'' for the maintenance of the Public 
Peace. The question was, when this tribunal 
(thus rendered independent of the crown and 
emanating from the Estates) should have pro- 
nounced the ban, to whom the execution of it 
was to be entrusted. The king of the Romans 
wished that it should be left to liira. The 
States, true to the principle on which their 
legislation was founded, committed it to the 
annual assembly of the empire. 

It is obvious that the States, though they 
gave up their original plan, kept constantly in 
view the idea on w^hich it was founded. In 
the conflict of the interests of the monarch and 
those of the States, the balance clearly inclin- 
ed in favour of the latter. Maximilian had 
cause to complain that he was made to feel 
this personally ; that he had been forced to 
withdravv% and to wait before the door, till the 
resolution was passed. He w^as often inclined 
to dissolve the diet; and it, was only the w^ant 
of a fresh subsidy (which he then obtained) 
that restrained him.:^ On the Tth of August, 
he accepted the project in the form last given 
to it. 

There is a grand coherency in its provisions. 
All Germans are once more seriously and prac- 
tically regarded as subjects of the empire ; and 
the public burthens and public exertions were 
to be common to all. If the States thus lost 
something of their independence, they received 
in comipensation (according to their ancient 
organization and their respective ranks) a legiti- 
mate share in the supreme administration of jus- 
tice, as well as of the government. The king 
submitted himself to the same ordinances, and 
to' the same community. He retained undimin- 
ished the supreme dignity, the prerogatives of 
a sovereign feudal lord ; but in the conduct of 
public business, he was to be regarded only as 
president of the college of the Estates of the 
empire. The constitution proposed was a mix- 
ture of monarchical and federal government, 
but with an obvious preponderance of the lat- 
ter element; a political union, preserving the 
forms of the ancient hierarchy of the empire. 
The question whether these projects could be 
carried into execution, was now of the highest 
importance to the whole future destiny of Ger- 
many. 



t Maintenance of Peace and Law established at Worms. 
Müller, Rtlh. Max. i. p. 454. 

J This second «rant amounted to 150.000 jrnlden. " Da- 
mit S. Könipl. Giiad unserm h. Vater Papist und Italien, 
bis der fiemein Pfennig einbracht werde, dester stattlicher 
Hülfe than möchte." " In order that his Royal Grace 
may be .=:o much the more able to give more liberal help 
to our holy father tlie pope and Italy, until the common 
penny be collected." To collect the loan, the king des- 
patched emissaries to single states : e. g. Prince Magnus 
of Anhalt and Dr. Heinrich Friese to tlse following; the 
Abbot of Fulda, contributing 300 uulden ; the two Counts 
of Hanau, 500; the Count of Eisenberg, 300; the city of 
Freiberg, 400 ; and the city of Frankfort, 2,100. InstruB 
lion in Comm. Archiv, at Dessau. 



5C 



DIET OF LINDAU, 1496. 



Book I. 



Resolutions of so comprehensive a kind can 
be regarded as views only ; — as ideas, to which 
an assembly has expressed its assent, but to 
the execution of which there is a long way yet 
to be traversed. It is the ground-plan of a 
building which is intended to be built; but 
the question remains whether the power and 
the means will correspond with the intention. 



DIFFICULTIES. DIET OF LINDAU, i 



496. 



A GREAT obstacle to the execution of the re- 
solutions of the diet occurred at once in the 
defective nature of its composition. A large 
number of powerful Estates had not been pre- 
sent, and as the obligatory force of the resolu- 
tions of an assembly upon those not present 
was as yet far from being determined, it was 
necessary to open separate negotiations with 
the absent. Among others, the Elector of Co- 
logne v/as commissioned to negotiate with the 
bishops in his neighbourhood, tFiose of Utrecht, 
Münster, Osnabrück, Paderborn, and Bremen ; 
the Elector of Saxony with Lüneburg, Gruben- 
hagen, and Denmark ; and it was by no means 
certain what w^ould be their success. Here 
again we find the possibility that some one 
might not choose to be included in, or to con- 
sent to, the Public Peace, assumed.* 

A still more important organic defect was, 
that the knightly order had taken no part in the 
diet. It is manifest that the mighty develop- 
ment which a government composed of differ- 
ent estates {eine ständische Verfassung) had 
reached in England, mainly rests on the union 
of the lower nobility and the cities in the 
House of Commons. In Germany it was not 
the ancient usage to summon the nobility to the 
diet. The consequence of this was, that the 
nobles refused to conform to the resolutions 
passed at it, especially when (as in the present 
case) these related to a tax. The Franconian 
knights assembled in December at Schwein- 
furt, and declared that they were free Franco- 
nians, nobles of the empire, bound to shed 
their blood, and in every war to guard the em- 
peror's crown and sceptre at the head of all 
their youth capable of bearing arms ; but not 
to pay taxes, which was contrary to their liber- 
ties, and would be an unheard of innovation. 
This declaration had the assent of all their 
compeers. Unions of the same kind were 
formed in the several circles. f 

We observed how^ much stress was laid at 
an earlier period on the spiritual authorisation. 
The consequence of the want of it now was 
that the abbots of the empire refused to recog- 
nise the authority of so purely secular a tribu- 
nal as the Imperial Chamber. 

There were yet other Estates whose obedi- 
ence was very doubtful. The Duke of Lor- 
raine declared that, beyond the jurisdiction of 
his own tribunals, he was amenable to no 
other authority than that of the king in person. 
The Swiss confederates did not indeed as yet 
dispute the sovereignty or the jurisdiction of 

* Recess and ordinances in Müller, 459. 
t Müller, Rtth. 688, 689. 



the empire, but at the first exercise of it they 
were offended and irritated into resistance. 
The king of Poland declared that Dantzig and 
El1)ing were Polish cities, and rejected all 
claims made upon them on the part of the em- 
pire. As the first effect of a vigorous medicine 
is to set the whole frame in agitation, so the 
attempts to organise the Germanic body had 
the immediate result of calling into activity 
the hostile principles hitherto in a state of 
repose. 

But if so strong an element of resistance ex- 
isted on the side of the States, to whom the 
resolutions were clearly advantageous, what 
vv'as to be expected from the king, whose power 
they controlled, and on whom ihey had been 
forced 1 In contriving the means for their exe- 
cution, every thing had been calculated on his 
sympathy and co-operation ; w^hereas he inces- 
santly showed that he set about the task with 
repugnance. 

He certainly organised the Imperial Chamber 
according to its new forms. It held its first 
sittings at the Grossbraunfels at Frankfurt-on- 
Main,^ on the 3d of November. On the 2 1st 
of Februar}'- it exercised its right of pronouncing 
the ban for the first time : the judge and his 
assessors, doctors and nobles, appeared in the 
open air; the proclamation of the ban, by 
which the condemned was deprived of the pro- 
tection of the law,§ and all and every man per- 
mitted to attack his body and goods, was pub- 
licly read and torn in pieces. Yet the king 
was far from allowing the court of justice to 
take its free course. On more than one occa- 
sion he commanded it to stop the proceedings 
in a cause ; he would not suffer his fiscal, when 
judgment was given against him, to pay the 
usual fine of the defeated party: he sent an as- 
sessor from the Netherlands whom his col- 
league refused to admit, because he had not 
been regularly appointed ; he made no provi- 
sion for the pay of the assessors as he was 
bound at first to do: after appointing Count 
Eitel fried rick of Zollern, against the will of 
the States, who preferred another,l| he very 
soon removed him, because he wanted him for 
other business. Nor did he take any measures 
for collecting the Common Penny in his own 
dominions, as he had promised. The meeting 
had been, as we saw, fixed for the 1st of Feb- 

X Excerpta ex Collectaneis Jobi de Rorbacli; H^rp- 
precht, ii. 210. In the Fraiikfiut Imp. Archiveg, a letter 
is still extant from Arnold SchwartzenL-cHrsr to the council 
of Frankfurt, dated on tlie Friday after the Feast of the 
Assumption (Au?. 21): " Item uf Samstag IJ L F. Abend 
hat Graf Wüii von Wernherp- nacli mir gescliickt, und 
vorgehalten, das Kammerffericht werde gelegt gen Frank- 
furt, wo man ein Iluss dazu bekonnnen mocht und ein 
Stuben daneben zum Gfspreche." " Also upon the even- 
ing of Saturday, the feast of Our Blessed Lady, Count 
Hugh of VVernberg sent to me and represented, that the 
Imperial Chamber was transferred to Frankfurt, where it 
might be possible to get a house, and a room close to it 
for conferences." The price of meat and fish was to be 
determined, and the citizens were to be admonished to 
behave in a seemly and discreet manner ("zimlich glimp- 
flich") towards the members, 

§ " Ans dem Frieden in den Unfrieden gesetzt"-^ lite- 
rally, put out of the peace into unpeace.— Transl. 

II To the Prince Magnus of Anhalt, he says in one of 
his own notes, " Conventus me elcgerunt, sed revocavit 
rex." 



Book I. 



DIET OF LINDAU, 1496. 



57 



ruary, but he did not appear, and consequently 
it did not take place.* 

It is a matter of astanishment that the repu- 
tation of founder of the constitution of the em- 
pire has so long and so universally been given 
to a sovereign, on whom the measures tending 
to that object were absolutely forced, and who 
did far more to obstruct than to promote their 
execution. 

There is no doubt that all attempts at reform 
would have been utterly defeated, had not the 
king's designs been counteracted by a prince 
who had embraced most of the opinions on 
which ii was founded ; who had been the chief 
agent in bringing it thus far, and was not in- 
clined now to let it drop — Berthold, Elector of 
Mainz, born Count of Henneberg. j- Even 
under Frederic III., whose service he entered 
at an early age, he had taken an active share 
in all attempts to introduce better order into the 
affairs of the empire. In 1486, he became 
Elector of Mainz, and from that time might be 
regarded as the most eminent member of the 
States. There are men, whose whole existence 
is merged in their studies or their business : 
there we must seek them if we wish to know 
them; their purely personal qualities or history 
attract no attention. To this class of men be- 
longed Berthold of Mainz. Nobody, so far as 
I have been able to discover, has thought it 
worth while to give to posterity a description 
of his personal appearance or characteristics : 
but we see him distinctly and vividly in the 
administration of his diocese. At iirst people 
feared his severity ; for his administration of 
justice was as inexorable as it was impartial, 
and his economy was rigorous ; but in a short 
time every body was convinced that his austere 
demeanour was not the result of temper or of 
(Xiprice, but of profound necessity : it was tem- 
pered by genuine benevolence ; he lent a ready 
ear to the complaints of the poorest and the 
meanest. ± He was peculiarly active in the 
affairs of the empire. He was one of the vene- 
rable men of that age, who earnestly strove, to 
give to ancient institutions which had lost their 
original spirit and their connection with higher 
things, the new form adapted to the necessities 
of the times. He had already conducted the 
negociations of i486; he next procured for the 
towns the right of sitting in the committees ; 
it was mainly to him that Germany owed the 
promises made by Maximilian in the year 
1489, and the projects of Worms were chiefly 
his work. In every circumstance he evinced 
that serene and manly spirit, which, while it 
keeps its end steadily in view, is not self-willed 
as to the means or manner of accomplishing it, 
or pertinacious on merely incidental points ; he 
was wearied or discouraged by no obstacles, 
and a stranger to any personal views : if ever 

* In the 'Frankfurt Archives, we meet with several 
letters from Jülich, Colin, Mainz, &c., bespeaking a 
lodging, but also a letter dated from Frankfurt itself on 
the Saturday after Invocavit, to the eflect that no one 
had as yet appeared. 

t Of the Romhilde line, born in 1442. Diplomatische 
Geschichte des Hauses Henneberg, p. 377. 

I Serarius, Res MoguntinoB, p. 799. 



a man bore his country in his inmost heart, it 
was he. 

In the summer of 149G, at Ihe diet of Lindau, 
this prince acquired a degree of independent 
power such as he had not enjoyed before. 

In the midst of the troubles of that summer, 
Maximilian thought he discerned the favoura- 
ble moment in which he needed only to show 
himself in Italy, in order, with the help of his 
allies there, to re-establish the supremacy of 
the imperial power. He summoned the States 
to repair to Lindau, whither they were to bring 
the amount of the Common Penny, together 
wüth as many troops as it would suffice to pa}^, 
and whence they were immediately to follow 
him ; at the same time declaring that he would 
not wait for them, but must cross the Alps 
without delay with what force God had given 
him. 

While he put this in execution, and, equip- 
ped rather as for some romantic enterprise of 
knight-errantry than for a serious expedition, 
rushed on to Italy, the States of the empire 
gradually assembled in Lindau. They brought 
neither troops, money, nor arms ; their atten- 
tion was directed exclusively to internal af- 
fairs. How greatly in acting thus, they relied 
on Elector Berthold, is shown (among other 
documents) by the instructions to the ambas- 
sador of Brandenburg, ordering him implicitly 
to follow the course pursued by that prince. § 

On the 31st of August, 1496, the princes, as 
many as were assembled, embarked in boats 
and fetched the king's son, Archduke Philip 
of Bregenz, across the river ; on the 7th of 
September, the first sitting was held. The 
Elector of Mainz took his place in the centre, 
on his right sat the princes, the archduke, for 
the first time, amongst them ; on his left, the 
ambassadors or delegates of those who did not 
appear in person ; in front of him stood the 
deputies of the cities. In the middle was a 
bench for the king's councillors, Conrad Stur- 
ze! and Walter von Andlo. 

The Elector conducted the proceedings with 
unquestioned authority. If he absented him- 
self, which was never but for a short time, 
they were stopped ; when he returned, he was 
the chief speaker, whether in the assembly or 
the committee; he brought forward the pro- 
positions, demanded the grants, and found 
m.eans to keep the plenipotentiaries stead 3^ to 
them. He did not conceal the grief he felt at 
seeing the empire in such a state of decline. 
" Even in the time of Charles IV. and Sigis- 
mund," exclaimed he, "the sovereignty of the 
empire was acknowledged in Italy, which is 
now no longer the case. The king of Bohe- 
mia is an elector of the empire, and what does 

§ In theBerlin Archives there is a Convolute concerning 
this Diet of the Empire, which, along with the Instruc- 
tion, contains 1st, the letters received up to the time of 
the arrival of the deputies, and the propositions made by 
the foreign deputies: 2d, the protocol of the proceedinjrs 
on the Friday after the feast of St. Dionysius, Oct. 14. 
What is especially remarkable in this protocol, is, that 
the most distinguished of the plenipotentiaries, Erasmus 
Brandenburg, parish priest of Cotbus, was'a member of 
the committee, and is the reporter of its transactions. 
The greater part is in his handwriting. 



58 



DIET OF LINDAU, 1496. 



Book I. 



he do for the empire 1 has he not even wrested 
Moravia and Silesia from it 1 Prussia and 
Livonia are liable to incessant attacks and op- 
pression, and no one troubles bimself about 
them ; nay, even the little which remains to 
the empire is daily wrested from it, and given 
to one or the other. The ordinances of Worms 
were made to preserve the empire from decay ; 
but the union and mutual confidence which 
alone could sustain it are wanting. Whence 
comes it that the confederation enjoys such 
universal respect'? that it is feared by Italians 
and French, by the pope, nay, by every body 1 
The only reason is, that it is united and of one 
mind. Germany ought to follow the example. 
The ordinances of Worms should be revived, 
not to prate about, but to execute them."* 

Berthold's was that powerful eloquence 
Avhich is the expression of convictions founded 
on actual experience. The committee resolved 
to look into the matter, and to see that the 
em.pire was better ordered. On the motion of 
the' Brandenburg ambassador, the members 
examined their credentials, and found that 
they were sufficient for that purpose. Such 
being the dispositions of the States, affairs 
now took a decisive turn. 

The Imperial Chamber, which had closed 
its sittings in June, was induced to open them 
again in November. It was determined to ap- 
propriate the tax which was to be levied on 
the Jews in Regensburg, Nürnberg, "Worms, 
and Frankfurt, to the payment of the assessors. 
The Elector insisted that the sentences of the 
court should be executed, that no sovereign 
should recal his assessor, and that the cities 
should have justice against the princes. It 
was resolved to transfer the chamber to Worms : 
the reason assigned for which was, that it was 
easier from thence to reach the four universities 
of Heidelberg, Basle, Mainz, and Cologne, 
whenever it was necessary "to ask the law." 

On the 23d of December, the edict for levy- 
ing the Common Penny was renewed in the 
most stringent form. The knights (Ritter- 
schaft) who complained of the demand made 
upon them by the king, were reminded that it 
was not the king who imposed this tax, but 
the empire ; that it was the most equal and 
the least oppressive that could be devised, and 
would be of advantage to their Order, if they 
would only get to horse and endeavour to earn 
the pay for which this fund was in part raised. 
. Another meeting of the States was appointed 
to consider of the disbursement of the Common 
Penny. 

Other points were discussed ;— the necessity 
of instant and effective succours for the at- 
tack; new regulations of the courts of justice 
and of the mint; above all, the firmest deter- 
mination was expressed to maintain unaltered 
the measures passed at Worms. Should any 
attempt be made to thwart or oppose them or 
those of the diet of Lindau, the matter was to 
be referred to the Archbishop of Mainz, who 

* These words were spoken by the Elector on the 28th 
Nov. A similar eftnsion is cited in Sclierer's extract, and 
in Fels, Erster Beitrag zur Reichsgesch. Preface, § 7. In 
these contributions is to be found the protocol of Lindau, 
contained in the Frankf. A. A. vol. xvi. 



should be authorised thereupon to convoke 
other members, in order that an answer from 
the whole body of the States might be given, 
and public order and tranquillity be defended 
by them in concert.f 

AU these resolutions the Archbishop carried 
without much difficulty. If there was occa- 
sionally some attempt at opposition on the pari 
of the envoys of the princes, those of the 
electors and of the cities always supported 
him and compelled the former to give way. 
They were, therefore, incorporated in the Re- 
cess ; the usual practice as to which was, that 
each member should first write out for himself 
the resolutions which had been passed : these 
were then compared in the assembly, a fixed 
formula was determined on, and signed by the 
whole body. 

On the 10th of February 1497, the diet of 
Lindau v/as closed. The States thanked the 
Archbishop for the trouble he had taken, and 
entreated his pardon for their negligences. 
The Elector, on the other hand, excused him- 
self for having, perhaps, sometimes addressed 
them with too great earnestness, and exhorted 
them faithfully to enforce the resolutions that 
had been passed, each in his own territory or 
sphere, that so the empire might be profited. 

DIET OF WOUMS AND FREIBURG, 1497, 1498. 

The matter was, however, but half settled ; 
the difficulties which had arisen among the 
States had been removed, but as yet no in- 
fluence had been obtained over the king, whose 
co-operation and executive power were indis- 
pensable. 

Maximilian's romantic enterprise had ended 
as was to be expected : the same excitable 
fancy which had flattered him with exaggerat- 
ed hopes, had prevented him from perceiving 
the true state of affairs. After a short time the 
allies, w^hose assistance was all he had to rely 
on, had quarrelled among themselves ; he had 
returned to Germany filled with shame, dis- 
gust and vexation. Here he found' the finances 
of his hereditary domains exhausted and in the 
utmost disorder ; the empire in an attitude of 
defiance and sullen reserve, and disastrous 
tidings following each other in quick succes- 
sion." When Louis Xll. ascended the throne 
in 1498, Maximilian hoped that troubles would 
arise in France, and that his allies would sup- 
port him in a fresh attack upon that power. 
The very contrary took place : Louis, by pa- 
cific and prudent measures, won from his sub- 
jects a degree of consideration such as no king 
had ever before possessed ; the Italian league 
endeavoured to bring about an accommodation 
with him : but the most unexpected thing was, 
that Maximilian's own son. Archduke Philip, 
instigated by his Netherland councillors, with- 



t In order to avoid the appearance of a conspiracy, 
it iiad been previously resolved, "Die Handhabung, zu 
Worms vorsi^folt, vorzunehmen und aus d'ersell)en ain 
Grund und Einung und Verstendniss zu nehmen und,was 
des zu wenig seyn will zu erweitern." "To take the 
declaration sealed at Worms, and from it to construct a 
croundwork, union, and agreement, and in those respects 
where it may coine short, to enlarge iV— Brandenburg 
Protocol. • 



Book I. 



DIET OF WORMS AND FREIBURG, 1497-8. 



59 



out consulting' his father entered into a treaty 
with France, in which he promised not to 
agitate any of his claims on Burgundy so long 
as Louis XII. lived, and never to attempt to 
enforce them by arms, or otherwise than by 
amicable and legal means. The only con- 
sideration in return for this vast concession 
was the surrender of a few strong places. 
Maximilian learned this when he had already 
begun his preparations for war; in June 1498, 
in a state of the most violent irritation, he 
summoned the assembly of the empire which 
he could no longer do without. 

The assembly had opened its sittings, as had 
been determined, in Worms,* but had trans- 
ferred them at the king's request to Freiburg. 
Although, in consequence of the proceedings 
at Lindau, affairs were in a much better state 
than before, — the Common Penny began to be 
really collected, the Imperial Chamber at 
Worms held its regular sittings for the admin- 
istration of justice, and the diet itself exercised 
an uncontested jurisdiction as between the sev- 
eral Estates, in the more vs^eighty and difficult 
cases ; yet it was daily felt that so long as the 
king remained in the equivocal and half hostile 
attitude he had assumed, nothing permanent 
would be accomplished. Before the very eyes 
of the assembled States, Elector John of Treves, 
with the help of his secular neighbours, Baden, 
the Palatinate, Hessen and Juliers, invaded tlie 
town of Boppard, and forced it to submit and 
to do homage to him. The Swiss resisted a 
sentence of the Imperial Chamber against St. 
Gall, held the most insolent language, and 
were very near issuing formal diffidations. 
The States pointed out to the king, in remon- 
strances incessantly reiterated, that, without 
his presence, neither the Public Peace could be 
maintained, nor the law executed, nor the taxes 
duly collected. 

At length, on the 8th June, 1498, he arrived 
in Freiburg, but neither with the view^s, nor in 
the temper, that his subjects wished. His soul 
was galled by the failure of all his plans ;— 
deeply wounded by the defection of the Nether- 
lands, and ardently excited by the thought of a 
war.^with France; the more, I think, from a 
feeling of the difficulty, nay, impracticability 
of it. At the very first audience (38th June) 
he vented all this storm of passion upon the 
princes. He said that he did not come to ask 
their advice, for he was resolved to make war 
upon France, and he knew that they would 
dissuade him : he only wished to hear whether 
they would support him as they were bound to 
do, and as they had promised at Worms. It 
was possible that he might accomplish nothing 



* Transactions of the States of the Holy Empire at the 
Royal Diet at Worms, Fr. A. vol. xvii. We see by them, 
amongst other things, as a matter of complete certainty, 
that Maximilian did not appear at Worms. As Häber- 
lin (ßeichsgeschichte, ix. 84), however, assumes that he 
did, he must have been deceived by certain documents 
which were only laid before the Imperial Diet in the 
King's name. At Freiburg, July 3d, the Tuesday after 
the Visitation of the Holy Virgin, Maximilian made ex- 
cuses for not having appeared at Worms: " he had been 
obliged to establish an excellent government (Regiment) 
in his hereditary states," &c., " it had been commented 
on as folly in him," &c., " but now he was present." 
(Brand. Protocol.) 



decisive ; but, at any rate, he would give the 
kino- of France a slap in the face (Bj'--ken- 
streich,) sucli as should be remembered for a 
hundred years. " 1 am betrayed by the Lom- 
bards," said he, " I am abandoned by the Ger- 
mans : but I will not allow myself again to be 
bound hand and foot and hung upon a nail, as 
I did at Worms. War I must make, and I will 
make, let people say what they may. Rather 
than give it up, I would get a dispensatimi from 
the oath that I swore behind the altar at Frank- 
furt; for I have duties not only to the empire, 
but to the House of Austria : I say this, and I 
must say it, though I should be forced on that 
account to lay the crown at my feet and tram- 
ple on it." 

The princes listened to him wäth amazement. 
" Your Majesty," replied the Elector of Mainz, 
" is pleased to speak to us in parables, as Christ 
did to his disciples !" They begged him to 
bring his proposals before the assembly, wliicli 
would then proceed to deliberate upon thera.f 
Strange meeting of this monarch with this as- 
sembly ! Maximilian lived in the interests of 
his House ; in the contemplation of the great - 
political relations of Europe; in the feeling 
that he was the bearer of the highest dignity 
of Christendom, which was now in jeopardy : 
he was ambitious, warlike, and needy. The 
States, on the other hand, had their attention 
fixed on internal affairs \, v/hat they desired 
above all things was a government of order 
and law ; they were cautious, pacific, frugal : 
they wanted to check and control the king ; 
he to excite and hurry on the States. 

Nothing less than the singular prudence, 
moderation, and sense which distinguished the 
Archbishop of Mainz were necessary to pre- 
vent a total breach betvveen them. 

He conciliated the king by placing before 
his eyes the prospect of the revenue likely to 
accrue from the Common Penny. He prevail- 
ed on the assembly to offer the king immediate 
payment of the sum formerly proposed at 
Worms ; on the understanding that Maximilian 
should himself contribute to the fuller and 
more exact collection of the tax by his own 
example and assistance. This brought on a 
more distinct explanation. Every individual 
was called upon to state how much of the 
Common Penny he had collected. A slight 
review of these statements will give us an in- 
sight into the situation of the German princes 
of that day. 

Elector Berthold of Mainz has collected and 
paid in the tax; but some persons in his do- 
minions had resisted. To these he has an- 
nounced that they subjected themselves to the 
ban of the empire, from which he would not 
protect them. — Cologne and Treves have re- 
ceived only a part of their share of the tax: 
they have met with not less refractory subjects, 
who excused themselves with the delays of 
the Netherlands. — The Electors of Branden- 
burg and of Saxony have collected the greater 



t The Brandenburg protocol, our chief source of in- 
formation regarding the Diet of Freiburg, adds, the king 
spoke " with many marvellous words and gestures, so as 
to be completely obscure and incomprehensible." 



CO 



DIET OF WORMS AND FREIBURG, 1497-8. 



Book I. 



part of the tax, and are ready to pay it in ; but 
there are certain lords in Saxony of whom the 
Elector says, he can do nothing with them ; 
he does not answer for them.* — The ambassa- 
dor of the Elector Palatine, on the other hand, 
has not even instructions to give any distinct 
explanation; George of Landshut, too, gave 
only an evasive answer. Albert of Bavaria 
expressed himself better disposed, but he com- 
plained of the great number of recalcitrants he 
met with. Nor was this to be regarded as a 
pretext : the Bavarian states had, in fact, made 
great difficulties ; — they had enough to do with 
the wants of their own country ; they thought 
it strange that the empire, also, should make 
claims upon them.f The resistance in Fran- 
conia was not less vehement ; the Margraves 
of Brandenburg were forced in some cases to 
resort to distraint. — The cities, already prepar- 
ed for contributions of this kind, had a much 
easier task. Only three out of the whole num- 
ber were still in arrear — Cologne, Mühlhausen, 
and Nordhausen ; the others had paid in their 
whole contingent. 

Although the matter was, as we see, far from 
being perfectly accomplished, it was put into a 
good train, and Maximilian was highly satisfied 
with the result. He now condescended to give 
a report of what his own hereditary dominions 
had raised. From Austria, Styria, and Tyrol 
he had collected 27,000 gulden ; in the Nether- 
lands, on the contrary, great resistance had 
been made. " Some," says the king's report, 
" those of the Welsch (i. e. foreign, not Ger- 
man) sort, said they were not under the empire. 
Those who hold to the German nation, on the 
other hand, declared that they would wait and 
see what their neighbours on the Rhine did." 

Unfortunately it is impossible, from the re- 
ports before us, to arrive at any statistical re- 
sults. The payments were too unequal, and 
the accounts are generally wanting. 

It was, however, for the moment a great 
point gained, that the States could either pa,y 
the king the money he required immediately, 
or at least promised it with certainty. He was 
thus induced, on his side, to devote his atten- 
tion and interest to the affairs of the empire. 

The Public Peace was guarded with fresh 
severe clauses, especially against the abettors 
of the breakers of it. The president of the Im^- 
perial Chamber was empowered, in peculiarly 
weighty and dangerous cases, to call together 
princes of the empire at his own discretion, and 
to require their help. A former proposition of 
the Imperial Chamber, viz. to confer the right 
of representation on the heir, was at length 
carried, in spite of the objection that a third 
part of the nation held to the rules of the Sach- 
senspiegel (Mirror of Saxony), which were at 
direct variance with that right.it^ A regular 

* In the Instruction of the Elector of Brandenburg it 
was further said, " Scarcely half of the Common Penny 
had been got in, on account of the great mortality. His 
electoral Grace would either deliver up what had been 
hitherto received, separately, or would be responsible for 
the whole together." 

t Freiberg, Gesch. der Baier. Landst. i. 568, 663. 

J A very important protocol, which serves to complete 
the others, in Harpprecht, ii. p. 341. In the Berlin Ar- 
chives, we find the document, which Müller, ii. 442, gives 



criminal procedure was taken into considera- 
tion, chiefly on account of the frequent illegal 
infliction of the punishment of death. In order 
to put a stop to the confusion in the currency, 
it was resolved to coin all gulden of the size 
and form of the gulden of the Rhenish electors. 
In short, this diet of Frieburg, which opened 
so stormily, gradually despatched more busi- 
ness of various kinds than any that had yet 
met. 

The question now remained what view the 
States would take of European affairs. The 
French had made the proposal that Genoa and 
Naples should be ceded to them, in which cas-e 
they would not disturb Milan, and would con- 
clude a permanent peace on all other points ; — 
a proposal which, if sincere, had much to re- 
commend it, and was especially agreeable to 
the German princes. They urged that Genoa 
was little to be depended upon in any case, and 
was seeking a new master every day; and 
what had the empire to do with Naples and 
Sicily 1 It would, in fact, be far more advan- 
tageous to them to have a powerful prince 
there, who could hold the Turks in check. The 
sovereignty of Italy was a matter of indiffer- 
ence to them ; they declared themselves gene- 
rally opposed to all alliances with the Welsch 
(non-Germans). Such, however, was not the ' 
opinion of the electors, and least of all, the ec- 
clesiastical. They reminded their opponents 
that Genoa had been called by Frederic I. a 
chamber of the empire; that Naples was a fief 
of the papal see, and must therefore be held by 
the King of the Romans, the steward of th« 
church. But above all, that they must not 
suffer the King of France to become too pow- 
erful, lest he should attempt to get possession 
of the empire. They would not abate a single 
iota of the idea of the Germanic empire, with 
which indeed their own importance was indis- 
solubly associated. These sentiments, which 
rendered them at once partisans of the king, 
vv^ere at length triumphant : the negotiations 
which Frederic of Saxony had set on foot with 
Louis XII. fell to the ground : at the moment 
when the States had placed the institutions of 
the empire on something like a firm footing, 
they were forced into a war. 

Two great conflicting tendencies had been at 
work from the beginning of this reign ; that 
of the king, to hurry the nation into warlike 
enterprises; and that of the States, to establish ^ 
its internal tranquillity. They now seemed re- 
solved on concession, union, and concert. The 
king had confirmed and established the pro- 
ceedings of W^orms, which were disagreeable 
to him ; and the States acceded to his desire to 
defend the majesty of the empire by arms. 

EVENTS OF THE WAR. 

It remained however to be asked, whether 
either party had distinctly conceived, or ma- 
under the title " An Explanation of the Imperial Cham- 
ber," with some additions, however; e. g. "with respect 
to the article concerning the succession of daughters and 
grandchildren, this article has been deferred till the ar- 
rival of the king's majesty." The presence of the king 
himself was needful to bring the afiair to a conclusion. 



Book I. 



EVENTS OF THE WAR, 1498. 



61 



turely weighed, with what they were about to 
undertake. 

There may be gorernments to which war is 
a source of strength ; but it can never be so to 
those which have a strong federative element, 
yet in which the danger attendant on failure is 
not common to the whole body. For Germany, 
nothing was more necessary than peace, in 
order that institutions yet in their infancy might 
be allowed tranquil growth, and identify them- 
selves with the habits of the people ; and the 
scarcely recognised principle of obedience have 
time to take root. The collection and expen- 
diture of the Comgaon Penny needed above all 
to become habitual. But the diet at which 
these measures had been concluded was hardly 
closed when the nation rushed forth to war. 

Nor was this all. The power they were 
about to attack was the earliest and the most 
completely consolidated of any in Europe ; a 
new sovereign, who had long enjoyed universal 
consideration, had assumed the reins of gov- 
ernment and commanded the entire and cordial 
obedience of his subjects. Such was the 
monarch, and such the kingdom, which IMaxi- 
milian, in daring reliance on the assistance of 
the empire, now proceeded in person to attack. 
After having regained for his troops the ad- 
vantages they had lost in Upper Burgundy,* 
he fell upon Champagne with a considerable 
army. A truce was now offered by the enemy, 
which he declined. 

I do not doubt that the leading princes saw 
the danger of the course Maximilian was 
taking; but they could not prevent it. The 
agreement they had come to at Freiburg was 
obtained solely by the consent of the States to 
assist him in his campaign : — the)'- must let 
him try his fortune. 

The great superiorit)^ of the political position 
which Louis XII. had contrived to acquire, 
now manifested itself. He had gained over 
the old allies of Maximilian in Spain, Italy, 
and even the Netherlands. Milan and Naples, 
which he had resolved to attack, had no other 
allies than the King of the Romans himself. 

But even in German)^ itself, Louis found 
means to excite" enmities sufficient to furnish 
Maximilian with occupation. The Palatinate 
' had always maintained a good understanding 
with France; active negotiations were set on 
foot with Switzerland and the Grisons. Duke 
Charles of Gueldres, (of the houseof Egaiont, 
deposed by Charles the Bold, but which had 
never renounced its claims,) was the first to 
take up arms. 

Maximilian was driven out of Champagne 
by incessant rain and the overflow of the rivers. 
He turned his arms upon Gueldres, and, with 
the assistance of Juliers and Cleves, gained 
som^e advantages ; but they were not decisive : 
the country adhered faithfully to Duke Charles, 
who had secured its attachment by granting it 
new privileges. Hence it happened, that 
Maximilian could not attend the assembly of 



* 'J'he Fnsjger lAIS. relates at lenstli that tlie Germans 
had kept the advantage in a skirmisli, Sept. 2-2, 1198, and 
had re conquered castles the}' had previously lost. It is 
incredible that Maximilian, as ZuriTa asserts, should 
have had 25,000 infantry, and 5000 horse in the held. 



the empire fixed to be held on the eve of St. 
Catherine (November 21st) at Worms, indis- 
pensable as that was to the completion and 
execution of the ordinances agreed on : this 
meeting, where, if he had been present, reso- 
lutions of the utnaost practical importance 
would probably have been passed, broke up 
without doing any thing.f But, besides this, 
the troubles in Switzerland now broke out in 
the form of regular war. The empire was as 
5'et far from renouncing its sovereignty over 
the confederated cantons : it had cited them 
before the imperial chambers, nor had any ob- 
jection been taken to the legality of such a 
proceeding; the Common Penny had been 
levied in them; so lately as at the diet of 
Freiburg, the resolution was passed " to keep 
the powerful cities of the Confederation which 
bear the imperial eagle in their arms, in their 
duty and allegiance to the empire, and to invite 
them again to attend the meetings of the States. 
But these invitations could have no effect in a 
country where the v.-ant of internal peace was 
not felt, because they had secured it for them- 
selves and W'ere already in possession of a 
tolerably well-ordered government. A party 
which had always been hostile to the King of 
the Eomans, and which found it more expe- 
dient to earn French money than to adhere to 
the empire, gained the upper hand. In this 
state of things, the Grisons, who were threat- 
ened by Tyrol on account of the part they had 
taken injurious to the peace of the empire, bv 
sheltering persons under the king's ban, found 
immediate assistance from the confederates. 
In one moment the whole frontier, T3^rol and 
Grisons, Swabia and Switzerland, stood in 
hostile array. 

Strange that the measures taken to introduce 
order into the empire should have had results 
so directly contrary to the views with which 
they were undertaken ! The dem.ands of the 
diet and of the imperial chamber set the Swiss 
Confederation in a ferment; the summoning 
of the Grisons to deÜA-^er up a fugitive under 
ban occasioned their defection. If, on the 
other side, the city of Constance, after long 
hesitation, joined the Swabian league, this act 
w^as regarded with the utmost disgust by the 
Sv,'iss, because the city possessed the juris- 
diction over the Thurgau, a district of which 
it had obtained possession some years before. 
Independently of this, there existed, ever since 
the formation of the league, a hatred betvreen 
Swabia and Switzerland which had long vented 
itself in mutual insults and now broke out in 
a wild war of devastation. 

The constitution of the empire was far from 
being strong enough — its unity w^as far from 
having sunk deeply enough into the mind and 
consciousness of the people — to allow it to put 
forward its full strength in the conflict with 
France : the States convened, or rather' huddled 
together in the utmost hurry at Mainz, passed 
partial and infirm resolutions; it was, in fact, 



t Letter from Maximilian to Bishop Henry of Bam- 
berg: Harpprecht, ii. 399. The king invited the assembly 
to meet at Cologne, where, however, many of the mem- 
bers did not appear, as their instructions only spoke of 
Worms. " 



62 



DIET OF AUGSBURG, 



Book I. 



only the members of the Swahian league who 
supported the king^ and even these were not 
inclined to risk their lives in a battle with 
sturdy peasants. 

Under these circumstances the empire was 
«in no condition to make a successful resistance 
to those designs of Kin^ Louis upon Italy 
which Maximilian had vainly desired to pre- 
vent. Whilst the Upper Rhine was torn by 
private wars, the French crossed the Alps and 
took Milan without difficulty. Maximilian was 
compelled to make a very disadvantageous 
peace with the Swiss,, by which not only the 
jurisdiction of the Thurgau was lost, but their 
general independence was fixed on an immov- 
able basis. 

A successful war would have strengthened 
the constitution of the empire : the inevitable 
effect of these reverses w^as to overthrow, or, 
at the least, to modify it. 

DIET OF AUGSBURG, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

The immediate result of this assembly was 
that the authority of the king was even more 
limited than before; the principle of represent- 
ative government (ständische Princip) gained 
another victory, by which it appeared to have 
secured a fresh and lasting ascendanc3^* 

At the diet which was opened at Augsburg 
on the lOih of April, 1500, it w^as agreed that 
the means Vv^hich had been hitherto adopted 
for the establishment of a military organisa- 
tion and a more regular government were in- 
sufficient. The prospect of collecting the Com- 
mon Penny was too remote ; events succeeded 
each other too rapidly to allow of the possi- 
bility of the States constantly assembling first 
for the purpose of guiding or controlling them. 
Adhering to the idea which had got possession 
of their minds, they now resolved to try other 
means to the same end. They proposed to 
collect the forces they v/anted by a sort of 
levy. Every four hundred inhabitants, assem- 
bling according to their parishes, were to fur- 
nish and equip one foot soldier, — a method 
which had been tried some time before in 
France : the cavalry proportioned to this in- 
fantry was to be raised by the princes, counts, 
and lords, according to a certain scale. A tax 
was to be laid on those who could not take an 
active share in the war, — clergy, Jews, and 
servants, and the amount was to form a fund 
for the war ; propositions which, as it will be 
seen, are immediately connected with the for- 
mer ones, and w^hich assume an equally com- 
plete and comprehensive unity of the empire. 



* Ständsche Princip is not literally "representative 
principle," or ratlier, it is that and something more. 
Ständisch, the adjective of Stand, (status, class, order,) 
as applied to government, signifies representation of the 
several states or orders of the nation. The English and 
the Swedish constitutions are ständisch; the American, 
though representative, is not ständisch at all, since there 
are no Stände to represent. I may here point out another 
difficulty arising out of the double and often equivocal 
use of the w^ord state, which represents both Staat and 
Stand — two words of totally different meaning. Staat, 
the state, is the whole civil and political body of the na- 
tion ; Stand (status) is a class or order of the nation. 
The United States of Americß are Staaten; the States of 
the Empire were Stände.— Tb.a.nsl. 



Maximilian embraced them with joy ; he made 
his calculations, and gave the Spanish ambas- 
sador to understand that he would shortly have 
30,000 men in the field. On the other hand, 
he adopted a plan which he had rejected five 
years before, and which must have been odi- 
ous to a man of his character ; he now acknow- 
ledged the necessity of having a permanent 
imperial council, which might relieve him and 
the States from incessant recurrence to the 
diets, and to whose vigilance and energy the- 
execution of the ordinances when issued might 
be entrusted. f A committee was formed for 
a fresh discussion of this institution, and its 
suggestions were then submitted to the general , 
assembly of the States. Every member had 
the right of proposing amendments in writing. 
The business was treated with all the gravity 
it deserved. There were two points to be con- 
sidered ; the composition, and the rights and 
functions, of the proposed council. In the first 
place, a position suited to their high rank, and 
to the influence they had hitherto possessed in 
the country, was assigned to the electors. 
Each of them was to send a delegate to the 
council ; one of them, according to regular ro- 
tation, to be always present. The much more 
numerous college of princes was less favoura- 
bly treated. The intention had at first been to 
let the spiritual side be represented according 
to the archbishoprics ; the temporal, according 
to the so-called countries, Sv/abia, Franconia, 
Bavaria, and the Netherlands;^ but these divi- 
sions neither corresponded with the idea of a 
compact and united empire, nor with the exist- 
ing state of things ; and the assembly now pre- 
ferred to include spiritual and temporal princes 
together within certain circles or districts. Six 
of these Avere marked out, and were at first 
called provinces of the German nation, Franco- 
nia, Bavaria, Sw^abia, Upper Rhine, Westpha- 
lia, and Lower Saxony ; they were, however, not 
as yet called by these names, but were dis- 
tinguished according to the several states which 
inhabited them.§ The interests whose dissev- 
erance would, in any case, have been absurd 
and purposeless were thus more closely united. 
Counts and prelates and cities were all inclu- 
ded within these circles. It was also deter- 
mined that one temporal prince, one count and 
one prelate should always have a seat in the 
council. Austria and the Netherlands were to 
send two delegates. Little notice had at first 
been taken of the cities; nor, indeed, in spite 
of the original intention, had they at a later 
period been admitted to a place in the imperial 
chamber ; but they thought this extremely in- 
jurious to them, and the more unjust since the 



t Protocol of the Imperial Diet of Angsbnrg, in the 
Frankfurt Archives, vol. xix., unfortunately not so cir- 
cumstantial as might be wished ; e. g. the objections 
which the cities had made, contained in three bills or ad- 
'vertiseraents, are not inserted, " as every city deputy 
knew them." 

X These are Salzburg, Magdeburg, Bremen, and Besan- 
con ; the electorates were of course excluded ; the Nether- 
lands on the Maass were instead of Saxony. Datt, de 
Pace Publica, p. C03. 

§ Order of the Regency (Regiment) established at Augs- 
burg, in the collections of the Recesses of the Imperial 
Diets. 



Book I. 



AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, 1500. 



burthen of raising the funds for the expenses 
of the States must fall mainly upon them ; and 
at length they succeeded in obtaining the right 
of sending two members to the imperial coun- 
cil. The cities which were to enjoy this privi- 
lege in turn were immediately named : Cologne 
and .Strasburg for the circle of the Rliine; 
Augsburg and Ulm for the Swabian; Nürnberg 
and Frankfurt for the Franconian ; Lübeck and 
Gosslar for the Saxon : the delegates were 
always to be sent by two of these districts.* 
A curious illustration of the old and fundamen- 
tal principle of the Germanic empire, — that 
every right should be attached as soon as cre- 
ated, in a certain form, to a certain place ; so 
that the general right wears the air of a special 
privilege. 

Thus the three colleges of which the diet 
consisted were also the component parts of the 
imperial council, which may, indeed, be re- 
garded as a permanent committee of the States. 
The king had no other right there than to 
preside in person, or to send a representative 
{Statthalter). The preponderance was doubt- 
less on the side of the States, and especially 
in the hands of the electors, who were now so 
firmly united and so strongly represented. 

This council, the character of w^hich was so 
decidedly that of class representation {stän- 
diach), was immediately invested with the 
most important powers. Every thing that re- 
garded the administration of justice and the 
iriaintenance of public tranquillity; every thing 
relating to the measures of defence to be taken 
against the infidels arid other enemies ; foreign 
as well as internal affairs, lay within its do- 
main ; it had power " to originate, to discuss, 
to determine." It is evident that the essential 
business of the government was transferred to 
it, and indeed it assumed the title of the 
government or regency of the empirej" (Reichs- 
regiment). t 

It seemed now as if not onl}^ the judicial but 
the legislative and administrative parts of the 
government must assume a thoroughl}' repre- 
sentative ständisch character. 

If Maximilian suffered himself to be per- 

* ChiefiV from the letter of Johann Revsse to the City 
of Frauki'.irt, Aug. 17, 1500. "So die Fürsten kair.en 
von Stetteu zu Rttichsraidt verordnet hatten, so haben 
die Stette bedacht," &:c. " As the princes ha.i anpoinred 
none of the cities to the council of the empire, tlie cities 
had therefore bethoujiht themselves," &c. He further re- 
marks, that the princes immediately caused three candi- 
dates to be proposed to them from each city, out of whom 
they chose one. 

T That this was regarded as a sort of abdication is 
shovi^n by tlie expression of the Venetian anibassador. 
Relatione di S. Zaccaria Contarini, venuto orator del re 
di Romani 1002 ; in Sanuto's Cinonicle, Vienna Archives, 
vol. iv. " Fo terminato et fo opinion del re rinnntiar il 
suo poterin lG,1iominati il senato imperial, qualifossero 
quelli avesse (i quali avessero) a chianiar Ic diete e tuor 
le impresse." 

J The translation commonly in use for Reichsregiment 
(council of regency) does not convey any definite or cor- 
rect idea to the mind of the reader, nor does any better 
suggest itself Das Regiment, is as nearly as possible, 
the government, according to the common and inaccurate 
use of the v\'ord, hut that is far too vague and general. 
What its powers and functions were we see in the text. 
Eichhorn (vol. iii. p. 127,) says: "This institution was 
agreeable neither to the emperor nor to the States. For 
the former it was too independent, and for the latter too 
active : and hence it remained only two vears assembled." 
— Transl. 



suaded to make such large concessions in 
Augsburg, it was, doubtless, only because the 
preparations for war depended on them ; be- 
cause he hoped by this means to obtain from 
the States a durable, voluntary, cordial and 
effective support in his foreign enterprises. 
On the 14th of August, after every thing was 
concluded, he urged the States to take example 
from him, and to do something for the empire, 
as he had done. He worked himself up, as it 
were intentionally, to the expectation that this 
would take place ; he v/ished to believe it ; 
but his hopes alternated with secret fears that, 
after all, it would not take place, and that he 
should have surrendered his rights in vain. 
He betrayed the greatest agitation of mind ; a 
feeling of impending danger and of present 
wrong, as he himself expressed it. Whilst he 
reminded the assembly of the oaths and vows 
by which each of them was bound to the holy 
empire, he added that unless more and better 
Vv'as done than before, he would not wait till 
the crown Vv^as torn from his head, he would 
rather himself cast it down at his feet.§ 

Very little time elapsed before he got into 
various disputes with the vStates. He was 
obliged to consent to publish an edict against 
the disobedient, the penalties attached to which 
vrere of a less severe nature than he deem.ed 
necessary. 

A Captain-general of the empire, Duke Al- 
bert of Bavaria, was appointed, v/ith v.hom 
Maximilian speedily felt that he could never 
agree. 

The armament of the succours agreed upon 
did not proceed, in spite of the new council of 
the em.pire, which assembled in the year 1500. 
In April, 1501, the lists of the population of 
the several parishes, which were the necessary 
basis of the whole levy, were not yet sent in. 

Lastly, the imperial council assumed an 
attitude utterly disagreeable to the king. Ne- 
gotiations were set on foot, and a truce con- 
cluded, with Louis XII. of France, whom 
Maximilian had thought to crush with the 
weight of the empire. The council was not 
averse to grant the king of France Milan as a 
fief of the empire, at his request.jl 

At this the whole storm of anger and disgust 
v,-hi(;h Maximilian had so long with difficulty 
restrained burst forth. He saw himself thralled 
and fettered as to internal affairs, and as to 
external, not supported. His provincial Estates 
in Tyrol remarked to him how insignificant he 
was become in the empire. 

He appeared for a moment at the Council 
of Regency in Nürnberg, but only to complain 
of the indignities offered him,** and of the in- 



§ Letter from Reysse, Aug. 17. 

il Müller Reichstagsstaat, p. 63. 

** In this Maximilian was not entirely wrong. It is 
not to be believed to what lengths the French Ambassa- 
dor went. He said without reserve, that tlie reason why 
Maximilian took the part of Naples so warmly was, that 
he had been paid 30,000 ducats, though the negotiator of 
the aftair had pocketed one half of the sum, and the re- 
mainder only had come into the hands of the emperor. 
He said the king of France had no thought of injuring 
the empire. But if they made war on him, then the king 
would find his way into the enemies' quarters as readily 
as they into his. — And yet to this ambassador the 
I cotincil of the empire gave a testimonial, to the effect 



ei 



DIET OF AUGSBUEG, 



Book: I. 



creasing disorders of the empire. He remained 
but a few days. 

It had been determined that the Council of 
Regency should be empowered to summon an 
assembly of the States in cases of urgency. 
The state of things now appeared to that body 
highly urgent, and it did not delay to use the 
right conferred upon it. The king did every 
thing he could to thwart it. 

Another ordinance bound the king not to 
grant the great fiefs without consulting the 
electors. As if to punish the States for their 
negotiations with Louis XII., he now granted, 
of his own sole authority, the fief of Milan to 
this his old enemy .=^ 

But if the king had not power enough to 
enforce order in the empire, he had enough to 
trouble that which was as yet but imperfectly 
established. In the beginning of the year 
1502, every thing that had been begun in 
Augsburg had fallen into a state of utter dis- 
solution. The Council of Regency and the 
assessors of the imperial chamber, who neither 
received their salaries nor were allowed to ex- 
ercise their functions, dispersed and w^ent 
home. To the king, this was rather agreeable 
than othervk'ise. He erected a court of justice 
exactly similar to that of his father, with as- 
sessors ajbitrarily appointed, over which he 
presided himself. It is evident from one of 
his proclamations that he meditated establish- 
ing in like manner a government (Regilnent) 
nominated solely by himself, and, by its means, 
carrying into execution the plan of a military 
organisation determined on in Augsburg. 

This conduct necessarily excited a universal 
ferment. A Venetian ambassador, Zaccharia 
Contarini, who was in Germany in the year 
1502, was astonished at the great unpopularity 
• of the king, — how ill people spoke of him, 
how little they respected or cared for him. 
Maximilian himself said, " He would he were 
Duke of Austria, then people v/ould think 
something of him ; as King of the Romans he 
received nothing but indignities. "f 

Once more did the electors resolve jointly 
and resolutely to oppose his Vküll. On the 
30th of June, 1502, at a solemn congress at 
Gelnhausen, they bound themselves to hold 
together in all important arlairs ; to act as one 
man at the imperial diets; and always to de- 
fend the wishes of the majority; to allov/ of 
no oppressive mandates, no innovations, no 
diminution of the empire ; and, lastly, to meet 
four times every year, for the purpose of delib- 
erating on the public affairs and interests. It 
does not distinctly appear whether they really, 
as was reported, came to the resolution to de- 
throne the king ; but what they did was in fact 

that if lie had not accomplisbed the king's object, the 
fauU laj' not in him but ia circumstances. Recreditive, 
May 25, 1501 ; Müller, p. 110. 

* Contarini alleges the foUowinqf very pecnliav motive : 
— "Lo episcopo di Magonza voleva per il sigillo.SOm due. 
onde parse al re di Koniani d'acordarsi et aver lui questi 
danari." 

■j- Relatione, 1. c. of 1502. " II re e assa odiato, a poca 
obedientia in li tre stadi : questi ser-atori eiecti e venuti 
Tiimici del re ; adeo il re dice mal di loro e loro del re. II 
re a ditto piu volte vorria esser duca d'Austria, perche 
saria stimato duca, che Imperator e vituperato." 



the same thing. Without consul ting him, they 
announced a meeting of the empire on the I'st 
of the November following; every member 
communicated to the one seated next him the 
topics on which they were to deliberate. They 
were the same which had formed the subject 
of all former deliberations of the Germanic 
body : the Turkish war, the relations with the 
pope, the public expenditure, but, above all, 
the establishment of law, tranquillity and or- 
der ; with a view to the maintenance of which, 
some new ordinances were presently inserted, 
to come into force after the Imperial Chamber 
and Council of Regency should cease to exist.:^ 

The Elector Palatine, who had rather op- 
posed the former m.easures of the diet, now 
that it had come to a breach with the king, 
distinguished himself by his active and zealous 
co-operation. 

Maximilian was in the greatest perplexity. 
While ho complained that attacks were made 
on the sovereignty which was his of right as 
crowned king of the Romans, — while he sought 
to take credit for having of his own accord 
established the Council of Regency and the 
Chamber,§ he did not feel himself strong 
enough to forbid the proposed assembly of the 
empire ; he therefore took the course of pro- 
claiming it himself; announcing that he v/ould 
be present at it, and would take counsel witli 
the princes and electors on an expedition against 
the Turks ; the necessity for which daily be- 
came more urgent. , This was, in truth, not 
very unlike the conduct of King Rupert, or the 
manner in which, at a later period, the kings 
of France put themselves at the head of fac- 
tions which they could not subdue. 

But the electoral princes of German}^ would 
not even make this concession. Some had 
already arrived at Gelnhausen for the proposed 
diet; among them a papal legate; and many 
others had bespoken dwellings, when a proc- 
lamation of the Elector Palatine of the 18th 
October was circulated, putting off the dict.|j 

To compensate for tiiis they held an extra- 
ordinary meeting in Würzburg, at which they 
renewed their opposition, and announced a 
general assembly of the empire for the next 
Whitsuntide. 

Maximilian, who was about to set out on a 
journey to the Netherlands, issued a procla- 
mation, in which he invited the States to re- 
pair to his court, and to consiilt with him con- 
cerning the Turkish war and Council of Re- 
gency.** 

X I found thein in the Archives of Berlin asid Dresden ; 
to the Duke of Saxony they had sent the united electors 
of Brandenburg and Saxony. Müller has but a very un- 
satisfactory notice of the subject. 

§ Letter "from SchwUbischvverd, Nov. 2. Frankf. R. A., 
torn. XX. 

II Hinsburjr, near Frankfurt, Oct. 20. (Thursday after 
Galli.) Gelnhausen sent to Frankfurt the letter of the 
elector Berthokl, which arrived on the 19tli, wherein the 
latter also declared " the diet appointed at Gelnhausen 
was delayed from special causes, and removed to another 
place." 

** Antorf, April 7. Fr. A. " Des Reichsreisiments wegen 
der Personen so daran geordnet seyen wir dann nit so 
paid erlangen haben mügen und dadurch wiederum in 
Anstand kommen ist."— "As to the Council of Regency, 
on account of the persons fitted for it, we have not been 
able to create it so quickly, and accordingly it is again 
delayed," 



Book I, 



AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, 1602. 



65 



Of the meeting summoned by the king there 
exists not a trace ; that appointed by tlie elec- 
tors, however, certainly took place in June 
1503, at Mainz, though we are unable to dis- 
cover whether it was numerously attended. 
Maximilian's measures were here opposed, on 
the ground that they were injurious to the em- 
pire. As there was nothing to be feared from 
his Council of Regency (since he was obliged 
to confess that he had iDeen unable to find fit- 
tings members), the meeting contented itself 
with attacking his tribunal. They declared to 
him that no prince of the empire would con- 
sent to submit to its decisions. They remind- 
ed him of the ordinances passed at Worms and 
Augsburg, and urged him to adhere to them. 

Such was the result of the attempts made 
in the year 1503 to constitute the Germanic 
body. 

The authority of the empire v/as restored 
neither in Italy, nor in the Swiss Confedera- 
tion, nor on the eastern frontier, where the Teu- 
tonic knights were incessantly pressed upon 
by the Poles and Russians. At home, the old 
disorders had broken out anew. Not only had 
the attempt to establish a firm and durable con- 
stitution for war and peace utterly failed, but 
there was no longer any tribunal of universally 
recognised authority. 

The highest powers in the nation, the king 
and his electors, had fallen into irreconcilable 
discord. In Elector Berthold, especially, Max- 
imilian beheld a dangerous and determined foe. 
It had already been reported to him from Augs- 
burg that Mainz had spoken contemptuously 
of him to the other princes ; and obsequious 
people had given him a list of not less than 
twenty-two charges which the Elector brought 
against him. Maximilian had stifled his an- 
ger, and had said nothing ; but the impression 
now made upon him by every opposition he 
encountered, by every consequence of the Augs- 
burg constitution that he had not anticipated, 
was the more profound ; he ascribed every- 
thing to the crafty schemes of the sagacious 
old man. A hostile and bitter correspondence 
took place between the king and the arch-chan- 
cellor.* Maximilian retorted upon his adver- 
sary a list of charges, twenty-three in num- 
ber; — one more than those brought against 
himself by Mainz, which he still kept conceal- 
ed, but with whose contents he only fed his 
resentment the more constantly in secret. j" 

A state of things most perilous to himself. 

The other Electors adhered fi.rmly to Ber- 
thold, who, in the midst of all these troubles, 
had formed a fresh and strict alliance with the 
Palatinate. The cities clung to him as closely 
as ever. There was a general feeling through 
the nation that th& fate of Wenceslas v/as im- 
pending over Maximilian; — that he would be 
deposed. It is said that the Elector Palatine 
had formally proposed this measure in the elec- 

* Guuenus IV., 547, 551. 

t "Konijl Maj Anzeigen, item die Ursach danimb des 
Reiclie Regiment und Wolfart zu Augsburg aufgericiit 
stocken beliben ist." — " Declarations of his Royal Ma- 
jesty, also the cause why the government and welfare of 
the empire established at Augsburg have stood stock-still." 
—Frankf. j1. j1. 



toral council ; that shortly after, the king ar- 
rived one day unexpectedly at a castle belong- 
ing to that prince where his wife was residing, 
and that during their morning's repast, he gave 
her to understand that he was perfectly ac- 
quainted with her husband's designs. Such, 
however, was the grace and charm of his man- 
ner and the imposing dignity of his person and 
bearing, that the project was abandoned. :|: 
However this may be, his affairs were in as 
bad a situation as possible. The European 
opposition to Austria once more obtained that 
influence on the interior of Germany, formerly 
acquired through Bavaria, and now through 
the Palatinate, which maintained a close con- 
nexion with France and Bohemia. 

Yet Maximilian had still powers and re- 
sources in store ; and it was the Palatinate 
which soon afforded him an opportunity to rally 
and to apply them. 

IMPROVED FORTUNES OF MAXIMILIAN. DIET OF 
COLOGNE AND CONSTANCE ; 1505 AND 1507. 

In the first place Maximilian had connected 
himself with one of the most powerful houses 
of Europe. The marriage of his son Philip 
with the Infanta Johanna of Spain not only 
directly opened very brilliant prospects to his 
famaly, but indirectly afforded it a defence 
against the aggressions of France, in the 
claims, the policy, and the arms of Spain. 
After a momentary good understanding in Na- 
ples, a war had just broken out between these 
two powers, the results of which inclined in 
favour of Spain ; so that the consideration of 
France began to decline in Germany, and the 
public confidence in the fortunes of Austria, to 
revive. 

Moreover, Maximilian had (which was much 
more important) a party at home among the 
States. If the electors and the cities in alli- 
ance with Mainz were hostile to him, he had 
won over devoted friends and adherents among 
the princes, both spiritual and temporal. 

For the name and state of King of the Ro- 
mans v/as not an empty sound. In the general 
affairs of the realm his power might be con- 
trolled; but the. functions and the sacred dig- 
nity of sovereign head of the empire, still gave 
him considerable influence over individual 
families, districts and towns. He was exactly 
the man to turn this influence to advantage. 

By means of unremitting attention and timely 
interference he gradually succeeded in getting 
a certain number of bishoprics filled according 
to his wishes. We find among them the names 
of Salzburg, Freisingen, Trent, Eichstädt, 
Augsburg, Strasburg, Constance, Bamberg: 
all these sees were now, as far as their chap- 
ters would permit, partisans of Maximilian, 
and favourers of his projects. § In these eccle- 
siastical affairs his connexion with the pope 
was especially useful to him. For example. 



J Anecdote in Fugger, the truth of which, hov/ever, I 
will not warrant. 

§ Pasqualigo, Relatione di Germania (MS. in the Court 
Library at Vienna), to whom I am indebted for this re- 
mark, says of the bishops: " Li quali tutti dependono dal 
re come sue fatture, e seguono le voglie sue." 



66 



IMPROVED FORTUNES OF MAXIMILIAN. 



Book I, 



when a prebend of the cathedral of Augsburg 
became vacant in 1500, it was the papal legate 
who conferred it on the king's chancellor, Ma- 
thew Lang (the vacanc}' having occurred in a 
papal month). The chapter raised a thousand 
objections ; it would admit no man of the 
burgher class, and, least of all, a son of a 
burgher of Augsburg^: but Maximilian said, 
one who was good enough to be his councillor 
and chancellor was good enough to be an Augs- 
burg canon. At a solemn mass Matthew Lang 
was unexpectedly placed among the princes, 
and afterwards seated within the altar. At 
4ength the canons were satisfied, upon Lang's 
promising them that if he delegated to another 
the business of the provostship, he would ap- 
point no one whom the chapter did not approve. 
Still more direct was the influence M'hich 
Maximilian gained over the secular princes. 
In most cases he attached them to his cause, 
partly by military service, partly by the favours 
which he had to dispense as head of the em- 
pire. Thus the sons of Duke Albert of Saxony 
were indissolubly bound to the Netherland 
policy of Austria by the possession of Fries- 
land, which Maximilian granted to their father 
as a reward of his services. Albert's son-in- 
law, too, Erich of Calenberg, connected through 
him with the house of Austria, gained fame in 
the Austrian wars : the whole house of Welf 
was attached to Austria. Henry der Mittlere* 
of Lüneburg, as well as his cousins, won new 
privileges and reversions of estates in the ser- 
vice of the king. In the same position stood 
Henry IV. of Mecklenburg.f Bogislaw X. of 
Pomerania did not indeed accept the service 
offered him at his return from the East ; never- 
theless Maximilian thought it expedient to con- 
ciliate him by the grant of the tolls of Wolgast 
and other favours. ij: The granting of tolls was, 
indeed, with Maximilian, as with his father, 
one means of carrying on the government: 
.Tuliers, Treves, Hessen, Würtenburg, Lüne- 
burg, Mecklenburg, the Palatinate even, and 
many others, acquired at different times new 
rights of toll. Other houses transferred to 
Austria their ancient alliances with Burgundy. 
Count John XIV. 'of Oldenburg alleged that a 
secret treaty had existed between his ancestors 
and Charles the Bold, in consideration of which 
the king promised to support him in his claims 
on Delmenhorst.§ Count Engilbert of Nassau 
fought by the side of Charles at Nancy, and of 
Maximilian at Guinegat, for which he was 
made Stadtholder-General of the Netherlands 
in 1501. From this moment we may date the 
firm establishment of the power of that house 
(w^hich shortly after gained possession of 
Orange) in the Low Countries. |1 Hessen and 
Wurtenberg were won over by Maximilian 
himself. He at length determined to grant the 
Landgrave of Hessen the investiture which he 
had always refused his father. At the diet of 



* Der Mittlere— the mid-brother of three.— Transl. 
t Liitzow, Geschichte von Meklenburg, ii. p. 458. 
X Kaiizov^, Pomerania, ii. p. 260. Barthold im Berlin 
Kai. 1838, p, 41. 
§ Hamelmann, Oldenb. Chronik, p. 309. 
11 Arnoldi, Gesch. v. Oranien, ii. 202. 



1495 he presented himself in front of the throne 
with the great red banner, upon which, "round 
the arms of Hessen, were displayed not only 
the bearings of Wal deck, but of Kaizenelnbo- 
gen, Diez, Ziegenhain, and Nidda : the banner 
was so splendid that it was not torn up, as was 
usual on such occasions, but was borne in 
solemn procession and consecrated to the 
Virgin Mary,** Such was the investiture of 
the house of Hessen ; and we find that William 
der Mittlere took an ardent share in Maximi- 
lian's campaigns. 

Still more intimate was the connexion- of 
Wurtenberg with Austria. Maximilian put 
the seal to the acquisitions of centuries made 
by the counts of that house by consolidating 
them into a duchy ; from that time he took a 
warmer interest in the affairs of that state than 
in any other: in the year 1503, in defiance of 
the lav/, he declared the young Duke Ulrich of 
age when only in his sixteenth year, and thus 
secured his entire devotion. The Markgraves 
of Brandenburg were still true to the ancient 
allegiance of their founder. Later historians 
complain bitterly of the costly journeys and the 
frequent campaigns of Markgrave Frederic, 
whose succours always far exceeded his con- 
tingent. We find his sons also, from the year 
1500, commanding small bodies of men in the 
Austrian service. 

■■ These princes were, for the most part, young 
men who delighted in war and feats of arms, 
and at the same time sought profit and advance- 
ment in the king's service. The gay and high- 
spirited Maximilian, eternally in motion and 
busied v/ith ever-new enterprises, good-natured, 
bountiful, most popular in his manners and ad- 
dress, a master of arms and all knightly exer- 
cises, a good soldier, matchless in talents and 
inventive genius, was formed to captivate the 
hearts and to secure the ardent devotion of his 
youthful followers. 

How great was the advantage this gave him^ 
was seen in the year 1504, when the Landshut 
troubles broke out in Bavaria. Duke George 
the Eich of Landshut, who died on the first of 
December, 1503, in defiance of ^the feudal laws 
of the empire and the domestic treaties of the 
house of Bavaria, made a v/ill, in virtue of 
which both his extensive and fertile domains, 
and the long-hoarded treasures of his house, 
would fall, not to his next agnates, Albert and 
Wolfgang of Bavaria-Munich, but to his more 
distant cousin, nephew, and son-in-law, Rupert 
of the Palatinate, second son of the elector, to 
whom, even during his lifetime, he had ceded 
his most important castles. 

Flad the Council of Regency continued to 
exist, it would have been empowered to prevent 
the quarrel between the Palatinate and Bavaria 
which this incident rekindled with great vio- 
lence; or had the Imperial Chamber still been. 
constituted according to the decrees of Worms 
and Augsburg, members of the States of the 
empire would have had a voice in the decision 
of the question of law : but the Regency had 



** The ballad on this subject, which Müller, Rtth. unter 
Max. I. 538, has inserted, is of later date ; the thing itself 
is correct. 



Book I. 



BAVARIAN DISPUTES, 1504. 



67 



fallen to nothing, and the court of justice was 
constituted by the king alone, according- to his 
own views ; he himself was once more regarded 
as "the living spring of the law,"* and every 
thing was referred to his decision. 

His conduct in this case is extremely charac- 
teristic. He insisted upon the preservation of 
peace : he then appeared in person, and pre- 
sided at long sittings of the diet, in order to 
preserve a good temper and understanding : he 
did not shrink from the labour of hearing both 
parties, even to the fifth statement of each ; 
and, lastly, he summoned the judge and asses- 
sors of his chamber to assist him in forming a 
just and lawful decision. t But in all these 
laudable efforts he had chiefly his own interest 
(he calls it him.self by that name) in view. 

He now called to mind all the losses he had 
sustained on account of Bavaria ; — for example, 
how the expedition to the Lechfeld had caused 
him to neglect the defence of his rights in 
Brittany and Hungar}''. He found, on the one 
side, that Duke George had incurred heavy pe- 
nalties by his illegal will ; on the other that 
Albert's claims, founded on family contracts, 
were not incontestably valid, since* those con- 
tracts had never been confirmed by the emperor 
or the empire. Hereupon he himself set up a 
claim to one part of the land in dispute, and a 
not inconsiderable one. 

Duke Albert, the king's brother-in-law, was 
quickly persuaded to acquiesce, and at length 
published a formal renunciation of the disputed 
districts. This was not surprising ; he was 
not yet in actual possession of them, and he 
hoped by this compliance to establish a claim 
to still larger acquisitions. On the other hand, 
the Count Palatine Rupert was utterly inflexi- 
hle. Whether it were that he reckoned on his 
father's foreign alliances, or that the hostile 
spirit of the electoral college towards the king 
gave him courage, — he rejected all these pro- 
posals of partition. Maximilian had an inter- 
view with him one night, and told him that his 
father would bring ruin on himself and his 
house : but it was all in vain ; Rupert imme- 
diately afterwards had the audacity to take 
possession in defiance of the king. / 

Upon this Maximilian lost all forbearance. 
The lands and securities left by Duke George 
were awarded by a sentence of the Chamber to 
the Duke of 'Bavaria-IMunich ; the crown fiscal 
demanded the proclam.ation of the ban, and on 
the same day (23d April, 1501) the King of 
the Romans uttered it in person in the open 
air.t 

The neighbours of the Palatine attached to 
the king's party only waited for this proclama- 
tion to break loose upon him from all sides. 
The recollection of all the injuries they had 
been compelled to endure from '• that wicked 
Fritz " (so they called Frederic the Victorious), 
and the desire to avenge themselves and redress 
'their wrongs, was aroused within them. Duke 

* Expression of Lamparter in his address to the States 
at Landshut ; Freiberg, ii. p, 178. Gesch. der baier. Land- 
stände, ii. p. 38. 

t Harpprecht, Archiv des Karamergerichts, ii. p. 178. 

X Frieberg, passim, ii. p. 52. 



Alexander the Black of Veldenz, Duke Ulrich, 
of Würtenberg; Landgrave William of Hessen, 
vv'ho led the Mecklenburg and Brunswick aux- 
iliaries, fell with devastating bands upon the 
Rhenish Palatinate. § In the territory on the 
Danube, the troops of Brandenburg, Saxony, 
and Calenberg joined the magnificent army 
which Albert of Munich had collected. The 
Swabian league, once so dangerous an enemy, 
was now his most determined partisan ; Nürn- 
berg, which indeed wished to make conquests 
for itself, sent succours to the field four times 
as great as had originally been required of it. j] 
The King of the Romans first appeared on the 
Danube. It added not a little to his glor}', that 
it was he who had gone in quest of a body of 
Bohemian troops — the only allies who had re- 
mained faithful to the Count Palatine — and 
had completely defeated them behind his own 
Wagenburg, near Regensburg. He then 
marched on the Rhine ; the bailiwick of Ha- 
genau fell into his hands without resistance. 
Here, as on the Danube, his first care was to 
take possession of the places to which he him- 
self had claims. The Palatinate, in any case 
little able to withstand so superior and general 
an assault, was now totally incapacitated by 
the death of the young and warlike Count Pa- 
latine, the author of the whole disturbance, who 
fell in battle. The old elector was obliged to 
employ another son (whom he had sent to b« 
educated at the Court of Burgundy) as his me- 
diator with Maximilian. An assembly of the 
empire, which had been talked of in the sum- 
mer of 1504, had at that time been evaded by 
the king. It was not till the superiority of his 
arms was fully established in February, 1505, 
that he concluded a general truce, and sum- 
moned a diet at Cologne (which assembled in 
the June of that year), for the settlement of 
all the important questions arising out of this 
affair, and now once more referred to his de- 
cision.** 

How different was his present from his for- 
mer meeting with the States ! He now ap- 
peared among them at the close of a war suc- 
cessfully terminated, with added renown of 
personal valour, currounded by a band of devo- 
ted adherents, who hoped to retain by his fa- 
vour the conquests they owed to their own 
prowess ; respected even by the conquered, 



§ Trithemius, Zayner, and others, describe this devas- 
tation minutely. See Ranke, Gesch. der ronaanisch-ger- 
man. Völker, p. 231. 

j! In the true historical account of the cities usurped by 
Nürnberg, &c., 1791, par. 15, this reproach'is again brought 
against that city. 

** One of the strangest reports of these occurrences is 
to be found in the Viaggio in Alemagna di Francesco 
Vettori, Paris, 1837, p. 95r, from the mouth of a goldsmith 
at LTeberlinsen. First, the Count Palatine is in leag'ie 
with the Swiss and the French; even the Swiss war js 
brought about by him : hereupon Maximilian concludes a 
treatV with France at Hagenau, in 1502 (it took place, a;-3 
we knov\', in ]505), and forthwith attacks the Count 
Palatine, who calls upon the Bohemians for help, but then 
leaves them himself in the lurch, so that they get beaten. 
This is another example how rapidly history turns into 
ravth ; every detail is incorrect, while the whole is not 
entirely devoid of truth. Vettori himself finds the state- 
ments of the goldsmith wanting in order, and not to be 
depended on ; but he readily admits them into his book, 
which has more the air of the Decameron than of a Diary 
of a Journey. 



IMPROVED FORTUNES OF MAXIMILIAN. 



Book I. 



who surrendered their destiny into his hands. 
Nor was this all. The affairs of Europe were 
propitious. Maximilian's son Philip was be- 
come King of Castile, upon the death of his 
mother-in-law. Many a good German che- 
rished the hope that his mighty and glorious 
chief was destined to chase the Turks from 
Europe, and to add the crown of the Eastern 
empire to that of the West. They thought 
that the united force of the empire was so great, 
that neither Bohemians, Swiss, nor Turks could 
v/ithstand it.* 

The first matter discussed at Cologne was 
the decision of the Landshut differences. The 
king had the power of dptermining the fate of a 
large German territory. He recurred to the 
proposals which he had made before the begin- 
ning of the war: for the issue of the Count 
Palatine Rupert, he founded the new Palatinate 
on the other side the Danube, which was to 
yield a rent of 24,000 gulden; the constituent 
parts of it were calculated to produce that 
amount. Landshut now, indeed, devolved on 
the Munich line, but not without considerable 
diminution : the dukes themselves had been 
compelled to pay by cessions of lands for the 
succours they had received; the king kept back 
what he had advanced to others before the sen- 
tence was pronounced : not only did he not 
sacrifice, he promoted, his own interests. The. 
Palatinate sustained still greater losses ; the 
loans, the claims to ceded lands, and the king's 
claims, were more considerable in that territory 
than in any other. It availed little that the old 
elector could not bring himself to accept the 
terms offered him ; he was only the more en- 
tirely excluded from the ro3-al favour : some 
tim.e later his son was obliged to conform to 
them. If the possessions of the two houses 
of Wittelsbach were regarded as a w^hole, it 
had suffered such losses by this affair as no 
house in Germany had for ages sustained ; and 
it left so deep and lasting a resentment as might 
have proved dangerous to the empire, had not 
their mutual animosity been enkindled anew by 
the war, and rendered all concert between them 
impossible. 

The position of Maximilian w^as, hov/ever, 
necessarily changed, even as to the general po- 
licy of the empire, by the course things had 
taken. 

The union of the electors was broken up. 
The humiliation of the Palatinate was follovved 
by the death of the Elector of Treves in the year 
1503, to whose place Maximilian, strengthened 
by his alliance with the court of Rome, suc- 
ceeded in promoting one of his nearest kins- 
men, the young Markgrave .Tames of Baden ;f 
and, on the 21st December, 1504, by the death 
rf the leader of the electoral opposition, Ber- 
thold of Mainz. How rarely does life satfsfy 
even the noblest ambition ! It was the lot of 
this excellent man to live to see the overthrow 



* The senfiment of the admirable sons, " die behemsch 
Schlacht" (the Bohemian Fight), 1594, by Hormayr, from 
some publication of the day, and repeated by Soltau, p. 
193. 

t Browerus, p. 320. Re saw the Brief by which the 
Pope recommended the candidate of the king of the Ro- 
mans. 



of the institutions which he had laboured so 
earnestly to establish, and the absolute" supre- 
macy of the monarch on whom he had sought 
to impose legal and constitutional restraints. 

Maximilian had now a clear field for his 
own enterprises. It seemed to him possible to 
use the ascendency which he felt he had ac- 
quired, for the establishment of organic institu- 
tions. Whilst he endeavoured to ascertain 
why the measures taken at Augsburg had failed 
(the blame of w^hich he mainly attributed to 
Berthold of Mainz), he published a plan for 
carrying them into execution, with certain mo- 
difications,:|: 

His idea was, at all events, to form a govern- 
ment {Begimeni) composed of a viceroy, chan- 
cellor, and twelve counsellors of the empire; 
and for their assistance, and under their super- 
vision, to appoint four marshals, each with 
twenty-five knights, for the administration of 
the executive power in the districts of the 
Upper and Lower Rhine, the Danube, and the 
Elbe. The imposition of the Common Penny 
was again expressly mentioned. 

But a glance is sufficient to show the wide 
difference between this scheme and the former. 
The king insisted on having the right of sum- 
moning this governing body to attend his per- 
son and court; it was only to be empowered 
to decide in the more insignificant cases; in 
all matters of importance' it was to recur to 
him. He would himself nominate a captain- 
general of , the empire, if he could not come to 
an understanding with Albert of Bavaria. 

In short, it is clear that the obligations and 
burdens of government would have remained 
with the states ; the power w^ould have fallen 
to the lot of the king. 

His ascendancy was, however, not yet so 
great as to induce, or compel, the empire to 
accept such a scheme as this at his hands. 

Was it indeed possible to revert to institu- 
tions which had already proved so impractica- 
ble 1 Was not the sovereignty of the lords of 
the soil far too firmJy and fully developed to 
render it probable that they would lend or even 
submit themselves to such extensive and radi- 
cal changes ] The only condition under w'hich 
this could have been imagined possible was, 
that a committee chosen from the body of the 
princes should be invested with the sovereign 
power; but that they would voluntarily aban- 
don their high position in favour of the king, 
it v^^ould have been absurd to expect. 

The diet of Cologne is remarkable for this 
— that people began to cease to deceive them- 
selves as to the real state of things. The 
opinions which prevailed during the last years 
of Frederic's and the first of Maximilian's 
reign ; the attempts made to establish an all- 
embracing unity of the nation, — a combined 
action of all its powers, — a form of govern- 
ment which might satisfy all minds and supply 
all wants, are to be held in eternal and honour- 
able remembrance ; but they v/ere directed 
towards an unattainable Ideal. The estates 

J Protocol of the Imperial Diet in the Frankfnrt Act?, 
which adds considerably to the particulars found in Miil- 
ler's Reichstagsstaat. 



Book I. 



DIET OF COLOGNE, 1505. 



69 



were no longer to be reduced to the condition 
of subjects, properly so called : the king was 
not contented to be nothing more than a pre- 
sident of the estates. It was therefore neces- 
sary to abandon such projects. 

The estates assembled at Cologne did not 
refuse to afford succours to the king, but 
neither by a general tax (Common Penny) 
nor by an assessment of all the parishes in the 
empire, but by a matricula.*' The difference 
is immeasurable. The former plans were 
founded on the idea of unity, and regarded the 
whole body of the people as common subjects 
of the empire ; the matricula, in which the 
States were rated severally, according to their 
resources, was, in its very origin, based on the 
idea of the separateness of the territorial power 
of the several sovereigns. 

They declined taking any share in a central 
or general government (Beichsregiment) of the 
empire. They said his majesty had hitherto 
ruled wisely and well ; they were not disposed 
to impose restraints upon him. 

Public opinion took a direction far less ideal, 
far less satisfactory to those who had cherished 
aspirations after a common fatherland, but one 
more practical and feasible. 

jMaximilian demanded succours for an expe- 
dition against Hungary; not against the king, 
with whom, on the contrary, he was on a good 
footing, but against a portion of the Hungarian 
nobles. The last treat\^, by which his here- 
ditary rights were recognised, had been agreed 
to only by a few of them individually; it was 
not confirmed at the diet. The Hungarians 
now began to declare that they would never 
again raise a foreigner to the throne, alleging 
that none had consulted the interests of the 
nation. A resolution to this effect which was 
as offensive to their monarch as it was injuri- 
ous to the rights of Austria, was solemnly 
passed and sent into all the counties. f This 
INIaximilian now resolved to oppose. He ob- 
served that the maintenance of his rights was 
important not only to himself but to the Holy 
Empire, for which Bohemia had been recover- 
ed, and with which Hungary was, through 
him, connected. 

In a proclamation, in which the edicts con- 
cerning the Council of Regency {Regiynent) 
and the Common Penny were expressly re- 
pealed, Maximilian asked for succours of four 
or five thousand men for one year. He ex- 
pressed a hope that this might perhaps also 
suffice for his expedition to Rome. The States 
assented without difficulty : they granted four 
thousand men for a year, raised according to a 
matricula. The levy was to consist of 1058 
horse, and 3038 foot. Of these, the secular 
princes were to farnish. the larger proportion 
of horse, namely, 422; the cities the larger of 
foot, — 1106 : on the whole, the electors had to 
bear about a seventh, the archbishops and 

* The Matricula partook of the nature both of census 
and rate or assessment. It was the list of the contin- 
gents, in men and monp_v, which the several States were 
bound to furnish to the empire, and was founded on 
their population and pecuniary resources respectivelj'.— 
Transl. 

t Istuanöy, Historia Eegni Hungarici, p. 32. 



bishops a half, the prelates and counts not 
quite a third ; of the remaining seven parts, 
about one half was borne by the secular 
princes, the other half by tiie States. 

These more moderate levies had at least one 
good result — the}'- were really executed, 'i'he 
troops which had been granted, were, if not 
entirely (Avhich the defective state of the census 
rendered impossible)^ yet, in great measure, 
furnished to the king, and did him good ser- 
vice. His appearance on the frontier at the 
head of forces armed and equipped by the em- 
pire, made no slight impression in Hungary; 
some magnates and cities were quickly re- 
duced to obedience. As a son was just then 
born to King AYladislas, whereby the prospect 
of a change of dynasty became more remote, 
the Hungarian nobles determined not exactly 
to revoke their decree, but not to enforce it. A 
committee of the States received unconditional 
powers to conclude a peace, which was accor- 
dingl)'- concluded in July 1506 at Vienna ; 
Maximilian having again reserved to himself 
his hereditary right. Although the recognition 
of the states of Hungary expressed by accept- 
ing this treaty is only indirect, Maximilian 
thought his own rights and those of the Ger- 
man nation sufficiently guaranteed by this 
treaty. 

He now directed his attention and his forces 
upon Italy. Till he was in possession of the 
crown and title of emperor he did not think he 
had attained to his full dignity.:]: 

It was, evident, however, that he would not 
be able to accomplish his purpose with the 
small body of men that followed him from 
Hungary. 

Louis XII., w~ith whom he had shortly be- 
fore concerted the most intimate union of their 
respective houses, was led into other views by 
his States. He no longer thought it advisable 
to permit the ambitious, restless Maximilian, 
sustained by the power of a warlike nation, to 
get a footing in Italy. In this the Venetians 
agreed. At the moment when Maximilian ap- 
proached their frontiers, the}^ hastened (favour- 
ed by a revolt among the Landsknechts, which 
gave them time) to organise a very strong de- 
fence. Maximilian saw that, if he would ob- 
tain the crown, he must conquer it by force of 
arms and in strenuous warfare. He hastened 
to summon a new diet. 

Once more, in the spring of 1507, the States 
assembled in the plenitude of their loyalty and 
devotion to the king. They were still under 
the influence of recent events ; strangers were 
astonished at their unanimity, and at the high 
consideration the king of the Romans enjoyed 
among them. A remark made by the Italians 
is not Vv'ithout foundation — that a calamity 
which had befallen the king had been of advan- 



i t In his declaration to the states, Maximilian desi?- 
' nates the convention of Vienna as a treaty " whereby 
i his Imperial Majesty and the German nation, *Gori will' 
! ins:, might suffer no loss of their rights in the kingdom 
of Hungary, when the crown becomes vacant:" — "da- 
durch 1. K. Mt. und deutsche Nation, ob Gott will, aa 
ihrer erblichen und andern Gerechtigkeit des Königreichs 
Unsrern, wenn es zu Fällen kommt, nicht Maugel liabea 
werde." 



70 



DIET OF CONSTANCE, 1507. 



Book I. 



tage to him in the affairs of Germany.* His 
son Philip had hardly ascended the throne of 
Castile when he died unexpectedly in Septem- 
ber, 1506. The German princes had always 
regarded the rising greatness of this young 
monarch with distrust. They had feared that 
his father would endeavour to make him elector, 
or vicar of the empire, and, after his own coro- 
nation, king of the Romans ; and this first idea 
of a union of the imperial authority with the 
power of Burgundy and of Castile had filled 
them with no little alarm. The death of Philip 
freed them from this fear; the sons he left were 
too young to inspire anxiety. The princes felt 
disposed to attach themselves the more cor- 
dially to their king; the more youthful hoped 
to conquer new and large fiefs in his service. 

On the 27th of April, 1507,t iV^aximilian 
opened the diet at Constance, in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Italy. Never was he more 
impressed with the dignity of his station than 
at this moment. He declared, with a sort of 
shame, that he would no longer be a little 
trooper {kein Meiner Reiier), he would get rid 
of all trifling business, and devote his attention 
only to the great afiairs. He gave the assembly 
to understand that he would not only force his 
way through Italy, but would engage in a de- 
cisive struggle for the sovereignty of Italy. 
Germany, he said, was so mighty that it ought 
to receive the law from no one; it had count- 
less foot soldiers, and at least sixty thousand 
horses fit for service ; they must now make an 
effort to secure the empire for ever. It would 
all depend on the heavy fire-arms; the true 
knights would show themselves on the bridge 
over the Tiber. He uttered all this with ani- 
mated and confiding eloquence. "I wish," 
writes Eitel wolf von- Stein to the elector of 
Brandenburg, " that your grace had heard 
him." 

The States replied, that they w^ere deter- 
mined to aid him, according to their several 
means, to gain possession of the imperial 
crown. I 

There remained, indeed, some differences of 
opinion between them. When the king ex- 
pressed his determination of driving the French 
out of Milan, the States dissented. They were 
only disposed to force a passage through the 
country in defiance of them, for a regular war 
with France was not to be engaged in without 

* Somaria di la Relatione di Vic. Q-uerini, Dottor, ri- 
tornato dal Re di Romani, 1507, Nov, Sanuto's Chroni- 
cle, Vienna Archives, torn. vii. He is of opinion, that 
the Elector of Saxony indulged the hope of one day get- 
ting possession of the crown. " II re a gran poder in 
Alemagna," he also says, " e molto amato, perche quelli 
non r ubediva e morti." 

t Tuesday after the feast of St. Mark. Letter from 
Eitelvvolf von Stein to the elector of Brandenburg, April 
6, 1507, in the Berlin Archives. The previous accounts 
are incorrect. 

X Answer of the States, Frankf. A. A., torn, xxiii.: 
"They had appeared at this Imperial Diet, at his majes- 
ty's request, as his lieges fully inclined to advise, and ac- 
cording to their ability to aid in obtaining the imperial 
crown, and to offer resistance to the design of the King 
of F.d'nce, which he is practising against the holy em- 
pire."—" Sie syen uf diesen Richstag uf irer Mt. Erford- 
ern als die Gehorsame erschienen, ganz Gemütz zu raten 
und ires Vermögens die kaiserliche Krone helfen zu er- 
langen und des Königs von Frankreich Fürnemen, des er 
wider das h. Reich in Uebung steht, Widerstand zu tun." 



negotiations. Nor would they grant the whole 
of the supplies the king at first demanded. 
Nevertheless, the subsidy which they assented 
to, in compliance with a second proposal of 
his, was unusually large. It amounted to three 
thousand horse, and nine thousand foot. 

Maximilian, who doubted not that he should 
accomplish some decisive stroke with this force, 
now promised, on his side, to govern any con- 
quests he might make according to the coun- 
sels of the States. He hinted that the revenue 
she might derive from these new acquisitions 
would -perhaps sufiice to defray the charges of 
the empire. § 

The States accepted this offer with great sat- 
isfaction. Whatever, whether land or people, 
cities or castles, might be conquered, was to 
remain for ever incorporated with the empire. 

This good understanding as to foreign affairs, 
was favourable to some progress in those of 
the nation. The diet of Cologne, while it gave 
up all the projects of institutions founded upon 
a complete community of interests and of pow- 
ers, had continued to regard a restoration of 
the Imperial Chamber as necessary. This, 
however, they had never been able to accom- 
plish : the Chamber which Maximilian had 
established by his own arbitrary act had held 
no sittings for three years ; the salaries of the 
procurators had even been stopped. || Now, 
however, the diet assembled at Constance re- 
solved to re-establish the Imperial Chamber 
according to the edicts of Worms. In the 
nomination of the members of it the electors 
were to retain their privileges ; for the other 
estates, the division into circles which had been 
determined on in Augsburg was adopted, so 
that it v;as not entirely suffered to drop : no 
notice was taken of the cities. The question 
now was, how this tribunal was to be main- 
tained 1 Maximilian was-, of opinion that it 
would be best that each assessor should be at 
the charge of the government which had ap- 
pointed him : he would take upon himself that 
of the judges and the chancery of the court. 
Unquestionably however the States were right 
in desiring to avoid the predominancy of pri- 
vate interests which this arrangement would 
have favoured :** they offered to tax themselves 



§ In thß declaration in which he asks for 12,000 men, 
he adds: "And if the States now show themselves in 
such measure ready and prompt with help, then is his 
imperial majesty willing to act after their counsel, with 
respect to what money, goods, land and people will be 
requisite, how the same should be managed and applied, 
how also the conquered domains and people are to be 
treated and supported by the empire, so that the burdens 
in all future times may be taken off the Germans, and, 
according to whast is reasonable, laid upon another na- 
tion ; also, how every king of the Romans may be sup- 
ported honourably in due state Vvithout heavily burden- 
ing the German nation " — " Und wo sich die Stend des 
Reichs jetzo dermaassen dapferlich mit der Hilf erzaigen, 
so ist k. Mt. willig jetzo nach irem Rat zu handeln, was 
von Geld Gut Land und Liiten zuston wird, wie dasselb 
gehandelt und angelegt werden soll, wie auch die eroberte 
Herrschaften und Lut by dem Rieh zu hanndliaben und 
zu erhalten syn, dadurch die Bürden in ewig Zeiten ab 
den Deutschen und der Billichait nach uf andre Nation 
gelegt, auch ein jeder romisch Konig eehrlich und stat- 
lich on sunder "ßeswerung deutscher Nation erhalten 
werden mög." 

|( Harpprecht, ii. § 240, § 253. 

** " Es sy not, das Cammergerichte als ain versampt 
Wesen von ainem Wesen unterhalten und derselbtige 



Book I. 



DIET OF CONSTANCE, 1507. 



71 



to a small amount in order to pay the salaries 
of the law officers. They did not choose that 
the court should be stripped of the character 
of a tribunal common to the whole body of the 
States, which had originally been given to it, 
Vvith this view they determined that every 
year two princes, one spiritual, the other tem- 
poral, should investigate its proceedings, and 
leport upon them lo the States. 

If we pause a moment and reflect on what 
preceded the diet of Constance, and on what 
followed it, we perceive its great importance. 
The matricular assessment (or register of the 
lesources of the en:ipire) and the Imperial 
Chamber were, during three centuries, the most 
eminent institutions by which the unity of the 
empire was represented ; their definitive estab- 
lishment and the connexion between them were 
the work of that diet. The ideas which had 
> given birth to these two institutions were ori- 
ginally founded on opposite principles; but 
this was exactly what now recommended them 
to favour; the independence of the several 
sovereignties was not infringed, while the idea 
cf their community was kept in view. 

Another extremely important affair, that of 
Switzerland, was also decided here. 

Elector Berthold had been desirous of incor- 
porating the Swiss in the diet, and giving them 
a share in all the institutions he projected. But 
exactly the reverse ensued. The Confederates 
had been victorious in a great war with the 
King of the Romans. In tlie politics of Eu- 
rope they generally adhered to France, and they 
continued to draw one city after another into 
their league; and yet they pretended to remain 
members and subjects of the empire. This 
Avas a state of things which became manifestly 
intolerable when disputes with France arose. 
Whenever war broke out with France and Ita- 
ly, a diversion was to be feared on the side of 
Switzerland, the more dangerous because it 
was impossible to be prepared for it. 

The diet resolved to come to a clear under- 
standing on this point. An embassy was sent 
by the States of the empire to Switzerland for 
that purpose. 

I'he members of it were, however, by no 
means confident of success. "God send his 
Holy Spirit upon us," exclaims one of them: 
" if we accomplish nothing, we shall bring 
down war upon the Swiss, and be compelled 
to regard them as our Turks." 

But the Confederates had already, in the 
course of their service, fallen out with the 
French, so that the ambassadors found them 
more tractable than they had expected. They 
recalled all their troops still in Italy at the first 
admonition. They promised without the slight- 
est hesitation to remain faithful to the empire. 
A deputation from them appeared at Constance, 
and was most graciously received by the king, 
who kept them there at his own expense and 
dismissed them with presents, after entering 
into an agreement to take into pay, in the next 



miderlialtung nit zerteilt werden."—" It is needful that 
the imperial chamber, as a collective body, he maintained 
by one body, and that the maintenance of the same be 
not divided."— Pro^oco^ of the Imperial Diet in Harpprecht, 
ii. 442 



war, six thousand Swiss under the baimers of 
the empire. 

On the other hand, Maximilian made a most 
im.portant concession to them. He formally 
emancipated them from the jurisdiction of the 
imperial courts; declaring that neither in crim- 
inal nor in civil causes should the Confedera- 
tion, or any member of it, be subject to be 
cited before the imperial chamber or any other 
royal tribunal.* 

This measure decided the fate of Switzer- 
land to all succeeding ages. At the very time» 
when the empire agreed to subject itself to a 
general assessment and enrolment, and to the 
jurisdiction of the imperial chamber, it aban- 
doned all claim to impose them on the Swiss : 
on the contrary, it took their troops into its 
pay and renounced its jurisdiction over them. 
They were, as Maximilian expressed himself, 
" dutiful kinsmen of the empire," who how- 
ever must be kept in order when they were re- 
fractory. 

Although it is not to be disputed that the 
real political grounds of these concessions was 
the increasing inclination of the Swiss to a 
separation from the empire, still it was the 
most fortunate arrangement for that m^oment. 
The quarrel was for a time appeased. Maxi- 
milian appeared more puissant, more magnifi- 
cent than ever. Foreigners did not doubt that 
he would have, as they heard it affirmed, thirty 
thousand men to lead into the field : the war- 
like preparations which they encountered in 
some of the Swabian cities filled them with 
the idea that the empire was rousing all its 
energies. 

Maximilian indulged the most ambitious and 
romantic hopes. He declared that with the 
noble and efficient aid granted to him, he hoped 
to reduce to obedience all those in Italy w^ho 
did not acknowledge the sovereignty of the 
holy empire. But he would not stop there. 
When he had once reduced that country to 
order, he would confide it to one of his cap- 
tains, and would himself march without delay 
against the infidels ; for he had vowed this to 
Almighty God. 

The slow march of the imperial troops, the 
procrastination of the Swiss, the well-defended 
Venetian passes, doubly difficult to force in the 
approaching winter season, were indeed cal- 
culated to rouse him from these dreams of con- 
quest, and turn his attention on what was really 
attainable. But his high spirit did not quail. 
On the 2d of February he caused a religious 
ceremony to be performed in Trent, as a con- 
secration of his intended expedition to Rome. 
Nay, as if the very object for which he was 
going thither was already accomplished, he 
assumed, on the very same day, the title of 
elected emperor of the Romans. | Foreigners 
always called him so, and he well knew that 
the pope, at this moment his ally, would not 
oppose it. He was led to this act by different 
motives : on the one side, the sight of the for- 
midable opposition he had to encounip^r, so that 



* Fryheitsbiill bei Anshelm, iii. 321. 
f There is a closer examination of this point in the Ex- 
cursus upon Fugger. 



72 



VENETIAN WAU. 



B( 



I. 



he already feared he should not succeed in 
getting to Rome ; on the other, the feeling of 
the might and independence of the empire, for 
which he was anxious at all events to rescue 
the prerogative of giving a supreme head to 
Christendom : the mere ceremony of corona- 
tion he did not regard as so essential. To 
Germany, too, his resolution was of the utmost 
importance : Maximilian's successors have al- 
ways assumed the title of Emperor immedi- 
ately after their coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle; 
^though only one of the whole line was crowned 
by the pope.* Although Pope Julius appeared 
well pleased at this assumption, it was, in 
fact, a symptom of the emancipation of the 
German crown from the papacy. Intimately 
connected with it, was the attempt of Maxi- 
milian at the same time to revive the title of 
King of Germany, which had not been heard 
for centuries. Both were founded on the idea 
of the unity and independence of the German 
nation, whose chief was likewise the highest 
personage in Europe. They were expressions 
of that supremacy of the nation which Maxi- 
milian still asserted : a supremacy, however, 
which rapidly declined. 

VENETIAN WAR. DIET OF WORMS. 

It had been debated at Constance whether 
the imperial forces should first attack the 
French or the Venetian possessions in Italy. 
Whatever conquests might be made, it was not 
the intention of the diet to grant them out as 
fiefs (Milan had not even been restored to the 
Sforza), but to retain them in the hands of the 
empire, as a source of public revenue. 

Among the princes some were advocates for 
the IMilanese,, others, who like the dukes of 
Bavaria had claims against Venice, for the 
Venetian, expedition. Even among the impe- 
rial councillors, difference of opinion prevailed. 
Paul von Lichtenstein, who was on good terms 
w'ith Venice, was for attacking iVIilan ; iMatthew 
Lang and Eitelfriz of Zollern, on the other 
hand, deemed it easier to make conquests from 
the Venetians than from the French, f 

The latter opinion at length prevailed. The 
Venetians were not to bebroughtto declare that 
they would not take part against the king of 
the Romans : on the other hand, France held 
out hopes that if no attempt was made upon 
Milan, she would offer no obstacle to the steps 



* The title of Emperor, though commonly given to 
Maximilian, belonsred, of right, only to those who had 
been crowned at Rome by the hands of the Pope,— condi- 
tions which, as we shall see, Maximilian was never able 
to fulfil. At the head of the "Holy Roman empire (Reich) 
of the German nation," stands the King, elected by the 
German estates of the empire, who, however, by his 
election and his coronation in Germany (at Aachen) ob- 
tains only the rights and title of King of the Romans, 
(Romischen Koniss.) and acquires the rights and title of 
Roman Emperor (Romischen Kaisers) only by his corona- 
tion at Rome ; to which all the vassals of the empire 
must accompany him, and which the Pope, if he be law- 
fully and duly elected, cannot refuse him. His successor 
bears the title of King of the Romans. Eichhorn, Deut- 
sche Staats-und Yechts-geschichte, vol. ii. p. 365.— Transl. 

fRelati'rne di Vicenzo duirini. He mentioned some 
of the 'Council by name as nottri "capitali inimici;" for 
a t/me, Maximilian said: "I Venetiani non mi a fato 
dis'piacer e Franza si. E su queste pratiche passa 11 
tempo." 



taken by the empire for the assertion of its 
other claims in Italy. :^ Strongly as the Alps 
were defended, Maximilian was not to be de- 
terred from trying his fortune there. At first 
he was successful. " The Venetians," he says, 
in a letter to the Elector of Saxony, dated the 
10th of March, " paint their lion with two feet 
in the sea, one on the plain country, the fourth 
on the mountains ; we have nearly caught the 
foot on the Alps ; there is only one claw miss- 
ing, which, with God's help, we will have in 
a week ; and then we hope to conquer the foot 
on the plain. "§ 

But he had engaged in an enterprise which 
was destined to plunge his afl^airs in general, 
and those of Germany in particular, into inex- 
tricable diiheulties. 

In Switzerland, spite of all treaties, the 
French faction, especially supported by Lucern, 
soon revived;!! the confederate troops hung 
back. This so greatly weakened the German 
forces (the emperor having intended to draw 
two-thirds of the infantry from Switzerland), 
that the Venetians soon had the advantage of 
the imperialists. They did not rest satisfied 
with driving the Germans from their territory, 
they fell on the emperor's own dominions, just 
where he was least prepared for an attack. 
Görz, V» ippach,Triest, and forty-seven places, 
more or less strongly fortified, rapidly fell into 
their hands. 

Germany was struck Vv-ith astonishment and 
consternation. After subsidies which had ap- 
peared so considerable, after the exertions 
made by every individual for the empire, after 
such high-raised expectations, the result was 
shame and ignominy. It was in vain that the 
emperor alleged that the levies had not been 
furnished complete; the fault of this was in 
part ascribed to himself. The Duke of Liine- 
berg, for example, had never received the esti- 
mate of his contingent. But putting that 
aside: — To set out vvithout having the least 
assurance of success ! — to risk his vi'hole for- 
tunes on the levies of a Swiss diet ! The com- 
mon lot — loss of reputation for one abortive un- 
dertaking — now fell with double and triple 
force on Maximilian, v»'hose capacity and cha- 
racter had alv/ays been doubted by many, 

CDmpelled to return immediately to Germa- 
ny, Maximilian's first act was to call the elect- 
ors together. The elector palatine he did not 
include with the rest; Brandenburg was too 
far ; he contented himself with sending a mes- 
senger to him. But the others assembled in 



I Pasqualigo. Relatione. " Non saria molto diiücil cosa 
che la (S. M.) Dirizzasse la sua inipresa contra questo 
stato, massime per il dubbio che li e firmato nelF animo 
che le Eccze Vostre siano pertorre I'arme in mano contra 
a lei quando la fusse sul bello di cacciar ii Frances! d'tta- 
lia, et a questo ancora 1' inclineria assai 11 onorati partiti 
che dal re di Francia li sono continuamente offerti cgni 
volta che la voglia la.ssar la impre.sa di Milano e rlcuperar 
le altre jurisditioni imperiall che ha in Italia." 

§ Letter from Sterzing, March 1, accompanied by a let- 
ter from Flans Renner of the same date. He also has tlie 
best hopes. 

II In the Relatione dellu Nazione delli Suizzeri 1508, 
Informm. politiche, tom. lx..,the different persons who 
brought about this change are mentioned, but their names 
are difficult to decipher in our copy ; '• Amestaver at Zug, 
Nicolo Corator at Solothurn, Manforosinl at Frieburg." 
Lucerne was the centre of the whole movement. 



B( 



I. 



DIET OF WORMS, 1508. 



73 



the beginning of May 1508, at Worms. Maxi- 
milian declared to them that he called on Ihem 
first, on whom the empire rested as on its foun- 
dations, for their aid in his great peril : he 
craved their counsel how He might best obtain 
valiant, safe, and effective succours ; but, he 
added, without employing the Swabian league ; 
w'hose help he should stand in need of else- 
where ; and without convoking a diet of the 
empire.* 

Among the assembled princes, Frederic of 
Saxony was the most powerful. By his advice 
they declined the emperor's invitation to meet 
him in Frankfurt; principally because they 
found it impossible to come to any resolution 
Vvithout a previous conference with the other 
states of the empire.f Maximilian replied that 
he was in the most perilous situation in the 
world ; if the troops of the empire, whose pay 
was in arrear, were now to withdraw, his 
country of Tyrol was inclined to join the 
French and the Venetians, out of resentment 
against the empire, by which it was not pro- 
tected : he could in no case wait for a diet ; the 
loss of time would be too great ; the utmost 
that could be done would be hastily to call to- 
gether the nearest princes.:|: The electors per- 
sisted in demanding a diet. They would not 
believe that the Swabian league entertained the 
thought of separating itself from the other 
states; to grant anything on their own respon- 
sibility and in the absence of the others, said 
they, would bring hostility upon them, and be 
useless to the king.§ They were worked upon 
by the pressing and obvious exigency of the 
case, only so far as to facilitate a loan of the 
emperor's, by their intercession and guarantee. 

The consequences of war must, in every age 
and country, have an immense influence on the 
current of internal affairs. We have seen how 
all the attempts to give to the empire a consti- 
tution agreeable to the wishes and opinions of 
the States were ultimately connected with the 
alliance by which Maximilian v/as elected king 
of the Romans, Austria and the Netherlands 
w^ere defended, and Bavaria reduced to subjec- 
tion. On the other hand, at the first great re- 
verse — the unfortunate combat with Switzer- 
land, — that constitution received a shock from 
which it never recovered. The position too 
which the king himself assumed, rested on the 
success of his arms in the Bavarian war. It 
was no wonder, therefore, that after the great 
reverses he had now sustained, the whole fabric 
of his power tottered, and the opposition which 
seemed nearly subdued arose in new strength. 

* The instruction for Matthias Lan?, Bishop of Gnrk ; 
Adolf, Count of Nassau: Erasmus Dopier, prebendary 
of St. Sebaldus at Nürnberg; and Dr. Ulrich von Schel- 
lenber?, is dated the last day of April, the feast of St. 
Wendel, 1508. (Weimar Archives.) 

j The Archives at Weimar contain the advice of Fred- 
eric, and the answer. (May 8. Monday after Misericor- 
dia.) 

I Letters of Maximilian from Linz, May 7, and from 
Siegburff, May 10. (Weimar Archives.) 

§ Answer, dated May 13, Saturday after Misericordia. 
(Weimar Archives.) In return for their guarantee, they 
desired some security from the emperor. The latter re"- 
plied, '' he could bind himself to nothing further, than to 
release them from their guarantee within a year's time, 
upon his good faith." 

10 G 



Success is a bond of union; misfortune decora- 
poses and scatters. 

Nor was this state of the public mind 
changed by the circumstance that Maximilian, 
favoured by the disgust which the encroach- 
ments of the Venetians had excited in other 
quarters, now concluded the treaty of Cambrai, 
by which not only the pope and Ferdinand the 
Catholic, but the King of Bavaria, against 
whom he had just made war, combined with 
him against Venice.!] This hasty renunciation 
of the antipathy to France which he had so 
loudly professed, this sudden revolution in his 
policy, was not calculated to restore the confi- 
dence of the States. 

Perhaps the present might really have been 
the moment in which, Avith the co-operation of 
such powerful allies, conquests might have 
been made in Italy; but there was no longer 
sufficient concert among the powers of Ger- 
many for any such undertaking. On the 21st 
of April, 1509, the emperor made his warlike 
entry into the city of Worms (where, after 
long delays, the States had assembled),** 
armed from head to foot, mounted on a mailed 
charger, and followed by a retinue of a thou- 
sand horsemen, among whom were Stradiotes 
and Albanians. He was destined to encounter 
such an opposition as never awaited him be- 
fore. 

He represented to the States the advantages 
which would accrue to the empire from the 
treaty just concluded, and exhorted them to 
come to his aid with a formidable levj'' of 
horse and foot as quickly as possible, at least 
for a year.ff The States answered his appeal 
with complaints of his internal administration. 
A secret discontent, of which the fiery im.petu- 
ous Maximilian seemed to have no suspicion, 
had taken possession of all minds. 

The chief complaints arose from the cities; 
— and indeed with good reason. 

Under Elector Berlhold they had risen to a 
very brilliant station, and had taken a large 
share in the general administration of affairs. 
All this was at an end since the dissolution of the 



II Matthias von Gurk informs the elector Frederic, Sept. 
24, that he v/as going with certain councillors and the 
daughter of the emperor to a place on the French fron- 
tier, in order to treat concerning the peace with the Car- 
dinal de Rohan, who was also "to come thither. '' Frau 
Margareta handelt und muet sich mit allem Vleiss und 
Ernst umb ain Frid." " The Lady Margaret negotiates 
and exerts herself with all industry and earnestness for a 
peace." ^ 

** By a letter of summons, Cologne, May 37, 1508, after 
the above-mentioned meeting of the electors, "ein eilen- 
der Reichstag," "a speedy diet of the empire" was an- 
nounced for July 16 : deferred at Boppart, June 26, "bis 
wir des Reichs Nothdurft weiter bedenken," — "till we 
have further considered the necessities of the empire," at 
Cologne, July 16, fixed for All Saints' day; at Brussels, 
Septr 12, this' term is once more resolved upon ; at ?.Iech- 
lin, Dec. 22, the reason of the fresh delay is explained, 
viz. the negotiations with France; at last, INIarch 15, 
1.509, the emperor renews his letter of summons, and 
fixes the term for Judica. Fr. Ar., vols. xxiv. and xxv. 

tt Verhandelung der Stennde des h. Reichs ufl' dem 
kaiserlichen Tage zu Worms ao dni 1509. Frankft. Ar. 
vol. xxiv. Address of his majesty, Sunday, April 22. at 
one o'clock. " Wo S. Heiligkeit "nit gewest, hätte Kais. 
Mt. den Verstand und Practica nit anjrenonimen." Had 
it not been for his holiness, his imperial majesty would 
not have accepted the treaty. Yet >te remarks, the affair 
" werde sich liederlich und mit kleinen Kosten ausführen 
lassen," — " might be executed easily and at little cost." 
\ 



74 



VENETIAN WAR. 



Book I. 



Council of Regency {Regiment.') Nor were 
any municipal assessors admitted into the Im- 
perial Chamber. Nevertheless, they were 
compelled to contribute not only to all the 
other taxes, as well as to the expenses of the 
administration of justice, but the rate imposed 
on them at Constance was disproportionately 
high. Even at Cologne they were not spared, 
as we saw; they were compelled to furnish 
nearly two-sevenths of the subsidies; but at 
Constance a full third of the whole amount of 
foot soldiers and of money vras levied upon 
them.* Na}^, as if this was not enough, im- 
mediately after the diet the emperor caused the 
plenipotentiaries of the cities to be cited before 
the fiscal of the empire, who called them to 
account for the continuance of the great mer- 
chants' company, which had been forbidden 
by previous imperial edicts, and demanded a 
fine of 90,000 gulden for carrying on unlawful 
traffic. The merchants loudly protested against 
this sentence ; they said that they were treated 
like serfs ; it were better for them to quit their 
native country, and emigrate to Venice or 
Switzerland, or even France, where honourable 
trade and dealing was not restricted ; but they 
W'ere forced at last to compound b}' means of a 
considerable suiti. The cities were not so 
weak, however, as to submit quietly to all this ; 
they had lield town-meetings {Slädtetag) and 
had determined to put themselves in an atti- 
tude of defence at the next imperial diet;")" the 
members of the Swabian league as well as the 
others. They had not the slightest inclination 
to strain their resources against a republic with 
w^hich they carried on the most advantageous 
commercial intercourse, and which they were 
accustomed to regard as the model and the 
natural head of all municipal communities.:!: ■ 
Among the princes, too, there was much bad 
blood. The demands of the imperial chamber, 
the irregularities in the levies of men and mo- 
ney, vv'hich we shall have occasion to notice 
again, had disgusted the most powerful among 
them. The Palatinate vras still unreconciled. 
The old Count Palatine was dead ; his sons 
appeared at Worms, but they could not succeed 
in obtainincr their fief. The warlike zeal which 



* Accounts in the genuine Fiisser. It appears to me 
that the sum amounted to 20,000 gulden. See Jäger, 
ScJiwiiliisches Städtewesen, 677. 

t The resolutions of these municipal diets deserve much 
more accurate examination. A letter from the Swabian 
league, Oct. 21, 1508, calls to mind, " welchermaass auf 
verii-ar.gen gemeinem Frei und Reichsstett-Tag zu Speier 
der Beschwerden halben, so den Stettboten uf dem Reich- 
stag zu Costnitz begegnet sind, gerathschlagt und sun- 
derlicli verlassen ist, so die Rom. Königl. Mt. wiederum 
ein Reichstair fürnehmen wird, dass alsdann gemeine 
Frei und Reichsstette gen Speier beschrieben werden 
sollten." — " In what manner, at a former common diet 
of the free and imperial cities held at Spires by r,eason of 
complaints with regard to the treatment the deputies of 
the cities had met with at the imperial diet at Constance, 
it had been discussed and specially resolved on, in case 
his majesty, the King of the Romans, should again pro- 
pose a diet of the empire, that then the free and imperial 
cities should be convened in common at Spires." 

X Very curious indications of the light in which Venice 
was regarded by the trading towns of Germany are still 
to be found at Nürnberg. That magnificent city endea- 
voured in all its institutions to imitate the queen of the 
Adriatic. I ha\-e seen, in MS., an application from the 
council of Nürnberg to the senate of Venice for the rules 
,of an orphan asylum, in which this sentiment is strongly 
expressed.— TßAKSL. 



had recently inflamed many for the emperos, 
had greatly subsided after the bad results of his 
first campaign. 

But the circumstance which made a stronger 
impression than all the rest, was the conduct 
of Maximilian with regard to his last treaties. 
At the diet of Constance, the States had pro- 
posed sending an embassy to France in order 
to renew negotiations with that power ; for 
they did not choose to commit the whole busi- 
ness of the empire implicitly to its chief. Max- 
imilian had at that time rejected all these pro- 
posals, and professed an irreconcilable enmity 
to the French. Now, on the contrary, he had 
himself concluded a treaty with France, and 
without consulting the States ; nay, he did not 
even think himself called upon to communicate 
to them the treaty when ratified. § No wonder 
if these puissant princes, who had so lately 
entertained the project of uniting all the powers 
of the empire in a government constituted by 
themselves, were profoundly disgusted. They 
reminded the emperor, that they had told him 
at Constance that the grant he then received 
was the last ; and that he, on his side, had 
abandoned all claim to further aids. He was 
persuaded, they said, by his councillors, that 
the empire must help him as often as he chose 
to require help; but this notion must not be 
allowed to take root in his mind, or they would 
have perpetually to suffer from it. 

A very strong opposition thus arose on vari- 
ous grounds to the king's proposals. It made 
no change in public opinion, that the French 
obtained a brilliant victory over the Venetians, 
and that the latter for a moment doubted Avhe- 
ther they should be able to retain their posses- 
sions on the main land. On the contrary, the 
first obstacle to the victorious career of the 
league of Cambrai was raised in Germany. 
At the same moment in which the Venetian 
cities in Apulia, Romagna and Lombardy fell 
into the hands of the allies after the battle of 
Aguadello, a committee of the States advised, 
and the whole body thereupon resolved, that 
an answ^er should be sent to the emperor, re- 
fusing all succours. They declared that they 
were neither able to support him in the present 
war, nor were they bound to do so. Unable, 
because the last subsidies had been announced 
to their subjects as final, and no fresh ones 
could be levied without great difficulties and 
discontents: not bound, since the treaty had 
not even been communicated to them, as was 
the custom from time immemorial in all cases 
of the kind. II 



§ The Weimar Archives contain an opinion upon the 
necessity of refusing succours, in which persons are espe- 
cially co'mpiained of, " so bei S. Kais. Mt. sein und sich 
allwege geflissen Ks. Mt. dahin zu bewegen Hilf bei den 
Stenden "des Reiches zu suchen zu solchem Füriiemen, das 
doch ohne Rad und Bewusst der Stennde des h. Reichs 
beschehen ist."— "who are about his imperial majesty, 
and in all ways strive to move his imperial majesty to 
seek help from the states of the empire, towards such 
undertaking, which, however, has been entered upon 
without the advice and knowledge of the states of the 
holy empire." 

11 Transactions, &r. " Dweile die Stende des Reichs 
davon kein gründliches Wissen tragen, so hab I. Ks. Mt. 
wol^l zu ermessen, dass wo ichts darin begriffen oderver- 
leipt das dem h. Reich jetzo oder in Zukunft zu Nach- 
theil thate reichen, es were mit Herzogthum Mailand 



Book I. 



DIET OF WORMS, 1509. 



The emperor's commissioners (for he had 
quitted the diet again himself a few days after 
his arrival, in order to hasten the armaments 
on the Italian frontier,)* were in the utmost 
perplexity. What would the church, what 
would France, say if the holy empire alone did 
not fulfil its conditions 1 The States declined 
any further explanation on the matter; if the 
commissioners had any proposition to make 
concerning law and order, concerning the ad- 
ministration of justice, or the coinage, the 
States were ready to entertain it. The com- 
missioners asked whether this was the unani- 
mous opinion of all the States ; the States 
replied, that was their unanimous resolution. 
The commissioners said, that nothing then 
remained for them but to report the matter to 
the emperor, and await his answer. 

It may easily be imagined what a tempest 
of rage he fell into. From the frontiers of 
Italy — from Trent — he dispatched a violent 
answer, printed, though sealed. He began by 
justifying his own conduct; especially the 
conclusion of the last treaty, for which he had 
power and authority, " as reigning Roman 
Emperor, according to the ordinance of the 
Almighty, and after high counsel and delibera- 
'tion ;" he then threw the blame of his reverses 
back on the States, alleging, as the cause of 
them, the incompleteness of the subsidies. 
Their inability he could not admit. They 
should not try to amass treasure, but think of 
the oath they had sworn, and the allegiance 
they owed to him. Nor was that the cause of 
their refusal ; it was the resentment which 
some had conceived because their advice was 
not taken. 

Before this answer arrived, the States had 
dispersed. No final Recess was drawn up. 

DIET OF AUGSBURG, 1510; OF TREVES AND 
COLOGNE, 1512. 

Before I proceed further, I feel bound to 
make the confession that the interest with 
which I had followed the development of the 
constitution of the empire, began to decline 
from this point of my researches. 

That, at so important a moment, when the 
most desirable conquest was within their grasp 
— a conquest which would have more than 
freed them from the burdens they bore so re- 
luctantly, and would have constituted an inter- 

oiler anderm, dem Reich zuständig, dass sie darin nit 
wiilisen können." — " Seeing tiiat the states of the em- 
pire have no thorough knowledge thereof, his imperial 
majesty has to consider well that if anything be therein 
contaiiiied or embodied which misht tend now or hereaf- 
ter to the injury of the lioly empire, he it with regard to 
the dachy of Milan, or any other belonging to the empire, 
they cannot give their consent thereunto." 

* Not Out of anger, as has been commonly believed. 
He declared as early as the 2-2d of April, that he could not 
await the conclusion, and went away two days after- 
wards, before the diet had fully met : the real proposition 
of the diet took place only on May 16, Wednesday before 
the Feast of the Assumption,* Casimir of Brandenburg 
acting as his Lieutenant {Staithalier). Adolf von Nassau 
and Frauenberg as his councillors. Frankf. Ar., vol. 
Xiiv. Tne letters of the Frankfurt friend of the council 
{Rathsfreund), Johannes Frosch, repeat nearly what is 
contained in the Archives, with some additions. It ap- 
pears from lioth that no final resolution was come to, 
altbough Müller and Fels seem to imply the contrary. 



est common to all the States — they came to no 
agreement, shows that all these efiforts were 
doomed to end in nothing, and that the impos- 
sibility of reaching the proposed end lay in the 
nature of things. 

Although the emperor by no means took the 
active, creative part which has been ascribed 
to him in the establishment of national institu- 
tions, he evinced a strong inclination towards 
them ; he had a lofty conception of the unity 
and dignity of the empire; and occasionally 
he submitted to constitutional forms, the effect 
of which was to limit his power. Nor were 
there ever States so profoundly convinced of 
the necessity of founding settled coherent in- 
stitutions, and so ready to engage in tlie work, 
as those over which he presided. Yet these 
two powers could not find the point of coin- 
cidence'of their respective tendencies. 

The States saw in themselves, and in their 
own union, the unity of the empire. They had 
in their minds a government composed of re- 
presentatives of the several orders in the em- 
pire {ständisches Itegimeni)\ such as really 
existed in some of the separate territories of 
the empire; by which they thought to main- 
tain the dignity of the emperor, or, if occasion 
demanded, to set fixed bounds to his arbitrary 
rule ; and to introduce regularity and order 
into the establishments for war, finance, and 
law, even at the expense of the power of the 
territorial sovereigns. But the calamities of 
an ill-timed carapai'^n, and the dissatisfaction 
of the emperor with the part they took in 
foreign affairs, had destroyed their work. 

Maximilian then undertook to renovate the 
empire by means of similar institutions, only 
with a firmer maintenance of the monarchical 
principle; resolutions to that effect were actu- 
ally passed, not indeed of such a radical and 
vital character as those we have just mentioned, 
but more practicable in their details : but when 
these details came tobe carried into execution, 
misunderstandings, reluctances without end 
appeared, and suddenly every thing was at a 
stand. 

The States had been more intent on internal, 
Maximilian on external, affairs ; but neither 
would the king so far strip himself of his ab- 
solute power, nor the States part with so much 
of their influence, as the other party desired. 
The States had not power to keep the emperor 
within the circle they had drawn round him, 
while the emperor was unable to hurry them 
along in the path he had entered upon. 

For such is the nature of human affairs, that 
little is to be accomplished by deliberation and 
a nice balance of things : solid and durable 
foundations can only be laid by superior strength 
and a firm will. 

Maximilian always maintained, and not with- 
out a colour of probability, that the refusal of 
the empire to stand by him gave the Venetians 
fresh courage.:}: Padua, which was already 



t See note, p. C2. __ 

X Rovereyt, Nov. 8, 1509. " Als uns der Stend Hilf und 
Beistand vorzigen und abgeschlagen, und den Venedigern 
das kund, wurden sy mehr gestärkt, suchten erst all ir 
Vermögen und bewegten daneben den gemein Popl in 
Statten."—" When the help and assistance of the states 



7G 



VENETIAN WAR. 



Book I. 



invested, was lost again, and Maximilian be- 
sieged this powerful city in vain. In order to 
carry on the war, he was obliged to convoke 
the States anew. On the 6th of March, 1510, 
a fresh imperial diet was opened at Augsburg.* 
Maximilian represented the necessity of once 
more bringing an army against Venice. Al- 
ready he had extended the empire over Bur- 
gundy and the Netherlands, and established 
an hereditary right to Hungary ; he would now 
annex to it these rich domains, on which the 
burdens of the state might fall, instead of rest- 
ing wholly on Germany. 

The prospect thus held out produced a cer- 
tain impression on the States, yet they still re- 
mained very pacific. They wished to bring 
the affair to a conclusion by a negotiation with 
Venice. The Republic had already promised 
a payment of 100,000 gulden down, and 10,000 
gulden yearly tax, and the diet was extremely 
inclined to treat on this basis. This will ap- 
pear intelligible enough, when it is remember- 
ed with how much difficulty a grant of a few 
hundred thousand gulden was obtained. It 
Avould at least have relieved them from the 
small tax raised for the support of the Imperial 
Chamber, which was collected with great diffi- 
culty. f 

To the emperor, however, these offers ap- 
peared almost insulting. He calculated that 
the war had cost him a million ; that Venice 
derived an annual profit of 500,000 gulden from 
Germany ; he declared that he would not suf- 
fer himself to be put off so. 

The misfortune was now, as before, that he 
could not inspire the States with his own war- 
like ardour. All projects that recalled the 
Common Penny or the four-hundredth man, 
were rejected at the first mention. A grant 
was indeed at length agreed on ; they consent- 
ed to raise succours according to the census 
and rate (raatricula) fixed at Cologne (for they 
rejected that of Constance), and to keep them 
in the field for half a year:^ but how could 
they hope to drive the Venetians from tl?e terra 
firma by so slight an effort 1 The papal nun- 
cio spoke on the subject in private to some of 



was withdrawn and refused us, and this became known 
to the Venetians, they felt further strengthened, and ex- 
amined into all their resources, and moreover stirred up 
the common people in the cities." — Frankf. Ar. 

* Häberlin is uncertain whether the imperial diet had 
been summoned for the feast of the three kings, or for 
the I2th of Jan. The summons is addressed to the ob- 
servers of the feast of the three kings, f. e. Jan. 13. 

t Proceedings at the Imperial Diet held at Augsburg in 
1510. (Fr. Ar.) Answer of the States, second Wednesday 
after Judica. They advised the measure, in order neither 
to let the matterdrop entirely for the future, "oder veil 
nachtheiliger und beschwerliciier Rachtigung annehmen 
zu müssen, als Jetzt dem heil. Reich zu Ehr und Lob 
erlangt werden möge :" — " nor to he obliged to accede to 
a more disadvantageous and oppressive arrangement, 
than might now be got to the honour and praise of the 
holy empire." 

X The emperor desired a free promise of " the grant 
made at Constance for as long as his majesty should have 
need of it." He was willing to give a secret promise in 
return, that he wanted them for one year only. The 
States proposed the levy of Cologne. The emperor re- 
plied that this shocked him; that many of the States 
were able to contribute more than that singly. They 
persisted, however, and all they resolved on was, to grant 
the levy of Cologne for half, as they had before done for a 
whole, year. 



the most influential princes. They answered 
him without reserve, that the emperor was so 
ill-supported because he had undertaken the 
war without their advice. 

It followed by a natural reaction, that Maxi- 
milian felt himself bound by no considerations 
towards the empire. When he was requested 
at Augsburg not to give up his conquests at 
his own pleasure, he replied, that the empire 
did not support him in a manner that would 
make it possible to do otherwise ; he must be 
at liberty to conclude treaties, and to make ces- 
sions as he found occasion. So little advance 
was made at this diet towards a good under- 
standing and co-operation between the emperor 
and the States. 

The emperor rejected even the most reason- 
able and necessary proposals. The States re- 
quired that he should refrain from all interfer- 
ence with the proceedings of the Imperial 
Chamber. This had been the subject of con- 
tinual discussion, and was at total variance 
with the idea upon which the whole institution 
was founded. Maximilian, however, did not 
scruple to repl)^ that the Chamber sometimes 
interfered in matters beyond its competence : 
that he could not allow his hands to be tied. 

No wonder if the States refused to assent t» 
a plan which he submitted to them for the exe- 
cution of the sentences of the Imperial Cham- 
ber, notwithstanding its remarkable merits, 
r^Iaximilian proposed to draw out a scheme of 
a permanent levy for the whole empire, calcu- 
lated on the scale of Cologne, of from one to 
fifty thousand men, so that, in any exigency, 
nothing would be needed but to determine the 
amount of the subsidy required. For, he said, 
a force was necessary to chastise the rebellious 
who break the Public Peace or disregard the 
ban of the Chamber, or otherwise refuse to 
perform the duties of subjects of the empire. 
The fame of such an organisation would also 
intimidate foreign enemies. A committee might 
then sit in the Imperial Chamber, charged v.-ith 
the duty of determining the employment of 
this force in the interior.§ This was evidently 
a consistent mode of carrying out the matricu- 
lar system. Maximilian, with the acuteness 
and sagacity peculiar to him, had once more 
touched and placed in a prominent light the 
exact thing needed. The States declared that 
this scheme vras the offspring of great wisdom 
and reflection ; but they were not to be moved 
to assent to it — they would only engage to take 
it into consideration at the next diet. This 
was natural enough. The very first employ- 
ment of the levy would have certainly been in 
Maximilian's foreign wars. The emperor's 
councillors, too, with whom the States were 

§ Commissioners for the maintenance of the law. 
" Also dass Kais. Mt. Jemand dazu verordnet, desgleichen 
auch das Reich von jedem Stand etliche, mit voller Ge- 
walt, zu erkennen, ob man Jemand der sich beklagt dass 
ihm Unrecht gescliehen. Hülfe schuldig sey und wie 
gross." — " So that his imperial majesty do appoint some 
one; in the same manner, also, the empire, certain per- 
sons from eacli state, with full pou er to discover whether 
help, and to what extent, be due to any man complain- 
ing that wrong has been done him." In each quarter of 
the empire was to be a president, who would summon 
help upon such discovery. There was also to be a gene- 
ral captain for the empire. 



Book I. 



DIET OF TREVES AND COLOGNE, 1512. 



77 



extremely dissatisfied, would have gained a 
new support in their demands. 

It was not to be expected that affairs would 
turn out otherwise than thej' did. 

No new disputes arose at Augsburg" : to ap- 
pearance a tolerable harmön)' prevailed, but in 
essentials no approach was made to union. 

-INIaximilian carried on the Venetian war for 
a few years longer, with various success, and 
involved in ever new complications of European 
policy. He interwove some threads in the 
great >web of the history of that age, but ail 
his attempts to draw the empire into a fuller 
participation in his views and actions were 
vain : neither the cities, nor even the Jews who 
inhabited them, gave ear to his demands for 
money ; the results of his levies^were so inade- 
quate that he was obliged to dismiss them as 



already overladen with burthens, and that it 
would be impossible to extort more from them. 
He then requested that at least the tax might 
be granted until so long as it should have pro- 
duced a million of gulden. The States re- 
plied that the bare mention of such a sum 
would fill the people with terror. 

The emperor's other proposition, concerning 
the execution of the sentences of the Imperial 
Chamber, was received and discussed v. iih 
greater cordiality. Rejecting the division of 
the empire into four quarters, which Maximil- 
ian, like Albert IL, had once thought of 
adopting, the States conceived the idea of em- 
plo5'ing the division into circles (hitherto used 
only for the elections for the Council of Re- 
gency and the Imperial Chamber) for that 
purpose, and of rendering it more generally 



useless; the utmost he could-hope was, that applicable to public ends. The electoral and 
the succours granted him in Augsburg would |im,perial hereditary domains were also to be 
arrive at last. The surrender of one city after j included among the circles. Saxony and 



another, the loss of the hope of some allevia 
lion of the public burthens, were partly the 
consequence, partly the cause, of all tliese mis- 
understandings. 

In April, 1512, a diet again assembled at 
Treves, whence its sittings were afterwards 
transferred to Cologne.* 

The emperor began by renewing his proposal 
for a permanent rate and census, and by pray- 
ing for a favourable answer. The princes 
answered, that it was impossible to carry this 
measure through in their dominions, and with 
their subjects; they begged him to propose to 
them other ways and means. T^Iaximilian re- 



Brandenburg, with their several houses, were 
to form the seventh ; the four Rhenish elector- 
ates the eighth, Austria the ninth. Burgundy 
the tenth circle. In each a captain or governor 
was to be appointed for the execution of the 
law. 

But this subject also gave rise to the most 
important difierences. The emperor laid claim 
to the nomination of these captains, and de- 
manded moreover a captain-general, whom he 
might employ in war, and a Council of eight 
members who should reside at his court; a 
sort of ministry {Jiegtrueni), from whose par- 
ticipation in affairs he promised himself pecu- 



plied, that he trusted they would then at least j liar influence in the empire. The States 
revert to the resolutions of the year 1500, and ; the contrary, would hear nothing either of these 
grant him the four-hundredth m.an that he ' councillors, or of the captain-general, and they 



might gain the victory over the enem}^ and a 
Common Penny wherewith to maintain the 
victory when gained. The States did not ven- 



insisted on reserving to themselves the nomi- 
nation of the captains of their circles. 

These points gave rise to fresh and violent 



ture entirely to reject this proposal, feeling | disputes at Cologne, in August, 1512. On one 
themselves, as they did, bound by the promises I occasion the emperor refused to receive the 
made at Augsburg. The scheme"^of a Commion j answer sent by the States, which, he said, was 
Penny was^now°resumed, but with modifica- no answer, and should not rem.ain a moment in 
tions which robbed it of all its importance : his hands. 

they lowered the rate extremely ; before, they j It was only through the zealcus endeavours 
had determined to levy a tax of" one gulden on j of the Elector of INIainz, that the proposal for 
every thousand, capital; now, it was to be I the eight councillors was at length accepted, 
only one on every four thousand.-}- They like- | Their chief office was to be that of putting an 
wise exempted themselves : before, princes I end to quarrels by conciliation. Of the rap- 
and lords vrere to contribute according to their ; tain-general, no further mention occurs. I do 
property ; now they alleged they had other | not find that there was any intention of limit- 
charges for the empire, to defray out of their \ ing the circles in the nomination of the subor 



own exchequer. Even the representations of 
the knights were immediately yielded to; they 
were only to be bound to' include their vassals 
and subjects within the assessment. iNlaxi- 
milian made less objection to this, than to the 
insufficiency of the tax generally; but the 
States answered that the common people were 

* The acts of this diet are to be found tolerably cnni- 
plete in vol. xxxi. of the Frankfurt Collection. The let- 
ters of the Frankfurt deput.v, Jacob Heller, from the -Ith 
of ?=Iay to the 29th of June, are dated from Treves; one 
on the lith of July from Cologne, in vol. xx'ix. 

t This is the principle :— Whoever possessed 50 gulden 
was to pay one-sixtieth of a Rhenish gulden; between 
50 and 100, one-fortieth ; 100 and 400, one-twentieth ; 400 
and 1000, one tenth; 1000 and 1500. one-fifth; 2000 and 
4000, one-half; 4000 and 10,000, one gulden. 



dinate captains. The subsidy was granted in 
the^way determined by the States, and the em- 
peror abandoned his demand for a million. 

At length, therefore, resolutions were passed, 
and finally em.bodied in a Recess of the em- 
pire. 

When, hovrever, v/e come to examine 
whether it was executed, we find not a trace 
of it. There was a numerous party which had 
never, from the first, assented to the resolu- 
tions, though they had not b en able to prevent 
their adoption; at the head of which was one 
of the most experienced and the most respected 
princes of the empire — Frederic, Elector of 
Saxony. The projected subsidy was never 



78 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



Boos: I. 



even called for, much less raised. The eight 
councillors were never appointed, nor the cap- 
tains, whether supreme or subordinate. The 
division of the empire into ten circles did not 
assume any positive character till ten years 
later. 

liSTESTiNE Disorders. 

Had the attempts to give a constitution to 
the empire succeeded, a considerable internal 
agitation must necessarily have ensued, until 
an adaptation and subordination of the several 
parts to the newly-created central power had 
taken place. But that attempts had been made, 
and had not succeeded, — that existing institu- 
tions had been rudely shaken and no real or 
vital unity been produced, — could result in 
nothing but a universal fermentation. 

The reciprocal rights and duties of the head 
of the empire and the States, were now for the 
first time thrown into utter uncertainty and con- 
fusion. The States had demanded a share in 
the jurisdiction and the government; tlie em- 
peror had conceded some points and had held 
tenaciously to others ; no settled boundary of 
their respective powers had been traced. It 
was an incessant series of demands and refu- 
sals — extorted grants, inadequate supplies — 
without sincere practical efforts, without mate- 
rial results, and hence, without satisfaction on 
any side. Formerly the union of the electors 
had, at least, possessed a certain independence, 
and had represented the unity of the empire. 
Since 1501 this also was dissolved. Lastly, 
Mainz and Saxony had fallen into a bitter strife, 
which entirely broke up the college. The only 
institutions which had come to any real matu- 
rity, were the Imperial Chamber and the matri- 
cula. But how carelessly was this construct- 
ed ! Princes who no longer existed, except in 
old registers, were entered in the list; while 
no notice was taken of the class of mediate 
proprietors which had gradually arisen. Count- 
less appeals were the consequence. The em- 
peror himself named fifteen secular, and five 
spiritual lordr,, whose succours belonged to the 
contingent of his own dominions, and not to the 
matricula of The empire; Saxony named fifteen 
secular lords and three bishops*; Brandenburg, 
two bishops and two counts; Cologne, four 
counts and lords; every one of the greater 
States put forward mediate claims which had 
not been thougfht of. A number of cities, too. 



* In the Archives at Dresden there is an instruction 
from D;ike George for Dr. G. von Breyttenbach, accord- 
ing to which the latter was to declare at Worms (in 1509), 
" das wir uns nicht anders zu erinnern wissen, denn das 
alles, so wir uf dem Reychstage zu Costnitz zu Under- 
haltung des Kammergerichtes zu geben bewilligt, mit 
Protestation beschehen, also das dye ßischoffe und Stifte 
desgleichen Graven und Herrn die uns mit Lehen ver- 
wandt und auch in unseru Fürstenthumen sesshaftig 
seyn, welche auch an dem Kammergericht nie gestanden, 
jchtes dabei zu thun nicht schuldig, bei solcher Freiheit 
bleiben."—" That we have no other remembrance than 
that all which we consented to give at the diet at Con- 
stance for the maintenance of the Imperial Chamber, 
was accompanied with a protest; that thus the bishops 
and chapters of such counts and lords as hold of us by 
feudal tenure and are vassals of our principalities, and 
who have never appeared before the Imperial Chamber 
and are under no obligation to do so, continue to be 
exempt." 



were challenged. Gelnhausen, by the Palati- 
nate; Göttingen, by the house of Brunswick; 
Duisburg, Niederwesel, and Soest, by Juliers; 
Hamburg, by Holstein. f In the acts of the 
diets v/e find the memorial of an ambassador of 
Denmark-Holstein to the States of the empire^ 
wherein he pleads that he has travelled two 
hundred miles (German) to the emperor, but 
could obtain no answer either from him or his 
councillors; and now addressed himself to the 
States, to inform them that there was a city 
called Hamburg, lying in the land of Holstein, 
which had been assessed as an imperial city, 
but of which his gracious masters were the na- 
tural hereditary lords and sovereigns.:^ There 
was no dispute about the principle. It was al- 
ways declared in the Recesses, that the States 
should retain their right over all the succours 
which belonged to them from remote times ; 
yet in every individual case the question and 
the conflicting claim were always revived. 
Even the most powerful princes had to com- 
plain that the fiscal of the Imperial Chamber 
issued penal mandates against their vassals. 

In short, the Imperial Chamber excited op- 
position from every side. The princes felt 
themselves controlled by it, the inferior States, 
not protected. Saxony and Brandenburg re- 
minded the diet that they had only subjected 
their sovereign franchises to the chamber under 
certain conditions. Joachim I. of Brandenburg 
complained that this tribunal received appeals 
from the courts of his dominions; which had 
never been done in his father's time.§ The 
knights of the empire, on the other hand, were 
discontented at the influence exercised by the 
powerful princes over the chamber; when a 
prince, they said, saw that he would be de- 
feated, he found means to stop the course of 
justice. Maximilian, at least, did not think 
their complaints unfounded : " Either," says 
he, " the poor man can get no justice against 
the noble, or if he does, it is ' so sharp and fine 
pointed' that it avails him nothing." Nor 
were the cities backward with their complaints. 
They thought it insufferable that the judge 
should receive the fiscal dues ; they prayed for 
the punishment of the abandoned men by 
whose practices many cities were, without any 
crime or oflTence, dragged before the court : in 
the year 1512 they again demanded that two 
assessors appointed by the cities should have 
seats in the chamber ;|| — of course, all in vain. 

The natural consequence of this inability of 
the supreme power either to enforce obedience 

t Proceedings concerning the Imperial Chamber, and 
such as claim exemption from its jurisdiction. Harp- 
precht, Staats Archiv, iii. p. 405. 

I We know that he did not succeed.» The decision of 
the imperial diet of 1510 is the main foundation of the 
freedom of the empire possessed by Hamburg. Liinig, 
Reichsarch. Pars Spec. Cont. iv. p. 965. 

§ Letter from Frederic of Saxony to Renner, on the 
Wednesday after the feast of the Tliree Kings, 3509 
(Weim. Ar.); Joachim I. die crps. Christi, 1510. 

II Jacob Heller to the city of Frankfurt, June 11. " Wir 
Stett sein der Meinung auch anzubringen zween Assess- 
ores daran zu setzen auch Gebrechen und Mangel der 
Versammlung fürzutragen." — "We cities are of the opin- 
ion that we should introduce two assessors to sit there 
(in the court), and to bring forward the abuses and de- 
fects of the assembly." 



Book I. 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



79 



or to conciliate approbation and respect, was 
an universal striving after separate and inde- 
pendent power — a universal reign of force, 
which singularly characterizes this period. 
It is worth while to try to bring before us the 
several States under this aspect. 

I. In the principalities, the power of the 
territorial lord was much extended and in- 
creased. In particular ordinances we clearly 
trace the idea of a legislation for the whole 
territory, intended to supersede local unions or 
associations, traditional rules and customs; 
and of an equally general supervision, em- 
bracing all the branches of administration. A 
remarkable example of this may be found in 
the ordinances issued by Elector Berthold for 
the government of his archbishopric* In 
some places, a perfect union and agreement 
subsisted between the princes and their es- 
tates ; e. g. in the dominions of Brandenburg, 
both in the Mark and Franconia : the estates 
contract debts or vote taxes to pay the debts 
of the sovereign.! In other countries, indi- 
vidual administrators become conspicuous. We 
distinguish the names of such men as George 
'Gossenbrod in Tyrol, created by PJaximilian, 
Regimentsherr (master or chief of the govern- 
ment), and keeping strict watch over all the 
hereditary rights of the sovereign. In Styria, 
we find Wallner, the son of that sacristan of 
Altöttingen in Bavaria who accumulated the 
treasure of Landshut; in Onolzbach, the ge- 
neral accountant Pracker, who for more than 
thirty years conducted the whole business of 
the privy chancery and tlie chamber of finance. 
It is remarkable too that these pou'erful officials 
seldom came to a good end. We often see 
them dragged before the tribunals and con- 
d8m.ned to punishment : Wallner was hanged 
at the door of the \erj house in which he had 
entertained princes, counts, and doctors as his 
guests ; Gossenbrod was said to have ended 
his life by poison ; Wolfgang of Kolberg,! 
raised to the dignity of count, died in prison ; 
Prucker was forced to retreat to a prebend in 
Plassenburg.§ In order to put an end to the 
arbitrary acts of the detested council of their 
duke, the Würtenbergers extorted the treaty 
of Tübingen in 1514. Here and there we see 
the princes proceeding to open vrar in order to 
extend their territory. In the year 1511 Bruns- 
wich, Lüneburg, Bremen, Minden, and Cleves 
fell with united forces on the country of Hoya, 
Vv^hich could offer them no resistance. In 
1514, Brunswick, Lüneburg, Calenberg, Old- 
enburg, and Duke George of Saxony, turned 
their arms against the römnant of the free 
Frieslanders in the marshes. The Butjadinger 
swore they would rather die than live exposed 
to the incessant vexations of the Brunswick 
officials, and flew to arms behind the impassa- 
ble ramparts of their country ; but a traitor 
showed the invading army a road by which it 



fell upon their rear : they were beaten, and 
their country partitioned among the conquerors 
and the Worsaten and Hadeler compelled to 
learn the new duty of obedience to a master, [j 

In some cases the princes tried to convert 
the independence of a bishop into complete 
subjection; as, for example, Duke Magnus of 
Lauenburg demanded of the bishop of liatze« 
burg the same aids'"''* as were granted him by 
his States, perhaps with twofold violence, be- 
cause that prelate had formerly served in his 
chancer}^ ; he encountered a stout resistance, 
and had to resort to open force."("| Or a spiritual 
prince sought to extort unwonted obedience 
f'rom the knights of his dominions, who there- 
upon, with the aid of a secular neighbour, 
broke out in open revolt; as the dukes of 
Brunswick took the knights of Hildesheim, 
and the counts of Henneberg the chapter of 
Fulda and the nobility connected with it, under 
their protection. 

IL For the increasing power of the princes 
v\^as peculiarly oppressive to the knights. In 
Svrabia the associations of the knights of the 
empire (Reichsritterschaft) consolidated them- 
selves under the shelter of the league. In 
Franconia there were similar struggles for in- 
dependence ; occasionally (as, for instance, in 
1511 and 1515), the' six districts (Orte) of the 
Franconian knights assembled, mairih^ to take 
measures for subtracting their business under 
litigation from, the tribunals of^ the sovereign : 
the results of these efforts, however, were not 
lasting; here and on the Rhine every thing 
remained in a very tumultuous state. We still 
see the warlike knights and their mounted re- 
tainers, in helm and breastplate and with bent 
cross-bow before them — for as yet the horse- 
men had no fire-arms — riding up and dovrn the 
well-known boundary line, marking the halting 
places, and lying in ambush day and night in 
the woods, till the enemy whom they are 
watching for appears; or till the train of 
merchants and their wares, coming from the 
city they are at war Avith, is seen winding 
along the road : their victory is generally an 
easy one, for their attack is sudden and un- 
expected ; and they return surrounded by pri- 
soners and laden with booty to their narrow 
stronghold on hill and rock, around which 
they cannot ride a league without descrying 
another enem}', or go out to the chase without 
harness on their back : squires, secret friends, 
and comrades in arms, incessantl)^ come and 
go, craving succour or bringing warnings, and 
keep up an incessant alarm and turmoil. The 
whole night long are heard the bowlings of 
the wolves in the neighbouring forest. While 



* Boddmann, Rheingauische Alterchümer, ii. 535. 
t Buchholz, aseschichle der Mark, iii. 363. Lang, i. p. 
111. 
J Report in the manuscript Fugger. 
§ Lang, i. p. 147. 



II Rehtmeier, Eraunschweigsche Chronik., ii. p. 861. 

** 5ec?e— precarja ; (betev, to pray)— grants of money to 
the prince on extraordinary occasions, such as attend- 
ance on the emperor, the marriage of a daughter, &c. — 
TraN^sl. 

ft Chytrteus, Saxonia,-p. 222. By Prlasch, Gesch. von 
Ratzeburg, p. 421, we perceive that there were many 
other poi^its of dispute. On the 28th of March, 1507, 
bishop and chapter were obliged to promise, " that when 
the sovereign received a land-tax from his knights, it 
should be p^aid by the peasants on the church lands just 
as by the peasants of any other lords." 



80 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



Book I. 



the States of the empire were consulting' at 
Treves as to the means of ensuring the execu- 
tion of the laws, Berliching-en and Selbitz 
seized the train of Nürnberg merchants coming 
from the Leipzig- fair, under the convoy of 
Bamberg, and thus began the open war against 
the bishop and the city. The decrees of the 
diet were of little avail.* Götz von Ber- 
iichingen thought himself entitled to complain 
of the negotiations that were opened ; for 
otherwise he would have overthrown the Nürn- 
bergers and their Bürgermeister " with his 
gold chain round his neck and his battle-mace 
in his hand."f At the same time another no- 
torious band had collected under the command 
of the Frieding-ers in Hohenkrähn (in the 
Hegau), originally against Kaufbeoern, to 
avenge the affront offered to a nobleman who 
had sued in vain to the fair daughter of a 
citizen : afterwards they became a mere gang 
of robbers, who made the country unsafe ; so 
that the Swabian league at length stirred itself 
against them, and the emperor himself sent 
out his best men, the Weckauf (Wake up) of 
Austria, and the Burlebaus, — at whose shots, 
as the historical ballad says, "the mountain 
tottered, the rocks were rent, and the walls 

* Emperor and Stales disputed as to the amount of tlie 
levy necessary. The emperor thought they wanted to 
put the affair otT, and reminded them tiiat what had hap- 
pened to-day to Bamberg, miglit happen to-morrow to 
another city. If the succours demanded appeared too 
considerable, he would ask Bambei"? to be content with 
a. hundred horses fit for service. This the States agreed 
to ; but only under the condition that the ban must be 
lirst proclaimed against outlaws or suspected persons 
before the troops were employed. (Frankf. A.) The 
universal state of division extended even to this matter. 

t Götzens von Berlichingen ritterliche Thaten. Aus- 
gabe von Pistorius, p. 127. RJüllner's Chronicle (MS.) 
relates the whole affair, after the documents in the 
Nürnberg Archives, in the following manner : — Tlie at- 
tac'c \-;:s made between Forchheim'and Neusess. May 18, 
15\-J.,l ;: a band of ]30 horse; 31 persons were carried off; the 
daaia;;? done amounted to 8S00 gulden; the liorseswere fod- 
dered and the booty divided in a wood near Schweinfurt. 
The jirisoners were concealed by the knights of Thüngcn, 
Eberstein, Biichenau. The council of Nürnberg hereupon 
took 600 foot soldiers into their pay, and announced to 
the Great fcouncil their determination to do everything 
to bring the perpetrators to punishment. Meanwhile, 
" solten sie litre Kaufmannschaft so enge esseyn könnte, 
einziehen, bis die Leufte etwas besser würden :'■•—" they 
must draw in their dealings as much as possible till the 
ways became somewhat better." And he actually pro- 
duces a proclamation of ban of the 15th of July, accom- 
panied, however, by a proposal for a commission before 
vvhicli the accused might clear themselves. Some did thus 
clear themselves: others not. Among the last are men- 
tioned, Caspar von Rabenstein, Balthasar and Reichart 
Steinrück, Wilhelm von Schaumburg, Dietrich and Georg 
Fuchs, Conrad Schott. Among them are many Würzburg 
officials, who were jointly declared under ban by the Im- 
perial Chamber. As in the mean time a number of fresh 
attacks had taken place, at Vilseck, Ochsenfurt, Mergen- 
theim (in which the Commander of the Order »t Mergen- 
theim liad drawn suspicion upon himself), the Swabian 
leac-iie at last came forward with an armed force, to 
which the Nürnbergers added COO men on foot, a squad- 
ron of cavalry, and a small body of artillery. Gangolf 
von Geroltlseck led tlie troops of the league; their first 
move was against Frauenstein, belonging to Hans von 
Selbitz: several castles were carried, and lands taken, 
and at last the way was opened to a treaty. The em- 
peror decreed that tlie knights should pay i4,000 gulden 
as compensation. Müller asserts that of this sum the 
Bishop of Würzburg paid 7000 gulden, the Count Palatine 
Ludwig 2000, the Duke of Würtenberg as much, the Mas- 
ter of Mergentheim 1000, and Götz himself 2000. He in- 
fers that those princes, "dieser Fehd heimlich verwandt 
gewesen,"— "had been privily concerned in this Feid." 
On the other hand, he speaks with praise of the bishop 
of Bamberg and Markgrave Frederic of Brandenburg. 



riven, till the knights fled, their people sur- 
rendered, and the castle was razed to the 
ground.":^ But there was also many a castle 
in Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia for which 
a similar fate was reserved. Tlie insecurity 
of the roads and highways was greater than 
ever ; even poor travelling scholars who begged 
their way along, were set upon and tortured to 
make them give up their miserable pittance. § 
" Good luck to us, my dear comrades," cried 
Götz to a pack of Avolves which he saw fall 
upon a flock of sheep, " good luck to us all 
and every where." He took it for a good 
omen. 

Sometimes this fierce and lawless chivalry 
assumed a more imposing aspect, and constitu- 
ted a sort of tumultuary power in the State. 
Franz von Sickingen had the audacity to take 
under his protection the enemies of the council 
which had just been re-established in Worms 
by the emperor; he began the war with that 
city by seizing one of its vessels on the-Rhine. 
He was immediately put under ban. His an- 
swer to this was, instantly to appear before the 
walls of that city, to fire upon it with carron- 
ades and culverins, lay v/aste the fields, tear 
up the vineyards, and prevent all access to the 
town. The Whitsuntide fair could not be held 
either in 1515 or 151G. The States of the cir- 
cle of the Rhine assembled, but dared not come 
to any resolution ; they thought that could only 
be done at an imperial diet. || It is indisputable 
that some princes, out of opposition either to 
the emperor or to the Swabian league, favoured, 
or at least connived at, these acts of violence. 
The knights were connected with the party 
among the princes which was inclined neither 
to the emperor nor to the league. 

in. The cities were exposed to annoyance 
and injury from all sides ; from the imperial 
government, which continually imposed fresh 
burthens upon them; from these lawless 
knights, and from the princes, who in 1512 
agitated the old question of the Pfahlbürger.** 
But they made a most gallant defence. ^How 
many a robber noble did Lübeck drag from his 
stronghold ! Towards the end of the fifteenth 
century that city concluded a treaty with neigh- 
bouring mediate cities, the express object of 
which was to prevent the landed aristocracy 
from exceeding the powers they had hitherto 
exercised. It availed nothing to King John 
of Denmark that the Eir.peror Maximilian for 
a time favoured his attempts. In the year 
1509, the Hanse towns or rather a part of them, 



J Anonymi Carmen de Obsidione ^t Expugnatione 
Arcis Ilohenkrayen, 1.512. Fugger, both MS. and printed. 
Gassari Annales ad ann. 1512. 

§ Plater's Lebensbeschreibung. The period he speaks 
of is about the year 1515, as he immediately afterwards 
mentions the battle of Marignano. 

|( Zorn's Wormser Chronik, in Munch' s Sickingen, iii. 

** Pfahlbürger (from Ffahl, pale or stake) were origin- 
ally persons inhabiting a town, but not enjoying all the 
rights of citizenship. (See Golden Bull, cap. 16.) They 
were often free peasants, subject to the sovereign lord's 
jurisdiction, but not his serfs. It seems that they avail- 
ed themselves of the protection and security afii^-ded by 
the cities to the prejudice of the lord's feudal rights, and 
formed associations to resist him. (See Eichhorn, ii. 
162.) 



Book I. 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



81 



attacked his islands, beat his ships at Helsin- 
gor, carried away his bells for their chapels, 
and remained absolute masters on the open sea. 
A Lübeck vessel boarded by three Danish ones 
near Bornholm beat olf two of them and cap- 
tured the third: in the year 1511 the Lübeck 
fleet returned to the Trave with eighteen Dutch 
ships as prizes.* 

Nor did the inland cities make a less spirit- 
ed resistance to those aggressions from which 
they were not protected by the Swabian league. 
How admirably did Nürnberg defend herself I 
For every injury she sustained, she carried her 
vengeance home to the territory of the aggres- 
sor, and her mounted bands frequently made 
rieh captures. Woe to the nobles who fell 
into their hands ! No intercession either of 
kinsmen or of neighbouring princes availed to 
save them ; the council was armed with the 
ever-ready excuse that the citizens absolutely 
demanded the punishment of the oiFender. In 
vain did he look out from the bars of his pri- 
son tov/ards the forest, watching whether his 
friends and allies were not coming to his res- 
cue : Berlichingen's story suiTiciently shows 
us wiih how intense a dread even those of her 
neighbours who delighted the most in wild and 
daring exploits regarded the towers of Nürn- 
berg. Noble blocd was no security either from 
the horrors of the question or the axe of the 
executioner.f 

Sometimes, indeed, commercial difiiculties 
arose — for example, in the Venetian war — 
which could not be met with the same vigour 
by the inland towns as the Hanseats displayed 
at sea, bat the effects of which they found 
other means to elude. All intercourse with 
Venice was in fact forbidden, and the Scala 
which had obtained the proclamation of the 
ban, often arrested the merchandise travelling 
along that road ; though this was done only in 
order to extort money from the ovrners for its 
redemption. I find that one merchant had to 
pay the emperor three thousand ducats transit 
duty, on three hundred horse-load of goods : 
the Tyrol governm.ent had formerly appointed 
a commissary in Augsburg, vrhose business it 
was to collect regular duties on those consign- 
ments of goods the safety of which it then 
guaranteed. The towns accommodated them- 
selves to the times as they could ; thankful 
that their trade was not utterly destroyed. The 
connexion with the Netherlands, established 
by the house of Austria, had meanwhile open- 
ed a wide and magnificent field for commercial 
enterprise. Merchants of Nürnberg and Augs- 
burg shared in the profits of the trade to the 
East and West Indies.t Their growing pros- 
perity and indispensable assistance in all pe- 
cuniary business gave them influence in all 
courts, and especiall}'' that of the emperor. In 
defiance of all decrees of diets, they maintain- 

* Becker, Geschichte von Lübek, vol. i, p. 488. 

t Müllner's Chronicle is full of anecdotes of this kind. 

t Gassarns (Annales in Mencken, i. 1743) names those 
of th^ Weiser, Gossenhrot, Fugeer, Hochstetter, Foeiin ; 
the last are without douht the Vehlin. He reckons the 
dividends from the first voyage to Calcutta at 175 per 
cent. 



ed "their friendly companies;" associations 
to whose hands the smallest affairs as well as 
the largest were committed. There is sufli« 
cient ground for the belief that they gave oc- 
casion to many just complaints of the monop- 
oly wiiich was thus vested in few hands ; since 
the importers of wares had it in their power to 
regulate the price at will.§ But they neverthe- 
less maintained a strong position in the assem- 
blies of the empire. The abortive results of 
the diets held from 1509 to 1513 were chiefly 
caused by their opposition. They found means 
to get the proposed measures concerning the 
Pfahlbürger, in virtue of which goods were to 
pay duty, not to the town in which the owner 
of them lived, but to the sovereign or lord in 
whose dominions that town was situated, inde- 
finitely adjourned, (a. d. 1512.)!| 

It is evident that the peaceful securit}', the 
undisturbed prosperity, which are often ascribed 
to those times, had no existence but in imagi- 
nation. The cities kept their ground only {33/ 
dint of combination, and of unwearied activity, 
both in arms and in negotiation. 

There was also a vehement and continual 
ferment in the interior of the tov^^ns. The old 
struggle between the town councils and the 
commons or people was continually revived by 
the increasing demands for money made by the 
former and resisted by the latter; in some 
places it led to violence and bloodshed. In the 
year 1510 the Vierherr** Heinrich Kellner was 
executed in Erfurt for having, in the financial 
straits of the city, allowed the house of Saxony 
to redeem Capellendorf for a sum of money; 
all the following years were marked v/ith vie- 
lence and disorder. In Regensburg the aged 
and honest Lykircher, who had frequently held 
the offices of chamberlain, hansgrave, and judge 
of the peace, was brought to trial ; and, though 
the treasonable acts of which he was accused 
were never proved against him, was barbarous- 
ly tortured in the Holy Week of 1513, and 
shortly afterwards put to death, jf In Worms, 
first the old council, and afterv,-ards its suc- 
cessor, was driven out. In Cologne the com- 
mons were furiously incensed against the, new 
contributions with which they were vexed ; and 
still more against an association or company 
called the Garland, to which the most criminal 
designs were imputed. :j:i: Similar disturbances 
took place in Aix-la-Chapelle, Andernach, 
Speier, Hall in Swabia, Lübeck, Schweinfurt, 

§ Jäger, Schwäbisches Städtewesen, i. 669. As early 
as 1495. the plan was entertained of taxing the great 
companies. Datt. p. 844. nr. 16. Things remained in 
this state from one diet to another. 

!' A counter representation from Wetzlar and Frank- 
furt: " Es würde dem Reich und ihnen ein merklicher 
Abbruch seyn und wi'der ihre Privilegien laufen."—" It 
would be a signal injury to the empire and to them, and 
go against their privileges." (Fr. A.) 

** Vierherr and Hansgraf are among the numerous 
titles of magistrates used in different pa"rts of Germany. 
The former"' was probably the title of the four chief 
magistrates, like the four Syndics of Hamburg. The 
Hanssraf was a sort of president of the board of trade 
(if I may so apply the words) in the Hanse towns. There 
are still, I am told, t\\ Hansgrafen in Lübeck.— Transl. 

tt Chronicle of Regensburg, vol. iv. part iii. 

It Rhythmi de Seditione Colonieusi in Senkenberg, Se- 
lecta Juris et Hist. iv. nr. 6. 



11 



S2 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



Book I. 



and Nürnberg:* in every direction we meet 
with imprisonments, banishments, executions. 
Domestic grievances u'ere often aggravated by 
the suspicion of a criminal understanding with 
neighbouring states. In Cologne it was Guel- 
ders ; in Worms and Regensburg, Austria ; in 
Erfurt, Saxony, which was the object of their 
suspicions. The feeling of public insecurity 
burst forth in acts of the wildest violence. 

IV. Nor was this excitement and agitation 
confined to the populations of towns; through- 
out the whole breadth of the empire, the pea- 
santry was in an equal state of ferment. The 
peasants of the Swiss mountains had complete- 
ly changed their relation to the empire : from 
the condition of subjects, they had passed to 
that of free and independent allies : those of the 
marches of Friesland on the contrary had suc- 
eumbed to the neighbouring sovereigns ; the 
Ditmarschers alone stood for a while after a 
glorious and successful battle, like a noble ruin 
amidst modern edifices. The antagonist prin- 
ciples which, in distant lands and from the'fur- 
thest marches of the empire, gave rise to these 
conflicts, came into contact under a thousand 
different forms in the heart of the country. The 
subsidies for the empire and its growing neces- 
sities fell ultimately on the peasant; the de- 
mands of the sovereign, of the holders of church 
lands, and of the nobility, were all addressed 
to him.f On the other hand, in some countries 
the common people were made to bear arm. s ; 
they formed the bands of landsknechts which 
acquired and maintained a name am.ongst Eu- 
ropean troops ; they once more felt the strength 
that was in them. The exampiß of the Swiss 
was very seducing to the south of Germany. 
In the country round Schletstadt, in Alsatia, a 
society of discontented citizens and peasants, 
the existence and proceedings of which were 
shrouded in the profoundest secrecy, was formed 
as early äs the year 1493. Traversing almost 
impassable ways, they met at night on solitary 
mountains, and swore never in future to pay 
any tax which was not levied v/ith their own 
free consent; to abolish tolls and duties, to 
curtail the privileges of the clergy, to put the 
Jews to death without ceremony, and to divide 
their possessions. They admitted new mem- 
bers with strange ceremonies, specially intend- 
ed to appal traitors. Their intention was in 
the first place to seize on Schletstadt, immicdi- 
ately after to display the banner with the device 
of the peasant's shoe:|:, to take possession of 
Alsatia, and to call the Swiss to their aid.§ 



* Baselii Auctariiim Naucleri, p. lOiG. " Ea peslis pes- 
Eimse rebellionis adversus senatum in plerisque — civi- 
tatibus irrepsit. Trithemiiis (Chronic. Hirsaiig. ii. p. 689) 
reckons them up, adding the remarks, "et in aliis qua- 
rum vocabula memoria; non occurrunt." 

t Rosenblüt complains that the noble dravvs his main- 
tenance from the peasant, and yet does not insure him 
any peace : that he is constantly pushing his demands 
further, whereupon the peasant answers with abuse, and 
the noble rides down his cattle. 

I The Bundschuh ; the large rude shoe bound on the 
foot with thongs of leather, commonly worn by the Swa- 
bian peasantry, and borne on their banner in the servile 
war to w'hich they were driven by intolerable oppression. 
The Bund or league of the peasants, was afterwards 
called the Bundschuh. (See Vol. II.)— Transl. 

§ Herzog, Edelsasser Chronik., c. 71, p. 162. 



But in spite of the fearful menaces which ac- 
companied the admission to the society, they 
were betrayed, dispersed, and punished with 
the utmost severity. Had the Swiss in 1499 
understood their own advantage and not ex- 
cited the hatred of their neighbours by their 
cruel ravages, the people along their whole 
frontier would, as contemporaries affirm, have 
flocked to join their ranks. An incident shows 
the thoughts that were afloat among the people. 
During the negotiations preceding the peace 
of Basle, a peasant appeared in the c'lothes of 
the murdered Count of Fürstenberg. " We 
are the peasants," said he, " who punish the 
nobles." The discovery and dispersion of the 
conspiracy above-mentioned by no means put 
an end to the Bundschuh. In the year 1502 
traces of this symbol were found at Bruchsal, 
from whence the confederates had already 
gained over the nearer places, and were extend- 
ing their ramifications into the more remote. 
They declared that in answer to an inquiry ad- 
dressed to the Swiss they received an assurance 
that the Confederation would help the right, 
and risk life and limb in their cause. There 
was a tinge of religious enthusiasm in their no- 
tions. They were to say five Pater nosters and 
Ave Marias daih^ Their war-cry was to be, 
" Our Lady !" They were to take Bruchsal, 
and then march forth and onward, never re- 
maining more than twenty-four hours in a 
place. The whole peasantry of the empire 
would join them, of that there was no doubt ; 
all men must be brought into their covenant, 
that so the righteousness of God might be 
brought upon earth. || But they were quickly 
overpowered, scattered, and their leaders pun- 
ished with death. 

The imperial authorities had often contem- 
plated the danger of such commotions. Among 
the articles which the electors projected dis- 
cussing at their diet of Gelnhausen, one related 
to the necessity of alleviating the condition of 
the common people.** It v^'as always, the con- 
clusive argument against taxes like the Com- 
mon Penny, that there was reason to fear they 
would cause a rebellion among the people. In 
the year 1513, the authorities hesitated to pun- 
ish some deserters from the Landsknechts, be- 
cause they were afraid that they might enter 
into a combination vrith the peasants, whose 
permanent conspiracy against the nobles and 
clergy had been discovered from the confessions 
of some who had been arrested in the Breisgau. 
In the year 1514, they rose in open and com- 
plete rebellion in Wiirtenberg under the name 
of Poor Kunz (-der armer Kunz) : the treaty of 
Tübingen did not satisfy the peasants ; it was 
necessary to put them down by force of arms.f f 
We hear the sullen mutterings of a fierce un- 



II Frankf. Acten, vol. xx. Baselii Auctarium, p. 997. 

** " Der mit Fron Diensten Atzung Stcure geistlichen 
Gerichten und andern also merklich boschvi'ert ist, dass 
es in die Harre nicht zu leiden feyn wird." — " Who is so 
signally burthened with feudal services, taxes, ecclesias- 
tical courts, and other things, that in the long run it will 
not be to be borne." 

ft Wahraftig Unterrichtung der Ufrur bei Sattler Her- 
zoge, i. App. no. 70. 



Book I. 



INTESTINE DISORDERS. 



83 



tamed element, incessantly going on under the 
very earth on which we stand. 

While such was the state of Germany, the 
emperor was wholly occupied with his Vene- 
tian war; — at one time fighting with the French 
against the Pope and the Venetians, at another 
with the Pope and the English against the 
Fren<'-h : the Swiss, now in alliance with him, 
conquer Milan and lose it again; lie himself, 
at tjie head of Swiss and Landsknechts, makes 
an attempt to recover it, but in vain. We see 
liim repeatedl}^ travelling from Tyrol to the 
Netherlands, from the sea-coast back to the 
Italian Alps; like the commander of a belea- 
guered fortress, hurrying incessantly from bas- 
tion to bastion, and Vvatching the propitious 
moment for a soitie. But this exhausted his 
whole activity; the interior of Germany was 
abandoned to its own impulses. ^ 

A diet was appointed to 'be held at W^orms 
again, in the year 1513; and on the 1st June 
we find a certain number of the States actually 
assembled. The em.peror alone was wanting. 
At length he appeared, but his business did not 
allow him to remain : under tiie pretext that he 
must treat in person with the dilatory electors 
of Treves and Cologne, he hurried down the 
Rhine, proposing to the States to follow him to 
Coblentz. They chose rather to disperse alto- 
gether.* "Of a truth, writes the Altbürger- 
nieister of Cologne to the Frankfurters, "you 
have done wisely that you stayed at home; 
you have spared much cost, and earned equal 
thanks." 

It was not till after an interval of five years 
(a. d. 1517), when not only Sickingen's pri- 
vate wars threw the whole of Upper Germany 
into confusion, but the universal disorder of 
the country had become intolerable, that a diet 
\vas held again; — this time at Mainz, in the 
chapter house of which city it was opened on 
the ist July. 

The imperial commissioners demanded vast 
succours for the suppression of the disturbances 
— not, as before, every four hundredth, but 
every fiftieth man; the States, however, did 
not deem it advisable to resort to arms. The 
poor hysbandman, already suffering under the 
torments of w^ant and famine, might, " in his 
furious temper," be still further exasperated ; 
the rage which had long gnawed at his heart 
miuht burst forth ; a universal rebellion was 



* In the Frankfurt Acts, vol. xxx., there is a letter 
from Worms to Frankfurt, accordine to which the States 
present, " prima Siinii nech?t verrückt einhelliiilich ent- 
schlossen und den kais. Conimissarien für enrllich Ant- 
wort-jreben, dass sie noch zehn Tag allhie bei einander 
verziehen und bleiben, und wo inen in niitler Zeit nit 
weiter Geschefte oder Befel von Kais. Mt. zukonnnen, 
wollen sie alsdann sich alle wieder von dannen anheim 
thun." — " On the first of June just past, unanimously re- 
solved, and give this their tinal answer to the imperial 
commissioners, that they sh;i!l tarry and remain here to- 
gether ten days longer, and if, meantime, no further bu- 
siness or command reach them from his imperial majes- 
ty, they shall all in that case betake themselves thence 
home." In an address of the 20th of August, Maximilian 
announces a new diet of the empire, '"Die geringe An- 
zahl dererschieneaen Stande habe ihren Abschied genom- 
men, da sie sich keiner Handlung verfangen mögen." — 
"The small number of states which had appeared, had 
taken their leave, as they were unwilling to meddle with 
any business." 



to be feared. They desired rather to put 
down the prevailing disturbances by lenity and 
conciliation ; they entered into negotiations on 
all sides — even with Sickingen; above all, 
they appointed a committee to inquire into the 
general state of the country, and into the 
causes of the universal outbreak of disturb- 
ances. The imperial commissioners wanted 
to dissolve the assembly on tlie ground that 
they could do nothing without ascertaining the 
opinion of his imperial majesty ; but the States 
would not consent to be put off so : the sit- 
tings of the committee, two members of which 
were nominated by the cities, were solemnly 
opened by a mass for the invocation of the 
Holy Ghost (Missa Sancti Spiritus). On the 
7th August, 1517, they laid their report before 
the diet. 

It is very remarkable that the States discover 
the main source of the whole evil in the high- 
est and most important institution that had 
been founded in the empire — in the Imperial 
Chamber; and in the defects in its constitu- 
tion and modes of procedure. The eminent 
members ofthat tribunal, they said, were gone, 
and incapable ones put in their places. The 
procedure was protracted through years; one 
great cause of which was, that the court re- 
ceived so many appeals on trifling matters that 
the important business could not be despatched. 
Nor was this all. The court had not free 
course ; it was often ordered to stay all pro- 
ceedings. If, after long delays and infinite 
trouble, a suitor succeeded in getting judgment 
pronounced, he could not get it executed ; his 
antagonist obtained mandates to prevent its 
execution. The consequence was, that the 
highest penalties of the ]d,w, the ban and reban 
{Acht und Aberacht), had no longer terrors for 
any one. The criminal under ban found shel- 
ter and protection ; and as the other courts of 
justice were in no better condition — in all, in- 
capable judges, impunit}?- for misdoers, and 
abuses without end — disquiet and tumult had 
broken out in all parts. Neither by land nor 
by water were the ways safe; no safe-conduct, 
whether of the head or the members of the 
empire, was the least heeded ; there was no 
protection, whether for subjects or for such 
foreigners as were entitled to it: the husband- 
man, by whose labours all classes were fed, 
was ruined ; w-idows and orphans were de- 
serted ; not a pilgrim or a messenger or a 
tradesman could travel along the roads, whether 
to fulfil his pious duty, or to deliver his mes- 
sage, or to execute his business. To these 
evils were added the boundless luxury in 
clothing and food ; the wealth of the country 
all found its way into foreign lands, especially 
to Rome, where new exactions were daily in- 
vented : lastly, it was most mischievous to 
allow the men at arms, who had sometimes 
been fighting against the emperor and the em- 
pire, to return to their homes, where they 
stirred up the peasantry to rebellion. 

And while such v/as the statement of public 
grievances, the particular petitions and remon- 
strances were countless.' The inhabitants of 



84 



INTESTINE BISORDERS. 



Book I. 



Worms complained of " the inhuman private 
warfare (Fehde) which Franciscns von Sick- 
ingen, in despite and disregard, of his honour, 
carried on against them ;" to which the depu- 
ties from Spires added, tliat Sickingen's troops 
had the design to burn down the Spital of their 
city. Mühlhausen complained in its own 
name, and those of Nordhausen and Gosslar, 
that they paid tribute for protection and were 
not protected : Lübeck enumerated all the in- 
juries it sustained from the King of Denmark, 
from nobles and commons ; it could obtain no 
help from the empire, by which it was so 
heavily burthened; it must pay its money to 
the Imperial Chamber, which always gave 
judgment against it, and never in its favour. 
Other towns said nothing of their grievances, 
because they saw it was of no avail. Mean- 
time the knights held meetings at Friedberg, 
Gelnhausen, Bingen, and Vvimpfen, whither 
the emperor sent delegates to appease them. 
Anna of Brunswick, the widowed Landgravine 
of Hessen, appeared in person at the diet, and 
uttered the bitterest complaints : she said she 
could obtain no justice in Hessen; that she 
vainly followed the emperor and the Imperial 
Chamber from place to place; her dowry of 
Melsungen was consumed ; she was reduced 
to travel about like a gipsy, with a solitary 
maid-servant, and to pawn her jewels and even 
her clothes ; she could not pay her debts, and 
must soon beg her bread. 

" Summa Summarum," writes the delegate 
from Frankfurt, " here is nothing but com- 
plaint and wrong ; it is greatly to be feared 
that no remedy will be found.* The States 



* Philip Furstenbersr, July 26. In the 32d vol. of the 
Frankf. A., where generally the transactions of this diet 
are to be found. " Wo Kais. Mt." he says, on the ]ßth 
«of Aug., of the representations which were made, " die- 
eelbig als billig und wol ware verwilligen wurde, hoff 
ich alle Dinge sollten noch gut werden, wo nicht, so helft 
uns Gott." " If his imperial majesty would comply with 



made the most urgent appeals to the emperor: 
they conjured him for God's sake, for the sake 
of justice, for his own, for that of the holy 
empire, of the German nation, nay of all 
Christendom, to lay these things to heart; — to 
remember how many mighty states had fallen, 
through want of inward tranquillity and order ; 
to look carefully into what was passing in the 
minds of the common people, and to find a 
remedy for these great evils. 

Such were the words addressed to him ; but 
they were hut words. A remedy — a measure 
of the smallest practical utility — was not so 
much as suggested; the diet was dissolved 
without having even proceeded to one resolu- 
tion. 

And already the excited mind of the nation 
was turned towards other evils and other abuses 
than those which affected its civil and political 
condition. 

In consequence of the intimate union betv/een 
Rome and Germany, in virtue of which the 
Pope was always a mighty power in the em- 
pire, a grave discussion on spiritual affairs had 
become inevitable. For a time, they had fall- 
en into the back-ground, or been the subject 
only of chance and incidental mention : now, 
however, they attracted universal attention ; 
the vigorous and agitated spirit of the nation, 
weary and disgusted with the present and the 
past, and eagerly striving after the future, seiz- 
ed upon them with avidity. As a disposition 
was immediately m^anifested to go to the bot- 
tom of the subject, and to proceed from a con- 
sideration of the external interference of the 
church, to a general and thorough examination 
of its rights, this agitation speedily acquired 
an importance which extended far beyond the 
limits of the internal policy of Germany. 



the same, as were reasonable and right, I should hope 
that all things might yet go well ; if not, then God help 
us." 



BOOK II. 



EARLY HISTORY OF LUTHER AND OF CHARLES V. 



1517—1521 



CHAPTER 1. 

ORIGIN OF THE RELIGIOUS OPPOSITION. 

Whatever hopes we may entertain of the 
final accomplishment of the prophecies of an 
universal faith in one God and Father of all 
which have come down to us in the Hebrew 
and Christian Scriptures, it is certain that after 
the lapse of more than ten centuries that faith 
had by no means overspread the earth. The 
world v/as filled with manifold and widely dif- 
fering modes and objects of worship. 

Even in Europe, the attempts to root out pa- 
ganism had been but partially successful; in 
Lithuania, for example, the ancient worship of 
the serpent endured through tlie whole of the 
15th and 16th centuries, and was even invest- 
ed with a political significancy ;* and if this 
was the case in Europe, how much more so in 
other portions of the globe ! In every clime 
men continued to symbolise the powers of na- 
ture, and to endeavour to subdue them by en- 
chantments or to propitiate them by sacrifices : 
throughout vast regions the memory of the 
dead was the terror of the living, and the rites 
of religion were especially designed to avert 
their destructive interference in human things; 
to v/orship only the sun and moon supposed a 
certain elevation of soul, and a considerable 
degree of civilisation. 

Refined by philosophy, letters, and arts, re- 
presented by vast and powerful hierarchies, 
stood the mightiest antagonists of Christianity 
— the Indian religion and Islam ; and it is re- 
meirrkable how great an internal agitation pre- 
vailed within them at the epoch of which we 
are treating. 

Although the Brahmihical faith was, per- 
haps, originally founded on monotheistic ideas, 
it had clothed these in a multiform idolatry. 
But at the end of the 15th and beginning of 
the 16th century, we trace the progress of a 
reformer in Hindostan. Nanek, a native of 
Lahore, endeavoured to restore the primitive 
ideas of religion, and to show the advantages 
of a pure morality over a merely ceremonial 
worship : he projected the abolition of castes, 
nay, even a union of Hindoos and Moslem ; 
he presents one of the most extraordinary ex- 
amples of peaceful unfanatical piety the world 
ever beheld.f Unfortunately, his efforts were 



unsuccessful. The notions he combated were 
much too deeply rooted ; even those who call- 
ed themselves his disciples — the Sikhs — paid 
idolatrous honours to the man who laboured to 
destroy idolatry. 

A new and very important development of 
the other branch of the religions of India — 
Buddhism — also took place in the fifteenth 
century. The first regenerated Lama appeared 
in the monastery of Brepuno, and was uni- 
versally acknowledged throughout Thibet; 
the second incarnation of the same (from 1463 
to 1542) had similar success in the most re- 
mote Buddhist countries ;:j: from that time hun- 
dreds of millions revere in the Dalailama at 
L'Hassa the living Buddha of the present, — 
the unity of the divine trinity, — and throng 
thither to receive his blessing. It cannot be 
denied that this religion had a beneficial in- 
fluence on the manners of rude nations ; but, 
on the other hand, what fetters does such a 
fantastic deification of human nature impose 
on the mind ! Those nations possess the ma- 
terials for forming a popular literature, a wide 
diffusion of the knowledge of the elements of 
science, and the art of printing; but the litera- 
ture itself — the independent exercise and free 
utterance of the mind, can never exist ; § nor 
are such controversies as those between the 
married and unmarried priests, or the yellow 
and the red professions vv'hich attach them- 
selves to different chiefs, at all calculated to 
give birth to it. The rival Lamas make pil- 
grimages to each other, and reciprocally re- 
cognise each other's divine character. 

The same antagonism which prevailed be- 
tween Brama and Buddha, subsisted in the 
bosom of Islam, from its very foundation, 
between the three elder Chalifs and Ali ; in 
the beginning of the sixteenth century the 
contest between the two sects, which had been 
dormant for awhile, broke out with redoubled 
violence. The sultan of the Osmans regarded 
himself (in his character of successor to Abu- 
bekr and the first Chalifs) as the religious head 



* ^iieas Silvius de Statu Euvopse. c. 20. Alexander 
Guagninus in Resp. Poloniae. Elz, p, 276. 

t B'hai Guru the B'hale in Malcolm's Translation, 
Sketch of the Sikhs. Asiatic Researches, xvi. 271. That 
holy man made God the Supreme known to ail — he re- 
stored to virtue her strength, blended the four castes into 
or.o— established one mode of salutation. 
H 



J Fr. Georffi Alphabetum Tibetanum, p. 32G., says of 
it: " Pergit fnter Tartaros ad amplificandam religionem 
Xacaicam in regno Kokonor eis rnurnm magnum Sino- 
rum: inde in Kang: multa erigit asceteria: redit in 
Brepung." He bears the name of So-nam-kiel vachiam- 
tzho, and is notwithstanding the old Reval-Kedun, who 
died in 1399. 

§ Hodgson, Notice sur la Langue, la Literature, et la 
Religion des Boudhistes. " L'6criture des Tubetains n'est 
jamais employee a rien de plus utile que des notes des 
affaires ou de plus instructif que les reves d'une mytho- 
logie absurde," &c. The objections of Klaproth, Nouv. 
Journ. Asiatique, p. 99, are not in my opinion of much 
weight, as the question is not concerning a literature, 
which may be old, or the existence of which may be un. 
known, but a living one of the present day. 

^ (85) 



86 



ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS OPPOSITION. 



Book II. 



of all Sunnites, whether in his own or foreign 
countries, from Morocco to Bokhara. On the 
other hand, a race of mystic Sheiks of Erdebil, 
who traced their origin from Ali, gave birth 
to a successful warrior, Ismail Sophi, who 
founded the modern Persian monarchy, and 
secured once more to the Shiites a powerful 
representation and an illustrious place in his- 
lory. Unfortunately, neither of these parties 
lelt the duty or expediency of fostering the 
germ of civilisation which had lain in the soil 
since the better times of the early Chalifat. 
They only developed the tendency to despotic 
autocracy which Islam so peculiarly favours, 
and worked up political hostility to an incre- 
dible pitch of fury by the stimulants of fanati- 
cism. The Turkish historians relate that the 
enemy who had fallen into Ismail's hands 
were roasted and eaten.* The Osman, Sultan 
Selim, on the other hand, opened the war 
against his rival by causing all the Shiites in 
his land, from the age of seven to seventy, to 
be hunted out and put to death in one day ; 
"forty thousand heads," says Seadeddin, 
" with base souls." The antagonists were, 
as we perceive, worthy of each other. 

In Christendom, too, a division existed 
between the Grseco-Oriental and the Latin 
church, which, though it did not lead to acts 
of such savage violence, could not be healed. 
Even the near approach of the resistless torrent 
of Turkish power which threatened instant 
destruction, could not move the Greeks to 
accede to the condition under which the as- 
sistance of the West was offered them — the 
adoption of the distinguishing formulae of con- 
fession — except for the moment, and ostensi- 
bly. The union which was brought about at 
Florence, in the year 1439, with so much 
labour, met with little sympathy from some, 
and the most violent opposition from others : 
the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and 
Jerusalem, loudly protested against the depar- 
ture from canonical and synodal tradition, 
which such a union implied ; they threatened 
the Greek emperor with a schism on their own 
part, on account of the indulgence he show^ed 
to the Latin heterodoxy. j" 

If we inquire which of these several religions 
had the greater external and political strength, 
we are led to the conclusion that Islam had 
unquestionably the advantage. By the con- 
([uests of the Osmans in the 15th century, it 
liad extended to regions where it had been 
hitherto unknown, almost on the borders of 
Europe ; combined too with political institu- 
tions which must inevitably lead to the un- 
ceasing progress of conversion. It reconquered 
that sovereignty over the Mediterranean which 
it had lost since the eleventh century. Its 
triumphs in India soon equalled those in the 
West. Sultan Baber was not content with 
overthrowing the Islamite princes who had 
hitherto held that land. Finding, as he ex- 
pressed it, "that the banners of the heathen 
waved in two hundred cities of the faithful — 

* Hammer, Osmanische Gesch., ii. 345. 
t Passages from their letter of admonition, in Gieseler, 
Kirchengeschichte, ii. 4, p. 545. 



that mosques were destroyed and the women 
and children of the Moslem carried into 
slavery," he proclaimed a holy war against 
the Hindoos, as the Osmans had done against 
the Christians. On the eve of a battle he 
resolved to abjure the use of wine; he re- 
pealed taxes which were inconsistent wiih the 
Koran, and enkindled the ardour of his troops 
by a vow sworn upon this their sacred book; 
his reports of his victories are conceived in the 
same spirit of religious enthusiasm, and he 
thus earned the title of Gazi.ij: The rise of 
so mighty a power, actuated by such ideas, 
necessarily gave a vast impulse to the propa- 
gation of Islam throughout the East. 

But if, on the other hand, we endeavour to 
ascertain which of these different systems pos- 
sessed the greatest internal force, — which was 
pregnant with the most important consequences 
to the destiny of the human race, — we can as 
little fail to arrive at the conviction (whatever 
be our religious faith), that the superiority was 
on the side of Latin Christendom. 

Its most important peculiarity lay in this — 
that a slow but sure and unbroken progress of 
intellectual culture had been going on within 
its bosom for a series of ages. While the East 
had been convulsed to its very centre by tor- 
rents of invasion like that of the Mongols, 
the West had indeed always been agitated by 
wars, in which the various powers of society 
were brought into motion and exercise ; but 
neither had foreign tribes overrun the land, nor 
had there been any of those intestine convul- 
sions which shake the foundations of a society 
in an early and progressive stage of civilisation. 
Hence all the vital and productive elements of 
human culture were here united and mingled : 
the development of society had gone on natu- 
rally and gradually ; the innate passion and 
genius for science and for art constantly re- 
ceived fresh food and fresh inspiration, and 
were in their fullest bloom and vigour; civil 
liberty was established upon firm foundations ; 
solid and symmetrical political structures arose 
in beneficent rivalry, and the necessities of 
civil life led to the combination and improve- 
ment of physical resources ; the laws which 
eternal Providence has impressed on human 
affairs were left to their free and tranquil oper- 
ation ; what had decayed crumbled away and 
disappeared, while the germs of fresh life con- 
tinually shot up and flourished : in Europe 
were found united the most intelligent, the 
bravest, and the most civilised nations, still in 
the freshness of youth. 

Such was the world which now sought, like 
its eastern rival, to extend its limits and its in- 
fluence. Four centuries had elapsed since, 
prompted by religious motives, it had made at- 
tempts at conquest in the East; but after a 
momentary success these had failed — only a 
few fragments of these acquisitions remained 
in its possession. But at the end of the fif- 
teenth century, a new theatre for boundless ac- 
tivity was opened to the West. It was the 

t Baber's own Memoirs, translated into English by 
Leyden and Erskine, into German by Kaiser, 1828, p. 537, 
and tlie two firmans thereto annexed. 



Chap. L 



POSITION OF PAPACY TO RELIGION. 



87 



time of the discovery of both Indies, All ele- 
ments of European culture — the study of the 
half-effaced recollections of -antiquity, technical 
improvements, the spirit of commercial and 
political enterprise, religious zeal — all con- 
spired to render the newly-discovered countries 
tempting and profitable. All the existing rela- 
tions of nations, however, necessarily under- 
went a change; the people of the West ac- 
quired a new superiority, or at least became 
capable of acquiring it. 

Above all, the relative situation of religions 
was altered. Christianity, especially in the 
forms it had assumed in the Latin Church, 
gained a fresh and unexpected ascendancy in 
the remotest regions. It was therefore doubly 
important to mankind, what might be the pre- 
sent or the future form and character of the 
Latin Church. The pope instantly put forth a 
claim, which no one contested, to divide the 
countries that had been, or that yet might be 
found, between the two States by which they 
were discovered. 



POSITION OF THE PAPACY WITH REGARD TO 
RELIGION. 

The question, at what periods and under 
what circumstances ihe distinguishing doc- 
trines and practices of the Roujish Church 
were settled, and acquired an ascendancy, 
merits a minute and elaborate dissertation. 

It is sufficient here to recal to the mind of 
the reader, that this took place at a compara- 
tively late period, and precisely in the century 
of the great hierarchical struggles. 

It is well known that the institutions of the 
Seven Sacraments, whose circle embraces all 
the important events of T.he life of man, and 
brings them into contact with the church, is 
ascribed to Peter Lombard, who lived in the 
twelfth century.* It appears upon inquiry 
that the notions regarding the most important 
of them, the Sacrament of the Altar, were by 
no means very distinct in the church itself, in 
the time of that great theologian. It is true 
that one of those synods which, under Gregory 
VIL, had contributed so much to the establish- 
ment of tlie hierarchy, had added great weight 
to the doctrine of the real presence by the con- 
demnation of Berengar: but Peter Lombard as 
3'et did not venture to decide in its favour ; the 
word transubstantiation first became current in 
his time; nor was it until the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, that the idea and the word 
received the sanction of the church: this, as is 
well known, w^as first given by the Lateran 
confession of faith in the year 1215; and it 
was not till later that the objections which till 
then had been constantly suggested by a deeper 
view^ of religion, gradually disappeared. 

It is obvious, however, of what infinite im- 
portance this doctrine became to the service of 
the church, which has crystallized (if I may 

* It'would amount to little, if what Schrockh (Kirchen - 
geschichte, xxviiK p. 45) assumes were true ; viz. that 
Olto of Bamberg had already preached this doctrine to 
the Pomeranians ; but it has been justly remarked, that 
the biography of Otto, in which this statement appears, 
was written at a later time. 



use the expression) around the mystery it in- 
volves. The ideas of the mystical and sensible 
presence of Christ in the church were thus em- 
bodied in a living image; the adoration of the 
Host was introduced; festivals in honour of 
this greatest of all miracles, incessantly re- 
peated, were solemnized. Intimately connect- 
ed w-ith this is the great importance attached 
to the worship of the Virgin Mary, the mother 
of Christ, in the latter part of the middle ages. 

The prerogatives of the priesthood are also 
essentially connected with this article of fiiith. 
The theory and doctrine of the priestly cha- 
racter were developed ; that is, of the powder 
communicated to the priest by ordination, "to 
make the body of Christ" (as they did not 
scruple to say) " to act in the person of 
Christ." It is a product of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, and it is to be traced principally to Alex- 
ander of Hales and I'homas Aquinas. f This 
doctrine first gave to the separation of the 
priesthood from the laity, which had indeed 
other and deeper causes, its full significancy. 
People began to see in the priest the mediator 
between God and man.ij: 

This separation, regarded as a positive insti^ 
tution, is also, as is well known, an offspring 
of the same epoch. In the thirteenth century, 
spite of all opposition, the celibacy of the 
priesthood became an inviolable law. At the 
same time the cup began to be withheld from 
the laity. It w^as not denied that the eflicacy 
of the Eucharist in both kinds was more com- 
plete ; but it was said that the more worthy 
should be reserved for the more worthy — for 
those by whose instrumentality alone it was 
produced. "It is not in the participation of 
the faithful," says St. Thomas, " that the per- 
fection of the sacrament lies, but solely in the 
consecration of the elements." § And in fact 
the church appeared far less designed for in- 
struction or for the preaching of the Gospel, 
than for the showing forth of the great mys- 
tery ; and the priesthood is, through the sacra- 
ment, the sole depository of the power to do 
this ; it is through the priest that sanctification 
is imparted to the multitude. 

This very separation of the priesthood from 
the laity gave its members boundless influence 
over all other classes of the communi;)^ 

It is a necessary part of the theory of the 
sacerdotal character above alluded to, that the 
priest has the exclusive powder of removing the 
obstacles which stand in the way of a partici- 
pation in the mysterious grace of God : in this 
not even a saint had power to supersede him. Ij 
But the absolution which he is authorized to 
grant is charged wäth certain conditions, the 



t See the researches of Thomas Aquinas concerninjr 
the Birth of Christ, " Utrum de pnrissimis sanguinibus 
virginis formatus fuerit, &c." SummiE, pars iii.'quaestio 
31. It is evident what value was set upon tlie point. 

J '■ Sacerdos," says Thomas, "constitniturmedius inter 
Daum et populum. Sacerdos novce legis in persona Christi 
operatur." Summte, pars. iii. qurestio 22, art 4, concl. 

§ " Perfectio hujus sacrampnti iion est i^n usu fidelium 
sed in consecratione materise." — Pars iii. qu. SO, a. 12, 
c. 2m. 

|[ Summa; Suppl. Qu. 17, a. 2, c. 1^. " Character et po 
testas conticiendi et potestas claviumest unum et idem." 
But I refer to the entire question. 



POSITION OF THE PAPACY 



Book II. 



most imperative of which is confession. In 
the beginninor of the thirteenth century it was 
peremptorily enjoined on every believer as a 
duty, to confess all his sins, at least once in a 
year, to some particular priest. 

It requires no elaborate argument to prove 
what an all-pervading influence auricular con- 
fession, and the official supervision and guid- 
ance of consciences, must give to the (clergy. 
With this was connected a complete, organised 
system of penances. 

Above all, a character and position almost 
divine was thus conferred on the high-priest, 
the pope of Rome; of whom it was assumed 
that he occupied the place of Christ in the 
mystical body of the church, which embraced 
heaven and earth, the dead and the living. 
This conception of the functions and attributes 
of the pope was first filled out and perfected 
in the beginning of the thirteenth century ; 
then, too, was the doctrine of the treasures of 
the church, on which the system of indulgences 
rests, ^rst promulgated. Innocent III. did not 
scruple to declare, that w^hat he did, God did, 
through him. Glossators added, that the pope 
possessed the uncontrolled will of God ; that 
his sentence superseded all reasons : with per- 
verse and extravagant dialectic, they pro- 
pounded the question, whether it were possible 
to appeal from the pope to God,* and answered 
it in the negative; seeing that God had the 
same tribunal as the pope, and that it v/as im- 
possible to appeal from any being to himself. 

It is clear that the papacy must have already 
gained the victory over the empire, — that it 
could no longer have any thing to fear, either 
from master or rival, — before opinions and doc- 
trines of this kintl could be entertained or 
avowed. In the age of struggles and con- 
quests, the theory of the hierarchy gained 
ground step by step with the fact of material 
power. Never were theory and practice more 
intimately connected. 

Nor was it to be believed that any inter- 
ruption or pause in this course of things took 
place in the fifteenth century. The denial of 
the right of the clergy to vi-ithhold the cup 
was first declared to be heresy at ^the council 
of Constance : Eugenius IV. first formally 
accepted the doctrine of the Seven Sacraments ; 
the extraordinary school interpretation of the 
miraculous conception was first approved by 
the councils, favoured by the popes, and ac- 
cepted by the universities, in this age.f 

It might appear that the worldly dispositions 
of the popes of those times, whose main ob- 
ject it was to enjoy life, to promote their de- 
pendents and to enlarge their secular domin- 
ions, would have prejudiced their spiritual 
pretensions. But, on the contrary, these were 
as vast and as arrogant as ever. The only 
eifect of the respect inspired by the councils 
was, that the popes forbade any one to appeal 
to a council under pain of damnation. :|: With 



* Augustini Triumphi Summa in Giqseler, Kirchen- 
geschichte, ii. iii. 95. 

t Baselii Auctarium Naucleri, p. 993. 

I Bull of Pius II. of the 18th of Jan. 1460. (XV. Kal. 
Febr., not X., as Rain, has it.) Bullar. Cocq. torn. iii. 
pars iii. p. 97. 



what ardour do the curialist writers. labour to 
demonstrate the infallibility of the pope ! John 
of Torquemada is unwearied in heaping to- 
gether analogies from Scripture, maxims of 
the lathers and passages out of the false 
decretals, for this end ; he goes so far as to 
maintain that, w^ere there not a head of the 
church who could decide all controversies and 
remove all doubts, it might be possible to 
doubt of the Holy Scriptures themselves, which 
derived their authority only from the church; 
which, again, could not be conceived as ex- 
isting without the pope.§ In the beginning 
of ihe sixteenth eentury, the well-lmown Do- 
minican, Thomas of Gaeta, did not hesitate to 
declare the church a born slave, who could 
have no other remedy against a bad pope, than 
to pray for him without ceasing. || 

Nor were any of the resources of physical 
force neglected or abandoned. The Domini- 
cans, who taught the strictest doctrines in the 
universities and proclaimed them to the people 
from the pulpit, had the right to enforce them 
by means of fire and sword. Many victims 
to orthodoxy were offered up after John Huss 
and Jerome of Prague. The contrast between 
the worldly-mindedness and sensuality of 
Alexander VI. and Leo X., with the addi- 
tional stringency and rigour they gave to the 
pov/ers of the Inquisition, is most glaring.*'^' 
Under the authority of similarly disposed pre-» 
decessors, this institution had recently ac- 
quired in Spain a more fearful character and 
aspect than it had ever yet presented to the 
world ; and the example of Germany shows 
that similar tendencies w^ere at work in other 
countries. The strange distortion of the fancy 
which gave birth to the notion of a personal 
intercourse with Satan, served as the pretext 
for bloody executions ; the " Hexenhammer" 
(Hammer for Witches) was the v.-ork of two 
German Dominicans. The Spanish Inquisi- 
tion had originated in a persecution of the 
Jews : in Germany, also, the Jevv^s were uni- 
versally persecuted in the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, and the Dominicans of 
Cologne proposed to the emperor to establish 
an Inquisition against them. The)^ had even 
the ingenuity to invent a legal authority for 
such a measure. They declared that it was 
necessary to examine how far the Jews had 
deviated from the Old Testament, which the 
emperor was fully entitled to do, since their 
nation had formally acknowledged before the 
judgment-seat of Pilate the authority of the 
imperial m/ajesty of Rome.j| If they had suc- 
ceeded, they would certainly not have stopped 
at the Jews. 



§ Johannes de TiuTecreniala de Potestate Papali (I?nc- 
caherti, torn. ?:iii.), c. 11-3. " Gredendiun est, quod Ro- 
maiiUH jMiiUifex in judicio eoruiu qua? fidei sunt, spiritu 
sancto rejratur et per consequGiis in illis non erret : alias 
possit qui? eadem facilitate dicere, quod erratum sit in 
electione quatiior evanirelionnn et epistolarum canonis." 
He laments, however, over the " multa turba adversario- 
rum et inimicorum Romanas sedis," who will not believe 
this. 

Il De Autoritate Papas etConcilii. Extracts in Rainal- 
dus, 1.512, nr. 18. 

** Decretals in Rainaldus, 1498, nr. 25, 1516, nr. 34. 

It Report in Reuchlin's Augenspiegel (Mirror), printed 
by V. d. Hardt, Historia Liter. Reformationis, iii. 61. 



Chap. T. 



V/ITH REGARD TO RELIGION. 



Meanwhile the whole intellectual energy of 
the age flowed in the channels marked out by 
the church. Germany is a striking example 
to what an extent the popular mind of a nation 
of the- West received its direction from eccle- 
siastical principles. 

The great workshops of literature, the Ger- 
man universities, were all more or less colo- 
nies or branches of that of Paris — either di- 
rectly sprang from it, like the earlier; or indi- 
rectly, like the later. Their statutes sometimes 
begin with a eulog}' on the Alma Mater of Pa- 
ris.* From that most ancient seat of learning, 
too, had the w'hole system of the schoolmen, 
the controversy between Nominalism and Real- 
ism, the preponderancy of the theological fac- 
ulty, — "that brilliant star from which every- 
thing received liijht and life," — passed over to 
them. In the theological faculty the Professor 
of Sentences! had the precedency, and the 
Baccalaureus who read the Bible was obliged 
to allow him to determine the hour of his lec- 
ture. In some universities, none but a clerk 
who had received at least inferior ordination, 
could be chosen Rector. The whole of edu- 
cation, from the first elements to the highest 
dignities of learning, w^as conducted in one and 
the same spirit. Dialectical distinctions intru- 
ded themselves into the very rudiments of 
g;rammar ;:|: and the elementary books of the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries were constantly 
retained as the groundwork of learning :§ here, 
too, the same road was steadily pursued which 
had been marked out at the time of the founda- 
tion of the hierarchical power. 

Art was subject to the same influences. The 
ministers and cathedrals, in which the doctrines 
and ideas of the church are so curiousl}^ sj'm- 
bolised, rose on every side. In the year 1482, 
the tow-ers of the church of St. Sebaldus at 
Nürnberg were raised to their present height ; 
in 1494, a new and exquisitely wrought gate 
was added to Strasburg minster; in 1500, the 
king of the Romans laid the first stone of the 
choir of the Reichsgotteshaus (Church of the 
Empire) St. Ulrich, in Augsburg, with sil- 
ver trowel, rule, and hod ; he caused a mag- 
nificent block of stone to be brought from the 
mountains, out of which a monument was to 
be erected " to the well-beloved lord St. Ü1- 



* Principium Statutorum Facultatis Theologicw Studii 
Vieniiensis ap. Kollar Analecta, i. 137, p. 240, n. 2. Sta- 
tute of Cologne in Bianco, Endowments for Students at 
Cologne, p. 4Ö1 : " Divins sapientis iiuvius descendens a 
patre luminuni — ah alveo Parisiens. studii tanquam cis- 
terna conductu capto percanalia prorunipit Rheni partes 
ubertando." Tiie srenealngy is as follows: — From the 
university of Paris issued tliose of Prague, Vienna, Hei- 
delberg, and Cologne; from Prague, — Leipzig, Rostock, 
Greifswald; and for the greater part, Erfurt ; from Co- 
logne, — Louvain and Treves; from Vienna, — Freiburg, 
and, according to the Statutes. Ingolstadt. At Basle and 
Tübingen at first, deference was paid to Bologna also ; 
but even in Basle, the first Bursa was called the Parisian 
and in Tübingen the first teacher of Theology was ä ma- 
gister from Paris. 

4t Professor Sententiarum, the expositor of the " Sen- 
tentiae" of Peter Lombard. — Transl. 

% Geiler, Navicula : " In prima parre de subjecto attri- 
butionis et de habitibns intellectualibus, quod scire jam 
est magistrorum provectorum." 

§ Johannes de Garlandia, Alexander's Doctrinale. Du- 
fresne, Praefatio ad Glossarium, 42, 43. 
12 H* 



rich, our kinsman of the house of Kyburt^ :" 
upon it was to stand a king of the Romans, 
sword in hand. || In 1513, the choir of the ca- 
thedral of Freiburg, in 1517, that of Bern, was 
finished ; the porch on the northern transept 
of the church of St. Lawrence in Nürnberg- 
dates from 1520. The brotherhoods of the 
masons, and the secrets which arose in the 
workshops of German builders, spread wider 
and wider. It was not till a later period that 
the redundancy of foliage, the vegetable char- 
acter, which so remarkably distinguishes the 
so-called gothic architecture, became general. 
At the time we are speaking of, the interior of 
churclies was principally adorned with count- 
less figures, either exquisitely carved in wood, 
or cast in precious metals, or painted and en- 
closed in gold frames, which covered the altars 
or adorned the aisles and porches. It is not 
the province of the arts to produce ideas, but 
to give them a sensible form ; all the creative 
powers of the nation were now devoted to the 
task of representing the traditional conceptions 
of the church. Those wondrous representa- 
tions of the Mother of God, so full of sw-eet 
and innocent grace, which have im.mortalized 
Baldung, Schaff'ner, and especially I\Iartin 
Schön, are not mere visions of an artist's fan- 
cy ; they are profoundly connected with that 
w^orship of the Virgin which was then pecu- 
liarly general and fervent. I venture to add 
that they cannot be understood vvithout the 
rosary, which is designed to recal the several 
joys of the Holy Mary; — the angelic saluta- 
tion, the journey across the mountains, the 
child-bearing without pain, the finding of Je- 
sus in the temple, and the ascension ; as the 
prayer-books of that time more fully set forth. 
These pra3'er-books are altogether singular 
monuments of a simple and credulous devo- 
tion. There are prayers to which an indul- 
gence for 1*46 days, others to which one for 
7000 or 8000 years, are attached : one morning 
benediction of peculiar efiicacy was sent hy a 
pope to a king of Cyprus ; whosoever repeats 
the prayer of the venerable Bede the requisite 
number of times, the Virgin Mary will be at 
hand to help him for thirty days before his 
death, and will not suffer him to depart unab- 
solved. The most extravagant expressions 
were uttered in praise of the Virgin : " The 
eternal Daughter of the eternal Father, the 
heart of the indivisible Trinity :" it was said, 
" Glory be to the Virgin, to the Father, and to 



the Sc 



Thus, t(Ä), were the saints invoked 



as meritorious servants of God, who, by their 
merits, could win our salvation, and could ex- 
tend peculiar protection to those who believed 
in them; as, for example, St. Sebaldus, "the 
most venerable and holy captain, helper and 
defender of the imperial city of Nürnberg." 

Relics were collected with great zeal. Elec- 
tor Frederick of Saxony gathered together in 

|( Account in the Fusger MS. We remember that St, 
Ulrich was the first saint canonised by a pope (Johannes, 
XV. 973) for the whole church. 

** Extracts from the prayer-books : Hortulus Anime, 
Salus Animpe, Gilgengart, and others in Riederer, Nach 
richten zur Büchergeschichte, ii. 157—411. 



90 



POSITION OF THE PAPACY TO RELIGION. 



Book II. 



the cluircli he endowed at Wittenberg, 5005 
particles, all preserved in entire standing figures, 
or in exquisitely wrought reliquaries, which 
were shown to the devout people every year 
on the Monday after iMisericordia.* In the 
presence of the princes assembled at the diet, 
the high altar of the cathedral of Treves was 
opened, and "the seamless coat of our dear 
Lord Jesus Christ," found in it; the little 
pamphlets in which this miracle was represent- 
ed in wood-cuts, and announced to all the 
world, are to be found in the midst of the acts 
of the diet.f Miraculous images of Our Lady 
were discovered ; — one, for example, in Eischei 
in the diocese of Constance ; at the Iphof 
boundary, by the road-side, a sitting figure of 
the Virgin, whose miracles gave great otfence 
to the monks of Birklingen, who possessed a 
similar one; and in Regensburg, the beautiful 
image, for which a magnificent <;hurch was 
built by the eontributions of the faithful, out 
of the ruins of a synagogue belonging to the 
expelled Jews. I\liracles were worked with- 
out ceasing at the tomb of Bishop Benno in 
Meissen ; madmen were restored to reason, the 
deformed became straight, those infected with 
the plague were healed ; nay, a fire at Merse- 
burg was extinguished by Bishop Bose merely 
uttering the name of Benno; while those 'who 
doubted his power and sanctity were assailed 
by misfortunes. :|: When Trithemius recom- 
mended this miracle-worker to the pope for 
canonization, he did not forget to remark that 
he had been a rigid and energetic supporter of 
the church party, and had resisted the tyrant 
Henry IV.§ So intimately v,'ere all these ideas 
connected. A confraternity formed for the pur- 
pose of the frequent repetition of the rosary 
(which is, in fact, nothing more than the de- 
vout and affectionate recollection of the joys 
of the Holy Virgin), was founded by Jacob 
Sprenger, the violent and fanatical restorer of 
the Inquisition in Germany, — the author of the 
" Hexenharamer." 

For it v.'as one single and wondrous struc- 
ture which had grown up out of the germs 
planted by former ages, wherein spiritual and 
temporal power, wild fancy and dr}^ school- 
learning, the tenderest devotion and the rudest 
force, religion and superstition, were mingled 
and confounded, and were bound together by 
some mysterious quality common to them all ; 
— and, amidst all the attacks it sustained, and 
all the conquests it achieved — amidst those 
incessant conflicts, the decisions of which con- 
stantly assumed the character of laws, — not 
only asserted its claim to universal fitness for 
all ages and nations — for this world and the 
next — hut to the regulation of the minutest par- 
ticulars of human life. 

I know not whether any man of sound un- 

* Zavcrun? des Hnchlobwürtiissten Heiliffthums, 1509. 
(^The Showing of the most venerable Relics, 1509.) Ex- 
tract in Heller's Lucas Kranach, i. p. 350. 

t Chronicle of Limpiirff in Hontheim.p. 1122. Browerus 
is again very solemn on this occasion. 

X Miracula S. Bennonis ex impresso, Romas 1521, in 
Mencken, Scriptores Rer. Germ. ii. p. 1887. 

§ His letter in Rainaldus, 1506, nr. 42. 



derstanding — any man, not led astray by some 
phantasm, can seriously wish that this state of 
things had remained unshaken and unchanged 
in Europe; whether any man persuades him- 
self that the will and the power to look the 
genuine, entire and unveiled truth steadily in 
the face — the manly piety acquainted with the 
grounds of its faith — could ever have been 
matured under such influences. Nor do I un- 
derstand how any one could really regard the 
diffusion of this most singular condition of the 
human mind (\vhich had been produced by cir- 
cumstances wholly peculiar to the West) over 
the entire globe, as conducive to the welfare 
and happiness of the human race. It is well 
known that one main ground of the disinclina- 
tion of the Greeks to a union with the Roman 
church, la}^ in the multitude of rules which 
were introduced among the Latins, and in the 
oppressive autocracy which the See of Rome 
had arrogated to itself. j| Nay, was not the 
Gospel itself kept concealed by the Roman 
church? In the ages in which the scholastic 
dogmas were fixed, the Bible was forbidden to 
the laity altogether, and even to the priesthood, 
in the mother tongue. It is impossible to deny 
that, without any serious reference to the source 
from which the whole system of faith had pro- 
ceeded, men went on to construct doctrines and 
to enjoin practices, shaped upon the principle 
which had become the dominant one. We 
must not confound the tendencies of the period 
now before iis with those evinced in the doc- 
trines and practices established at the Council 
of Trent ; at that time even the party which 
adhered to Catholicism had felt the influences 
of the epoch of the Reformation, and had begun 
to reform itself: the current was already ar- 
rested.** And this was absolutely necessary. 
It v/as necessary to clear the germ of religion 
from the thousand folds of accidental forms 
under which it lay concealed, and to place it 
unincumbered in the light of day. Before the 
Gospel could be preached to all nations, it must 
appear again in its own lucid, unadulterated 
purity. 

It is one of the greatest coincidences pre- 
sented by the history of the world, that at the 
moment in which the prospect of exercising 
dominion over the other hemisphere opened on 
the Romano-Germanic nations of the Latin 
church, a religious movement began, the object 
of which was to restore the purity of revelation. 

Whilst other nations were busied in the con- 
quest of distant lands, Germany, which had 
little share in those enterprises, undertook this 
mighty task. Various events concurred to give 
that direction to the mind of the country, and 
to incite it to a strenuous opposition to the See 
of Rome. 

11 Humbertus de Romania (in Petrus de Alliaco de Re- 
form. Eccles. c. 2.) "dicit quod causa dispositiva schisma- 
tis GrcBcornm inter alias una fuit propter gravamina Ro- 
mansB ecclesise in exaclionibus, excommunicationibus.^t 
statiitis." 

** I hold it to be the fundamental error of Möhler's Sym- 
bolik, that he considers the doifiua of the Council of Trent 
as the doctrine from which the Protestants seceded ; whilst 
it is much nearer the truth to say, tiiai itself produced 
Prolestanlisni by a reaction. 



Chap. I. 



OPPOSITION RAISED BY THE SECULAR POWERS. 



91 



OPPOSITION RAISED BY THE SECULAR POWERS. 

The efforts to obtain a regular and well-com- 
pacted constitution, which for some years had 
occupied the German nation, were very much 
at variance with the interests of the papacy, 
hitherto exercising so great an influence over 
the g-overnment of the empire. The pope 
would very soon have been made sensible of 
the change, if that national government which 
was the object of such zealous and ardent en- 
deavours had been organised. 

The very earliest projects of such a consti- 
tution, in the year 1487, were accompanied 
with a warning to the pope to abolish a tithe 
which he had arbitrarily imposed on Germany, 
and which in some places he had actually 
levied.* In 1495, when it became necessary 
to form a council of the empire, the intention 
was expressed to authorize the president to 
take into consideration the complaints of the 
nation against the church of Rome, j Scarcely 
had the States met the king in 1498, when the}" 
resojved to require the pope to relinquish the 
Annates which he drew to so large an amount 
from Germany, in order to provide for a Turkish 
war. In like manner, as soon as the Council 
of Regency was formed, an embassy was sent 
to the pope to press this request earnestly upon 
him, and to make representations concerning 
various unlawful encroachments on the gift and 
employment of German benefices.:!: A papal 
legate, who shortly after arrived for the purpose 
of causing the jubilee to be preached, was ad- 
monished by no means to do anything without 
the advice and knowledge of the imperial go- 
vernment ;§ care was taken to prevent him 
from granting indulgences to breakers of the 
Public Peace : on the contrary, he was charged 
expressly to uphold it; imperial commissioners 
were appointed to accompany hirn, without 
Avhose presence and permission he could not 
receive the money when collected. 

We find the Emperor Maximilian occasion- 
ally following the same course. In the year 

1510 he caused a more detailed and distinct 
statement of the grievances of the German na- 
tion to be drawn up, than had hitherto existed ; 
he even entertained the idea of introducing into 
Germany jj the Pragmatic Sanction, which had 
proved so beneficial to France. In the year 

1511 he took a lively interest in the convo- 
cation of a council at Pisa : we have an edict 
of his, dated in the January of that year, where- 
in he declares that, as the court of Rome delays, 
he will not delay ; as emperor, steward and 
protector of the Church, he convokes the coun- 
cil of which she is so greatly in need. In a 
brief dated June, he promises to those assem- 

* Letter, with the seals of Mainz, Saxoiiv, and Bran- 
denburg ; June 28, 14S7, in Müller, Etth. Fr."vi. 130. 

t Datt, de Pace Publ. p. 840. 

1 Instructions of the Imperial Embassy. Müller, Reich- 
staggsstaat, 117. . 

§ Articuli tractati et conclusi inter Revmam Dominatio- 
nem D"um Legatum ac senatum et con ventum' Imperii in 
Müller, Reichstagästaat, p. 213. 

I! Avisamenta GermanicEe Nationis in Freher, ii. 678. 
Yet more remarkable is tiie Epitome pragmaticae sanctio- 
nis in Goidast's Constitutt. Imp. ii. 123. 



bled his protection and favour till the close of 
their sittings, " by which they will, as he 
hopes, secure to themselves the approbation of 
God and the praise of men.'"^^* And, in fact, 
the long-cherished liope that a reform in the 
church would be the result of this council, was 
again ardently indulged. The articles were 
pointed out in which reforms were first antici- 
pated. For example, the cumulation of bene- 
fices in the hands of the cardinals was to be 
prevented ; a law was demanded, in virtue of 
which a pope whose life was stained with no- 
torious vice, might be summarily deposed.|| 
But neither had the council authority enough to 
act upon ideas of this sort, nor was Maximi- 
lian the man to follow them out. He was of 
too weak a nature ; and the same Wimpheling 
who drew up the statement of grievances, re- 
marked to him how many former em.perors had 
been deposed by an incensed pope leagued with 
the princes of the empire — certainly no motive 
to resolute perseverance in the course he had 
begun. Independent of this, every new turn 
in politics gave a fresh direction to his views 
on ecclesiastical affairs. :|::[: After his reconcilia- 
tion with Pope Julius II. in 1513, he demanded 
succours from the empire in order to take m^ea- 
sures against the schism which was to be fear- 
ed. Had there really been reason to fear it, he 
himself would have been mainly to blame for 
the encouragement he had given to the Council 
of Pisa. 

It is sufiiciently clear that this opposition to 
Rome had no real practical force. The want 
of a body in the state, armed with independent 
powers, crippled every attempt, every move- 
ment, at its very commencement. But in the 
public mind, that opposition still remained in 
full force; loud complaints were incessantlj'' 
heard. 

Hemmerlin, whose books were in those times 
extensively circulated and eagerlj^ read, ex- 
hausted the vocabulary for expressions to paint 
the cheating and plunder of which the court of 
Rome was guilty .§§ 

In the beginning of the sixteenth century 
there were the bitterest complaints of the ruinous 
nature of the Annates. It was probably in itself 
the most oppressive tax in the empire : occasion- 
ally a prelate, in order to save his subjects from 
it, tried to mortgage some lordship of his see. 
Diether of Isenburg was deposed chiefly be- 
cause he was unable to fulfil the engagements 
he had entered into concernino; his Pallium. 



** Tribursi XVI. mensis Januarii and Muldorf V. Junii 
in Goldast, i''. 421, 429. 

it In the Fugger MS. the decrees which were expected 
are noted down. 

JJ Baselius.lllO. "Admonitusprudentium virorum con- 
silio— quem incaute pedem cum Gallis contra pontificem 
firmaverat, citius retraxit." 

§§ Felix ?.IaI!eolus, Recapitulatio de Anno Jubileo. 
" Pro nunc do prtesentis pontificis summi et aÜorum sta- 
tibuscomparationis prteparationem fedmus, et nunc facie 
ad faciem experientia videmus quod nunquam visus est 
execrabilioris exorbitntionis direptionis deceptinnis cir- 
cumventionis derogationis decerptationis deprsdationis 
expoliationis exactionis corrosionis et omnis si audemus 
dicere simoniacs pravitatis adinventionis novceet reno- 
vationis usus et exercitatio continua quam nunc est 
tempore pontificis moderni (Nicolas Y.) et in dies dilata' 
tiir.'* 



93 



OPPOSITION RAISED BY 



Book II. 



The more frequent the vacancies, the raore in- 
tolerable was the exaction. In Passau, for 
example, these followed in 1482, I486, 1490, 
1500 : the last-appointed bishop repaired to 
Rome in the hope of obtaining some alleviation 
of the burthens on his see; but he accomplish- 
ed nothing, and his long residence at the papal 
court only increased his pecuniary difficulties.* 
The cost of a pallium for Mainz amounted to 
20,000 gulden ; the sum was assessed on the 
several parts of the see : the Rheingau, for ex- 
ample, had to contribute 1000 gulden each 
time. I In the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury vacancies occurred three times in quick 
succession — 1505, 1508, 1513; Jacob von Lie- 
benstein said that his chief sorrow in dying 
was that his country would so soon again be 
forced to pay the daes; but all appeal to the 
papal court was fruitless; before the old tax 
was gathered in, the order for a new one v/as 
issued. 

We may imagine what was the impression 
made by the comparison of the laborious ne- 
gotiations usually necessary to extract even 
trifling grants from the diet, and the great dif- 
ficulty Vv'ith which they were collected, with 
the sums which flowed without toil or trouble 
to Rome. They were calculated at 300,000 
gulden yearly, exclusive of the costs of law 
proceedings, or the revenues of benefices which 
lapsed to the court of Rome.:]: And for what 
purpose, men asked themselves, was all this 1 
Christendom had, nevertheless, lost tv/o em- 
pires, fourteen kingdoms, and three hundred 
towns within a short space of time: it was 
continually losing to the Turks; if the Ger- 
man nation were to keep these sums in its 
own hands and expend them itself, it would 
meet its hereditary foe on other terms, under 
the banners of its valiant commanders. 

The financial relations to Rome, generally, 
excited the greatest attention. It was calcu- 
lated that the barefooted monks, who were not 
permitted by their rule to touch money, col- 
lected a yearly income of 200,000 gulden; the 
whole body of mendicant friars, a million. 

Another evil was the recurrence of collisions 
between the temporal and spiritual jurisdic- 
tions, which gradually became the more fre- 
quent and obvious, the more the territorial 
sovereignties tended towards separation and 
political independence. In this respect Saxony 
was pre-eminent. In the different possessions 
of the two lines, not only the three Saxon 



* Sclireitwein, Episcopi Patavieuses, in Rauch, Scriptt. 
ji. 5-27. 

t This is shown by the Articles of the inhabitants of 
the Rheiuirau in Schunck's Beitrügen, i. p. 183. Jacob 
of Treves also reckons in 1500, " Das Geld, so sich an dem 
päpstlichen Hofe für die päpstlichen Bullen und Briefe, 
darüber Anhaten, Minuten, Servitien, und anders dem- 
seiben a nhangend, zu geben gebüret," " the money, which 
it behoves to give to the papal court for the papal bulls 
and briefs, moreover annats, minutes, services, and the 
rest belong! ng to the same," at 20,000 guldens. Document 
in Hontheim, ii. ser. xv. 

I This is, for instance, the calculation of the little book, 
Ein klägliche Klag (A mournful Complaint) 1521, which, 
however, I am not for adopting. It might very likely be 
impossible to reckon the gains of the RomislAcourt. The 
tax of the annates at Treves, for instance, legally amount- 
ed to 10,000 gulden, and yet the actual charge was 20,000. 



bishops, but the archbishops of Mainz and 
Frag, the bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg, 
Halberstadt, Havelberg, Brandenburg and Le- 
bus, had spiritual jurisdiction. The confusion 
which must, at all events, have arisen from 
this, was now enormously increased by the 
fact that all disputes between laity and clergy 
could only be decided before spiritual tribunals, 
so that high and low were continually vexed 
with excommunication. In the year 1454, we 
find Duke William complaining that the evil 
did iiot arise from his good lords and friends 
the bishops, but from the judges, ofiicials, and 
procurators, who sought therein only their 
own profit. In concurrence with the counts, 
lords, and knights of his land, he issued certain 
ordinances to prevent this abuse,§ in support 
of which, privileges granted by the popes were 
alleged ; but in 1490 the old complaints were 
revived^ the administration of justice in the 
temporal courts was "greatly obstructed and 
thwarted by the spiritual, and the people were 
impoverished by the consequent delays and 
expenses. II In the year 1518, the princes of 
both lines, George and Frederic, combined to 
urge that the spiritual jurisdiction should be 
restricted to spiritual causes, and the temporal 
to temporal ; the diet to decide what was tem- 
poral and what spiritual. Duke George was 
still more zealous in the matter than his 
cousin.** But the grievances and complaints 
which fill the proceedings of the later diets 
were universal, and confined to no class or 
portion of the empire. 

The cities felt the exemptions enjoyed by 
the clergy peculiarly burthensome. It was im- 
possible to devise any thing more annoying to 
a vv^ell-ordered civic community, than to have 
within their walls a corporate body which 
neither acknowledged the jurisdiction of the 
city, nor contributed to bear its burthens, nor 
deemed itself generally subject to its regula- 
tions. The churches were asylums for crimi- 
nals, the monasteries the resort of dissolute 
youth ; we find examples of monks who made 
use of their exemption from tolls, to import 
goods for sale, or to open a tavern for the sale 
of beer. If any attempt was made to assail 
their privileges, they defended themselves with 
excommunication and interdict. We find the 
municipal councils incessantly occupied in 
putting some check to this evil. In urgent 
cases they arrest offenders even in sanctuary, 
and then take measures to be delivered from 
the inevitable interdict by the interposition of 
some powerful protector; they are vv'ell in- 
clined to pass over the bishops and to address 
themselves directly to the pope ; they try to 
effect reforms in their monasteries. They 
thought it a very questionable arrangement 
that the parish priest should take part in the 
collection of the Common Penny ; the utmost 



§ Ordinance of Duke William; Gotha, Monday after 
Exaudi, 1454, in Müller, Rtth. Fr. i. 130. 

11 Words of an ordinance of Duke George in Langenn's 
Duke Albrecht, p. 319. 

** Articles of the negotiations of the diet, as my gra- 
cious lord has caused them to be given in. 1518. In the 
Dresden Archives, 



Chap. I. 



THE SECULAR POWERS. 



that they would concede was that he should 
he present, but without takin^r any active 
share.* The cities always vehemently op- 
posed the emperor's intention of appointing a 
bishop to be judge in the Impexial Chamber. 

Tiie general disapprobation excited by the 
church on such weighty points, naturally led 
to a discussion of its other abuses. Hemmer- 
lin zealously contends against the incessant 
augmentation of ecclesiastical property, through 
which villages disappeared and districts be- 
came waste ; against the exorbitant number 
of holidays, which even the council of Basle 
had endeavoured to reduce ; against the celi- 
bacy of the clergy, to which the rules of the 
Eastern Church were much to be preferred; 
against the reckless manner in which ordina- 
tion was granted, as, for example, that two 
hundred priests v/ere yearly ordained in Con- 
stance : he asks to what all this is to lead.j" 

Things had gone so far that the constitution 
of the clergy was offensive to public morals : 
a multitude of ceremonies and rules v/ere at- 
tributed to the mere desire of making money ; 
the situation of priests living in a state of con- 
cubinage and burthened with illegitimate chil- 
dren, and often, spite of all purchased absolu- 
tions, tormented in conscience and oppressed 
with the fear that in performing the sacrifice 
of the mass they committed a deadly sin, ex- 
cited mingled pity and contempt : most of 
those who embraced the monastic profession 
had no other idea than that of leading a life 
of self-indulgence without Jabour. People 
sav/ that the clergy took from every class and 
station only v/hat was agreeable, and avoided 
what was laborious or painful. From the 
knightly order, the prelate borrowed his bril- 
liant company, his numerous retinue, the splen- 
didly caparisoned horse, and the hawk upon 
his fist : with women, he shared the love of 
gorgeous chambers and trim gardens ; but the 
weight of the mailed coat, the troubles of the 
household, he had the dexterity to avoid. If 
a man wishes to enjoy himself for once, says 
an old proverb, let him kill a fat fowl ; if for 
a year, let him take a wife ; but if he would 
live joyously all the days of his life, then let 
him turn priest. 

Innumerable expressions of the same senti- 
ment were current; the pamphlets ofthat time 
are fall of them.:|: 



CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES OF THE POPULAR 
LITERATURE. 

This state of the public mind acquired vast 
importance from its coincidence with the first 
dawnings of a popular literature, which thus, 
at its very commencement, became deeply and 
thoroughly imbued with the prevE^ent senti- 



ment of disapprobation and disgust towards 
the clergy. 

It will be conceded on all sides that in 
naming Rosenblüt and Sebastian Brant, the 
Eulenspiegel (Owleglass) and the edition of 
Reineke Fuchs (Reynard the Fox) of the year 
1498, we cite the most remarkable productions 
of the literature of that time. And if we in- 
quire what characteristic they have in common, 
we find it to be that of hostility to the Church 
of Rome. The Fastnachtspiele (Carnival 
Sports) of Hans Rosenblüt have fully and dis- 
tinctly this character and intention ; he intro- 
duces the Emperor of Turkey, in order through 
his mouth to say the truth to all classes of the" 
nation. § The vast success of the Eulenspiegel 
was not to be attributed so much to its own 
clownish coarseness and practical jokes, as to 
the irony which was poured over all classes ; 
the wit of the boor, " who scratches himself 
with a rogue's nails," put that of all others to 
shame. It was under this point of view alone 
that the German w^riter recast the fable of the 
fox; he saw^in it the symbolic representation 
of the defects and vices of human society, and 
he quickly detected its application to the 
several classes of men, and laboured to develop 
the lesson which the poet reads to each. The 
same purpose is obvious to the first glance in 
Brant's Ship of Fools. The ridicule is not 
directed against individual,follies : on the one 
side is vice, naj'' crime, on the other, lofty as- 
pirations and pursuits which rise far above 
vulgar ends, (as, for example, where the devo- 
tion of the whole mind to the tasLof describing 
cities and countries, the attempt to discover 
how broad is the earth, and how wide the sea,) 
are treated as folly. || Glory and beauty are 
described as transient; "nothing is abiding 
but learning." 

In this general opposition to the prevailing 
state of things, the defects in the ecclesiastical 
body are continually adverted to. The Schnep- 
perer declaims violently against the priests, 
" who ride high horses, but will not do battle 
with the heathen." The most frequent sub- 
ject of derision in the Eulenspiegel is the 
common priests, with their pretty ale-wives, 
well-groomxcd nags, and full larders ; they are 
represented as stupid and greed3^ In Reineke 
too the Papemeierschen — priests' households, 
peopled with little children — play a part. The 
commentator is evidently quite in earnest ; he 
declares, that the sins of the priests will be 
rated more highly than those of the laity on 
account of the evil example they set. Doctor 
Brant expresses his indignation at the prema- 
ture admission into the convent, before the age 
of reason ; so that religious duties are per- 
formed without the least sentiment of devotion : 
he leads us into the domestic life of the un- 
called priests, who are at last in want of the 



* Jäger, Schwäbisches Städtewesen : Müllner's Nürn- 
berger Annalen, in several passages. 

t The books De Instilutione novorum Officiorum, and 
De Libertate Ecclesiasticä, are especially remarkable 
with reference to this matter. 

t Wimpheling also mentions, " scandalura odium mur- 
mur populi in omnem clerum," 



§ In the description also of the battle of Hem bach in 
Reinhart's Beitrage zur Historie Frankenlandes, the no- 
bles are mentioned " as a sharp scourge, which chastises 
us on account of our sins ;" " their hearts are harder than 
adamant." 

II Dr. Brant's Farrenschiff. 1506, f. 83. 



94 



POPULAR AND LEARNED LITERATURE. 



n. 



means of subsistence, while their soul is heavy- 
laden with sins ; " for God regardeth not the 
sacrifice which is offered in sin by sinful 
hands."* 

This, however, is not the exclusive, nor, in- 
deed, the principal matter of these books; 
their significance is far more extensive and ge- 
neral. 

While the poets of Italy were employed in 
moulding the romantic materials furnished by 
the middle ages into 'grand and brilliant works, 
these excited little interest in Germany : Titu- 
rel and Parcival, for example, were printed, 
but merely as antiquarian curiosities, and in a 
""language even then unintelligible. 

While, in Italy, the opposition v/hich the 
institutions of the middle ages encountered in 
the advancing development of the public mind, 
took the form of satire, became an element of 
composition, and as it were the inseparable but 
mocking companion of the poetical Ideal ; in 
Germany that opposition took up independent 
ground, and directed its attacks immediately 
against the realities of life, not against their 
reproduction in fiction. 

In the German literature of that period the 
whole existence and conduct of the several 
classes, ages and sexes were brought to the 
standard of the sober good sense, the homely 
inoraliiy, the simple rule of ordinary life ; 
which, however, asserted its claim to be that 
"whereby kings hold their crovv-ns, princes 
their lands, and all powers and authorities their 
due value." 

The universal confusion and ferment which 
is visible in the public affairs of that period, 
proves, by inevitable contrast, that the sound 
common sense of mankind is av.akened and 
busy in the mass of the nation ; and prosaic, 
homely, vulgar, but thoroughly true, as it is, 
constitutes itself judge of all the phenomena 
of the world around it. 

We are filled with admiration at the specta*- 
cle afforded by Italy, where men of genius, re- 
minded by the remains of antiquity around 
them of the significancy of beautiful forms, 
strove to em.ulate their predecessors, and pro- 
duced works which are the eternal delight of 
cultivated minds ; but their beauty does not 
blind us to the fact tha^ the movement of the 
national mind of Germany was not less great, 
and that it was still m.ore \mportant to the pro- 
gress of mankind. After centuries of secret 
growth it now became aware of its ow^n exis- 
tence, broke loose from tradition, and examined 
the affairs and the institutions of the world by 
the light of its own truth. 

Nor did Germany entirely disregard the de- 
mands of form. In Reinecke Fuchs, it is cu- 
rious to observe how the author rejects every 
thing appropriate to the style of romantic poe- 
try; how he seeks lighter transitions, works 
out scenes of common life to more complete 
and picturesque reality, and constantly strives 
to be more plain and vernacular (for example, 
uses all the familiar German names) : his main 
object evidently is to popularise his matter, — 

* The 72d Fool. fol. 94. 



to bring it as much as possible home to the na- 
tion ; and his work has thus acquired the form 
in which it has attracted readers for more than 
three centuries. Sebastian Brant possesses an 
incomparable talent for turning apophthegms 
and proverbs ; he finds the most appropriate 
expression for simple thoughts ; his rhymes 
come unsought, and are singularly happy and 
harmonious. " Here," says Geiler von Keiser- 
sperg, " the agreeable and the useful are united ; 
his verses are goblets of the purest \tine ; here 
we are presented with royal meats in finely 
wrought vessels."! ^^^ ^" these, as well as 
in many other works of that time, the matter is 
the chief thing; — the expression of the opposi- 
tion of the ordinary morality and working-day 
sense of mankind to the abuses in public life 
and the corruptions of the times. 

At the same period another branch of litera- 
ture, — the learned, took an analogous direc- 
tion ; perhaps with even greater force and de- 
cision. 



CONDITION 



lnd character of learned 
literature. 



UPON this department of letters Italy exer- 
cised the strongest influence. 

In that country neither the metaphysics of 
the schools, nor romantic poetry, nor Gothic 
architecture, had obtained complete dominion: 
recollections of antiquity survived, and at 
length in the fifteenth century, expanded into 
that splendid revival which took captive all 
minds and imparted anew life to literature. 

This reflorescence of Italy in time reacted on 
Germany, though at first only in regard to the 
mere external form of the Latin tongue. 

In consequence of the uninterrupted inter- 
course with Italy occasioned by ecclesiastical 
relations, the Germans soon discovered the su- 
periority of the Italians ; they saw themselves 
despised by the disciples of the grammarians 
and rhetoricians of that country, and began to 
be ashamed of the rudeness of their spoken, 
and the poverty of their written language. It 
was not surprising, therefore, that young aspi- 
ring spirits at length determined to learn their 
Latin in Italy. At first they were only a few 
opulent nobles — a Dalberg, a Langen^:, a 
Spiegelberg, who not only acquired knowledge 
themselves, but had the merit of bringing back 
books, such as gi-ammatical treatises and better 
editions of the classics, which they communi- 
cated to their friends. A man endowed with 
the peculiar talent necessary for appropriating 
to himself the classical learning of the age then 
aldose — Rudolf Huesmann of Groningen, called 
Agricola. His scholarship excited universal 
admiration ; he was applauded in the schools 



t Geiler, Navicula Fatuorum, even more instructive as 
to the history of morals, than the original ; J, u. " Est 
hie," he continues, "in hoc speculo Veritas moralis sub 
fijiuris sub vulgari et vernacula lingua nostra teutonica 
sub verbis similitudinibusque aptis et pulchris sub rhit- 
mis quoque concinnis et instar cimbalorum concineuti- 
bus." 

J Hamelmann published in 1580 an Oratio de Rodolpho 
Langio, which has some merit, but vi'hich has also given 
rise to many errors. 



Chap. I. 



LEARNED LITERATURE. 



95 



as a Roman, a second Virgil.* He had, in- 
deed, no other object but his own advancement 
in learning; the weary pedantries of the schools 
v/ere disgusting to liirn, nor could he accommo- 
date himself to the contracted sphere assigned 
to a learned man in Germany. Other careers 
which he entered upon did not satisfy his aspi- 
rations, so that he fell into a rapid decline, and 
died prematurely. He had, however, friends 
who found it less difficult to adapt themselves 
to the necessities of German life, and to whom 
he was ever ready to afford counsel and help. 
A noble and intimate friendship was formed in 
Deventer, between Agricola and Hegius, who 
attached himself to him with all the humility 
and thirst for knowledge of a disciple ; he ap- 
plied to him for instruction, and received not 
only assistance but cordial sympathy. f Another 
of his friends, Dringenberg, followed him to 
Schletstadt. The reform which took place in 
the Lovv'. German schools of Münster, Hervord, 
Dortmund, and Hamm, emanated from Deven- 
ter, which also furnished them with competent 
teachers. In Nürnberg, Ulm, Augsburg, 
Frankfurt, iilemmingen, Hagenau, Pforzheim, 
&c., we find schools of poetry of more or less 
note.:}: Schletstadt at one time numbered as 
many as nine hundred students. It will not be 
imagined that these literati, who had to rule, 
and to instruct in the rudiments of learning, a 
rude undisciplined youth compelled to live 
mainly on alms, possessing no books, and wan- 
dering from town to town in strangely organ- 
ized bands, called Bachantes and Schützen, § 
v/ere very eminent scholars them.selves, or 
made such; nor was that the object: their 
merit, and a sufficient one, was that they not 
only kept the public mind steady to the impor- 
tant direction it had taken, but carried it on- 
Y/ards to the best of their ability, and founded 
the existence of an active literary public. The 
school books hitherto in use gradually fell into 
neglect, and classical authors issued from the 
German press. As early as the end of the fif- 
teenth centur}'. Geiler of Keisersberg, vrho was 
not himself devoted to tiiese pursuits, reproach- 
ed the learned theologians with their Latin, 
which, he said, was rude, feeble, and barba- 
rous — rueither German nor Latin, but both and 
neitherJI 



* Erasnii Adagia. Ad. de Cane et Baltieo. 

t Adanii, Vit» Philosophoruin, p. 1-2, mentions thiscor- 
respondeiico " unde tuni ardor proficiendi, turn candor in 
communicando elucet." 

X They are so called, e. ?. in tlie Chronicle of Regens- 
burg/ A list of the ?cliools, very incomplete, however, is 
given by Erhard, Hist, of the Restoration of the Sciences, 
i. 427. Eijerlin \'on Günzbiirg names in ]521, as piotis 
schoolmasters, "deren ti'ewe Unterweisungfast genützt," 
"whose fiiithfiil instruction had been profitable," Crato 
and Sapidj'.s at Schletstadt, Mich Hilspach at Hasenau, 
SpifWer and Gerbellius at Pforzheim, Erassicanus and 
Henriclimann at Tübingin, Egid. Krautu'asser at Stutt- 
gart and Horb, Joh. Schmidlin at Memmingen, also Co- 
cleus at Nürnberg, and Nisenus at Frankfurt. See Dr. 
Karl Hagen, Deutchlands literarische und relisiöse Ver- 
haltnisse im Reformations Zeitalter, 1841, vol. i. p. 164— 
23^7. 

§ Platter's Autobiography places this practice in a very 
lively manner before us. (Thomas Platter, after the au- 
tograph manuscript lately edited by Fechner, Basle, 1840.) 

II Geiler, Introductorium, ii. c. " duale est illud eorum 
Latinum, quo utuntur, etiam dum sederint in sede ma- 
jestatis suse, in doctoralis cathedra lecturis !" 



For since the school learning of the univer- 
sities, which had hitherto entirel3*given the 
lone to elementary instruction, adhered to its 
wonted forms cf expression, a collision between 
the new and humanistic method, now rapidly 
gaining ground, and the old modes, was inevi- 
table. Kcr could their collision fail to extend 
from the universal element of language into 
other regions. 

It was this crisis in the history of letters that 
produced an author whose who^le life was de- 
voted to the task of attacking the scholastic 
forms prevailing in universities and monaste-_ 
ries ; the first great author of the modern oppo- 
sition, the champion of the modern views, — a' 
Lovv' German, Erasmus of Rotterdam. 

On a review of the first thirty years of the 
life of Erasmus, we find that he had growli up 
in ceaseless contradiction with t!ie spirit and 
the systems which presided over the conventual 
life and directed the studies cf that time; — 
indeed that this had made him what he was. 
We might say that he was begotten and born 
in this contradiction, for his parents had not 
been able to marry, because his father was des- 
tined to the cloister. He had not been admit- 
ted to a imiversity, as he wished, but had been 
kept at a very imperfect conventual school, from 
which he soon ceased to derive any profit or 
satisfaction ; and, at a later period, every art 
was practised to induce him to take the vows, 
and with success. It was not till he had actu- 
ally taken them, that he felt all the burthen 
they imiposed '/ he regarded it as a deliverance 
when he obtained a situation in a college at 
Paris : but here, too, he was not happy ; he 
was compelled to attend Scotist lectures and 
disputations; and he complains that the un- 
wholesome food and bad wine on which he Avas 
forced to live, had entirely destroyed his health. 
But in the meanwhile he had come to a con- 
sciousness of his own powers. While yet a 
boy, he had lighted upon the first trace of a 
new method of study,*''' and he now followed it 
up with slender aid from without, but with the 
infallible instinct of genuine talent; he had 
constructed for himself a light, flowing style, 
formed on the model of the ancients, not by a 
servile imitation of particular expressions, but 
in native correctness and elegance far surpass- 
ing any thing which Paris had to offer. Lie 
now emancipated himself from the fetters which 
bound him to the convent and the schools, and 
boldly trusted to the art of ^vhich he was mas- 
ter, for the means of subsistence. He taught, 
and in that way formed connections which net 
only led to present success, but to security for 
the future ; he published some essays which, 
as they were not less remarkable for discreet 
choice of matter than for scholar-like execution, 
gained him admirers and patrons ; he gradually 
discovered the wants and the tastes of the pub- 
lic, and devoted himself entirely to literature. 
He composed school-books treating of method 
and form of instruction; translated from the 
Greek, which he learned in the process ; edited 



** He cannot, however, be properly considered as a 
scholar of Hegius. " Hegium," he says in the Compen- 
dium VitEB, " testis diebus audivi." It was the exception. 



9Ö 



CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF 



Book IL 



the classics of antiquity, and imitated them, 
especially JLucian and Terence. His works 
abound with marks of that acute and nice ob- 
servation which at once instructs and delig-hts; 
but great as these merits were, the grand secret 
of his popularity lay in the spirit which per- 
vades all he wrote. The bitter hostility to the 
forms of the devotion and the theology of that 
time, which had been rendered his habitual 
frame of mind by the course and events of his 
life, found vent in his writings; not that this 
was the premeditated aim or purpose of them, 
hut it broke forth sometimes in the ver}'' middle 
of a learned disquisition — in indirect and unex- 
pected sallies of the most felicitous and ex- 
haustless humour. In one of his works, he 
adopts the idea, rendered so popular by the 
fables of Brant and Geiler, of the element of 
folly w^hich mingles in ail human affairs. He 
introduces Folly herself as interlocutor. Moria, 
the daughter of Plutus, born in the Happy 
Islands, nursed by Drunkenness and Rudeness, 
is mistress of a powerful kingdom, which she 
describes, and to which all classes of men 
belong. She passes them all in review, but 
dwells longer and more earnestly on none than 
on the clergy, who, though they refuse to ac- 
knowledge her benefits, are under the greatest 
obligations to her. She turns into ridicule the 
labyrinth of dialectic in which theologians 
have lost themselves, — the syllogisms with 
which they labour to sustain the church as At- 
las does the heavens, — the intolerant zeal with 
which they persecute every difference of opin- 
ion. She then comes to the ignorance, the 
dirt, the strange and ludicrous pursuits of the 
monks, their barbarous and objurgatory style 
of preaching; she attacks the bishops, who 
are more solicitous for gold than for the safety 
of souls ; who think they do enough if they 
dress themselves in theatrical costume, and 
under the name of the most reverend, most 
holy, and most blessed fathers in God, pro- 
nounce a blessing or a curse; and lastly, she 
boldly assails the court of Rome and the pope 
himself,* who, she says, takes only the plea- 
sures of his station, and leaves its duties to 
St. Peter and St. Paul. Am.ongst the curious 
wood-cuts, after the marginal drawings of 
Hans Holbein, with Vv^hich the book was 
adorned, the pope appears with his triple 
crown. 

This little work brought together, with sin- 
gular talent and brevity, matter which had for 
some time been current and popular in the 
world, gave it a form which satisfied all the 
demands of taste and criticism, and fell in v/ith 
the rnost decided tendency of the age. It pro- 
duced an indescribable effect : twenty-seven 
editions appeared even during the lifetime of 
Erasmus ; it was translated into all languages, 
and greatly contributed to confirm the age in 
its anticlerical dispositions. 

But Erasmus coupled with this popular war- 



fare a more serious attack on the state of learn- 
ing. The study of Greek had arisen in Italy 
in the fifteenth century ; it had found its way 
by the side of that of Latin into Germany and 
France, and now opened a new and splendid 
vista, beyond the narrow horizon of the eccle- 
siastical learning of the West. Erasmus adopt- 
ed the idea of the Italians, — that the sciences 
were to be learned from the ancients ; geogra- 
phy from Strabo, natural history from Pliny, 
mythology from Ovid, medicine from Hippo- 
crates, philosophy from Plato; and not out of 
the barbarous and imperfect schoolbooks then 
in use : but he went a step further — he requir- 
ed that divinity should be learned not out of, 
Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, but out of the 
Greek fathers, and, above all, the New Testa- 
ment. Following in the track of Laurentius 
Valla, whose example had great influence gen- 
erally on his mind, he showed that it was not 
safe to adhere to the Vulgate, wherein he point- 
ed out a multitude of errors ;j" and he then him- 
self set about the great work, — the publication 
of the Greek text; which w^as as yet imper- 
fectly and superficially known to the Vvest. 
Thus he thought, as he expresses it, to bring 
back that cold word-contender. Theology, to 
her primal sources; he showed the simplicity 
of the origin whence that wondrous and com- 
plicated pile had sprung, and to which it must 
return. In all this he had the sympathy and 
assent of the public for which he wrote. The 
prudence wherewith he concealed from view 
an abyss in the distance, from wii ich that pub- 
lic would have shrunk with alarm, doubtless 
contributed to his success. While pointing 
out abuses, he spoke only (Ä reforms and im- 
provements, which he represented as easy ; 
and was cautious not to offend against certain 
opinions or principles to which the faith of the 
pious clung.:^ But the main thing was his 
incomparable literary talent. He worked in- 
cessantly in various branches, and completed 
his works with great rapidity ; he had not the 
patience to revise and polish them, and accord- 
ingly most of them were printed exactly as he 
threw them _out; but this very circumstance 
rendered them universally acceptable ; their 
great charm was that they communicated the 
trains of thought which passed through a rich, 
acute, witty, intrepid, and cultivated mind, just 
as they arose, and without any reservations. 
Who remarked the many errors which escaped 
him ] His manner of narrating, which still 
rivets the attention, then carried every one 
av/ay. He gradually became the most cele- 
bi;ated man in Europe; public opinion, whose 
pioneer he bad been, adorned him with her 
fairest wreaths; presents rained npOn his 



* Miaplas eyKiliniov. 0pp. Erasmi, t. iii. ',' Quasi sint 
ulli liostes ecclesia? pernicinsiores quam impii ponlifices, 
qui et silcntio Christiun sinuiit abolnscere et qiirestiiariis 
legibus alligant et coactis interpretationibus adulterant 
et pestilente vita jugulant." 



t In the edition of Alcala de Keiiafes, on thr other 
hand, the Greek text has been changed according to the 
Vulffate ; e. ij. 1 Joh. v. 7. Schrockh, KGsch. xxxiv. 83 
As to the rest, this adherence to the Vulgate was regarded 
at a later period, and especially whfn his canonisation 
was talked of, as the chief merit of Ximenes, " ut hoc 
inodo melius intelligeretur nostra vulgata in suo rigf>re 
et puritate. "—jScta Toletana in Rainaldus, 1517, nr. 107. 

X A few years later ho thus describes his situation : 
" Adnixus sum «t bonc3 literce, quas scis hactenus apud 
Ttalos fere pa,<tanas fuisse, consnescerent de Christo 
loqni." Epistola ad Cretium, 9 Sept. 1526. 0pp. lU. i. 
p. 953. 



Chap. L 



LEARNED LITERATURE. 



97 



house at Basle ; visitors flocked thither, and 
invitations poured in from all parts.* His per- 
son was small, with light hair, blue, half-clos- 
ed eyes, full of acute obäervation, and humour 
playing about the delicate mouth : his air was 
so timorous that he looked as if a breath would 
overthrow him, and he trembled at the very 
name of death. 

If this single example sufficed to show how 
much the exclusive theology of the universities 
had to fear from the new tendency letters had 
acqirired, it was evident that the danger Vv'ould 
become measureless if the spirit of innovation 
should attempt to force its way into these 
fortresses of the established corporations of 
learning. The universities, therefore, defended 
themselves as W"ell as they could. George 
Zingel, pro-chancellor of Ingolstadt, who had 
been dean of the theological faculty thirty 
times in three-and-thirty years, would hear 
nothing of the introduction of the study of 
heathen poets. Of the ancients, he would ad- 
mit only Prudentius ; of the moderns, the 
Carmelite Baptista of Mantua : these he 
thought were enough. Cologne, which had 
from the very beginning opposed the intro- 
duction of new elementar}^ books,]" would not 
allow the adherents of the new opinions to 
settle in their tov/n: Rhagius was banished 
for ten years by public proclamation ; Mur- 
mellius, a pupil of Hegius, was compelled to 
give way and to become teacher in a school ; 
Conrad Celtes of Leipzig, 'was driven away 
almost by force ; Hermann von dem Busch 
could not maintain his ground either in Leipzig 
or Rostock; his new edition of Donatus was 
regarded almost as a heresy.:]: This was not, 
however, universal. According to the consti- 
tution of the universities, every man had, at 
Ibast after taking his degree as Master of Arts, 
a right to teach, and it was not every one who 
afforded a reason- or a pretext for getting rid 
of him.§ In some places, too, the princes had 
reserved to themselves the right of appointing 
teachers. In one way or another, teachers of 
grammar and of classical literature did, as we 
find, establish themselves ; in Tübingen, Hein- 
rich Bebel, who formed a numerous school ; in 
Ingolstadt, Locher, who, after much molesta- 
tion, succeeded in keeping his ground, and 
left a brilliant catalogue of princes, prelates, 
counts, and barons, who had been his pupils;!] 

* He afterwards complains of tlie want of contradiction. 
"Longe plus attulissent utilitatis duo tresve fidi moni- 
tores quam multa laudantiuai millia." Epp. III. i. 924. 

t Accordin;? to Chytraus (Saxonia, p. 90,) Conrad Rith- 
berg, the bishop of Münster, was warned by the uni- 
versity of Cologne against the establishment of a school 
upon the new method, but he, who had himself been in 
Italy, was far more strongly worked on by the recommen- 
dations which Langen had brought with him thence ; e. g. 
even trom Pope Sixtus. 

1 Hamelniann, Oratio de Euschio, nr. 49. 

§ Err.smi Epistolte, i. p. 689. In the Epp. Obsc. Vir. ed. 
Munch, p. 102, a Socius from Moravia is complained of 
who wanted to lecture at Vienna without having taken 
a degree. , 

li " Qui ncstri portarunt signa Wi&^XxV—Caialogus II- 
lustrium Auditorum Philoviusi. " Doctorum insigniuni 
magistrorum nobilium ac canonicorum infinitum pene 
numerum memorare nequeo, qui ore magnifico laudiso- 
naque voce me prsceptorem salutare gestiunt. Hcec citra 
omnem jactantiam apposuimus." — Extract in Zapf. Jacoi 
Locker, called Philomusiis, p. 27. 

13 I 



Conrad Celtes in Vienna, where he actually 
succeeded in establishing a faculty of poetry 
in the year 1501 ; and in Prague, Hieronymo 
Balbi, an Italian, who gave instructions to the 
young princes, and took some share in public 
affairs. In Freiburg the new studies were 
connected with the Roman law ; Ulrich Zasius 
united the two professorships in his own per- 
son with the most brilliant success ; Pietro 
Tommai of Ravenna, and his son Vincenzo, 
were invited to Greifswald, and afterwards to 
Wittenberg in the same double capacity f^* it 
was hoped that the combined study of anti- 
quity and law would raise that university. 
Erfurt felt the influence of Conrad Muth, who 
enjo3^ed his canonry at Gotha "in blessed 
tranquillity" ("m glückseliger Ruhe''') diS the 
inscription on his house says: he was the 
Gleim of that age — the hospitable patron of 
young men of poetical temperament and pur- 
suits. Thus, from the time the new spirit and 
method found their way into the lower schools, 
societies of grammarians and poets were gra- 
dually formed in most of the universities, 
completely opposed to the spirit of those es- 
tablishments as handed down from their foun- 
tain-head, Paris. They read the ancients, and 
perhaps allowed something of the petulance 
of Martial, or the voluptuousness of Ovid, to 
find its way into their lives ; they made Latin 
verses, which, stitt and barbarous as they 
generally were, called forth an interchange of 
admiration; they corresponded in Latin, and 
took care to interlard it with a few sentences 
of Greek ; they Latinised and Grscised their 
names. "j-f Genuine talent or accoinplished scho- 
larship were very rare ; but the life and power 
of a generation does not manifest itself in mere 
tastes and acquirements : for a few individuals 
these may be enough, but, for the many, the 
tendency is the important thing. The cha 
racter of the universities soon altered. The 
scholars were no longer to be seen with their 
books under their arms, walking decorously 
after their Magister; the scholarships were 
broken up, degrees were no longer sought 
after — that of bachelor especially (which was 
unfrequent in Italy) was despised. On some 
occasions the champions of classical studies 
appeared as the promoters of the disorders of 
the students ;:[::|: and ridicule of the dialectic 
theologians, nominalists as well as realists, 
was hailed with delight by the young men. 

The world, and especially the learned world, 
must be other than it is for such a change to 
be effected without a violent struggle. 

The manner, however, in which this broke 
out is remarkable. It was not the necessity 
of warding oii a dangerous attack or a declared 
enemy that furnished the occasion : this was 
reserved for the most peaceful of the converts 

** Tiraboschi also mentions them, vi. p. 410. Their 
catastrophe at Cologne is not 5'et, however, thoroughly 
cleared up. 

tt Chracbenberger entreats Reuchlin to find some Greek 
name, " quo honeslius in Latinis uteris quam hoc barbaro 
uti possim." Lynz, Febr. 19, 1493. 

II Acta Facultatis Artium Friburgensis in Riegger, 
Vita Zasii, i. 42. " Conclusum, ut dicatur doctori Zasio, 
quod scholaribus adhaereat faciendo eos rebelles in uni- 
versitatis proejudicium." 



CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF 



Book II 



to the new system, who had already fulfilled 
the active task of life, and at that moment de- 
voted himself to more abstruse studies, — John 
Reuchlin. 

Reuchlin, probably the son of a messenger 
at Pforzheim, was indebted to his personal 
gifts for the success which attended him in his 
career. A fine voice procured him admittance 
to the court of Baden ; his beautiful hand- 
writing maintained him during his residence 
in France; the pure pronunciation of Latin 
which he had acquired by intercourse with for- 
eigners, caused him to be appointed member 
of an embassy to Rome, and this led to an im- 
portant post and considerable influence at the 
court of Wiirtembcrg, and the Swabian league 
generally.* His qualities, both external and 
internal, were very unlike those of Erasmus. 
He was tall and well made, and dignified in 
all his deportment and actions, while the mild- 
ness and serenity of his appearance and man- 
ner won instant confidence towards his in- 
tellectual superiority.! As an author, he 
could never have gained the applause of the 
large public of Latin scholars ; his style is not 
above mediocrity, nor does he evince any nice 
sense of elegance and form. On the other 
hand, he was inspired by a thirst for learning, 
and a zeal for communicating, which were 
without a parallel. He describes how he 
picked up his knowledge bit by bit, — crumbs 
that fell from the lord's table— at Paris and in 
the Vatican, at Florence, Milan, Basle, and at 
the Imperial Court; hov/, like the bird of 
ApoUonius, he left the corn for the other birds 
to eat.ij: He fafcilitated the study of Latin by 
a dictionary, v/hich in great measure supplanted 
the old scholastic ones, and of Greek, by a 
small grammar; he spared neither labour nor 
money to. get copies of the classics brought 
across the Alps, either in manuscript, or as 
they issued from the Italian press. What no 
ptince, no wealthy city or community thought 
of doing, was done by the son of a poor errand 
man ; it was under his roof that the m.ost v\'on- 
drous production of distant ages — the Homeric 
poems — first came in contact with the mind of 
Germany, which was destined in later times 
to render them more intelligible to the world. 
His Hebrew learning was still more highly 
esteemed by his contemporaries than all his 
other acquirements, and he himself regarded 
his labours in that field as his most peculiar 
claim to distinction. " There has been none 
before me," exclaims he with v.-ell-grounded 
self-gratulation, to one of his adversaries, 
" who has been able to collect the rules of the 
Hebrew language into a book; though his 
heart should burst with envy, still I am the 



* Schnurrer, Nachrichten von den I^ehrern dor Hebräi- 
schen Literatur, p. 11. A small essay of Michael Cocci- 
nius, De Imperii a Grtecis ad Germanos Translatione,1505, 
is dedicated to Reuchlin, together with his two colleagues 
in the court of the Swabian league, Streber and Winkel- 
hofer (confcederatorum Suevorum judicibus consistoriali- 
bus et triumviris.) 

t Joannis Hiltebrandi Prsefatio in Illustrlum Virorum 
Epistolas ad Reuchlinum. 

t Praefatio ad Rudimenta Lingus Hebraica;, lib, ill. Cf. 
Burkhard, de Fatis Linguae Latins, p. 152. 



first. Exegi monumentum eere perennius."§ 
In this work he was chiefly indebted to the 
Jewish Rabbis whom he sought out in all di- 
rections, not suffering one to pass by without 
learning something from him : by them he was 
led to study not only the Old Testament, but 
other Hebrew books, and especially the Cab- 
bala. Reuchlin's mind was not one of those 
to which the labours of a mere grammarian or 
lexicographer are sufficient for their own sake. 
After the fashion of his Jewish teachers, he 
applied himself to the study of the mystical 
value of words. In the^ame of the Deity as 
written in the 'Holy Scriptures, in its elemen- 
tary composition, he discovers the deepest 
mystery of his being. For, he says, " God, 
v/ho delights in intercourse with a holy soul, 
will transform it into himself, and will dwell 
in it: God is Spirit; the Word is a breath; 
Man breathes ; God is the Word. The names 
which He has given to Himself are an echo 
of Eternity ; in them is the deep abyss of his 
mysterious working expressed ; the God-Man 
called himself the Word."|| Thus, at its very 
outset, the study of language in Geroiany was 
directed towards its final end and aim — the 
knowledge of the mysterious connection of 
language with the Divine — of its identity with 
the spirit. Reuchlin is like his cotemporaries, 
the discoverers of the New World, who sailed 
some north, some south, some right on to the 
west, found portions of coast which they de- 
scribed, and while at the beginning, often 
thought they had reached the end. Reuchlin 
was persuaded that he should find in the road 
he had taken, not only the Aiistotelic and 
Platonic philosophers, which had already been 
brought to light, but that he should add to them 
the Pythagorean, — an oflTspring of Hebraism. 
He believed that by treading in the footsteps 
of the Cabbala, he should ascend from symbol 
to symbol, from form to form, till he should 
reach that last and purest form which rules the 
empire of mind, and in which human muta- 
bility approaches to the Im.mutable and Di- 
vine.** 

But v/hile living in this world of ideas and 
abstractions, it was his lot to be singled out by 
the enmity of the scholastic party : he unex- 
pectedly found himself involved in the heat of 
a violent controversy. 

iWe have already alluded to the inquisitorial 
attempts of the Dominicans of Cologne, and 
their hostility to the Jews. In the year 1508, 
a book was published by an old Rabbi, who at 
the age of fifty had abandoned his wife and 
child, and become a Christian priest. In this 
he accused his former co-religionists of the 
grossest errors ; for example, adoration of the 
sun and moon; but, above all, of the most 
horrible blasphemies against the Christian 
faith, which he endeavoured to prove from the 
Talmud. ff It was mainly on this ground that 

§ Reuchlini Consilium pro Libris JudiEorum non abo- 
lendis in v. d. Hardt, Historia Ref. p. 49. This is more- 
over a fine specimen of German prose. 

11 Reuchlin de Verbo Mirifico, ii. 6, 15 ; iii. 3, 19. 

** Reuchlin de Arte Cabbalistica, \\ 614, 620, 696. 

tt Notices of this little Jewish book in Riederer's Nach- 



Chap. I. 



LEARNED LITERATURE. 



99 



the theologians of Cologne urged the emperor 
to order the publication of the Talmud, and 
gave him, at his request, the opinion in which 
they affirmed his right to proceed against the 
Jews as heretics. The Imperial Council, how- 
ever, deemed it expedient to consult another 
master of Hebrew literature. They referred 
the matter to the reviver of the cabbalistic 
philosophy — Reuchlin. 

Reuchlin gave his opinion, as might be ex- 
pected, in favour of the Judaical books. Kis 
report is a beautiful monument of pure dispas- 
sionate judgment and consummate sagacity. 
But these qualities .were just those fitted to 
draw down the whole storm of fanatical rage 
upon himself. 

The Cologne theologians, irritated to fury 
by the rejection of their proposition, which 
they ascribed, not without reason, to the ad- 
verse opinion of Reuchlin, incited one of their 
satellites to attack him; he answered: they 
condemned his answer; he rejoined, upon 
which they appointed a court of inquisition to 
try him. 

This was the first serious encounter of the 
two parties. The Dominicans hoped to esta- 
blish their tottering credit by a great stroke 
of authority, and to intimidate the adversa- 
ries who threatened to become dangerous to 
them, by the terrors which were at their dis- 
posal. The innovators — the teachers and dis- 
ciples of the schools of poetry whom we have 
mentioned — were fully sensible that Reuchlin's 
peril was their own ; but their efforts and aspi- 
rations were checked by the consciousness of 
opposition to existing authority, and of the 
dubious position which they occupied. 

In October, 1513, a court of inquisition was 
formed at Mainz, composed of the doctors of 
the university and the officers of the archbish- 
opric, under the presidency of the inquisitor 
of heretical wickedness — Jacob Hogstraten ; 
and it remained to be. seen whether such a sen- 
tence as that pronounced some years before 
against John of Wesalia, would nov/ be given. 

But times were totally altered. That in- 
tensely Catholic spirit which had rendered it 
so easy for the Inquisition to take root in Spain, 
was very far from reigning in Germany. The 
Imperial Council must have been, from the 
outset, indisposed towards the demands of the 
Cologne divines, or they would not have ap- 
pealed to such a man as Reuchlin for advice. 
The infection of the prevalent spirit of litera- 
ture had already spread too widely, and had 
created a sort of public opinion. We have a 
whole list of members of the higher clergy 
who are cited as friends of the literary innova- 
tion — Gross and Wrisberg, canons of Augs- 
burg, Nuenar of Cologne, Adelmann of Eich- 
stadt, Andreas Fuchs, dean of Bamberg, Lo- 
renzo Truchsess, of Mainz, Wolfgang Tanberg, 
of Passau, Jacob de Bannissis, of Trent. Car- 
dinal Lang, the most influential of. the empe- 
ror's councillors, shared these opinions. The 
superior clergy were not more disposed than 



richten, I. i. p. 34. It appeared in Latin in 1509, as an 
*' opus aureum ac novum." 



the people to allow the Inquisition to regain its 
power. 

Elector Diether had consented to the trial of 
Wesalia, against his will, and only because he 
feared the puissant Dominicans might a second 
time effect his deposition;* now, however, the 
heads of the church were no longer so timor- 
ous, and after the tribunal had already taken 
its seat to pronounce judgment, Dean Lorenz 
Truchsess persuaded the Elector to command 
it to suspend its proceedings, and to forbid his 
own officers to take part in them.| 

Nay, another tribunal, favourable to Reuch- 
lin, was appointed to hold its sittings under 
the Bishop of Spires, in virtue of a commis- 
sion obtained from Rome ; the sentence pro- 
nounced by this court on the 24th April, 1514, 
was, that the accusers of Reuchlin, having 
falsely calumniated him, were condemned to 
eternal silence and to the payment of the 
costs. ij: 

So widely diffused and so powerful was the 
antipathy which the Dominicans had excited. 
So lively was the sympathy which the higher 
and educated classes testified in the efforts of 
the new school of literature. So powerful 
already was the opinion of men of learning. 
It was their first victory. 

Persecuting orthodoxy found no favour either 
with the emperor or with the higher clergy of 
Germany. But its advocates did not give up 
the contest. At Cologne, Reuchlin's books 
were condemned to be burnt : unanimous sen- 
tences to the same effect were obtained from 
the faculties of Erfurt, Mainz, Louvaine, and 
Paris ; thus fortified, they applied to the su- 
preme tribunal at Rome ; the representatives 
of orthodox theolog}'^ presented tjiemselves be- 
fore the pope, and urged him to give his infal- 
lible decision in aid of the ancient champions 
of the Holy See against innovators. 

But even Rome was perplexed. Should she 
offend public opinion represented by men so 
influential from their talents and learning 1 
Should she act in opposition to her owm opin- 
ions ] On the other hand, would it be safe to 
set at nought the judgment of powerful uni- 
versities'? to break with the order which had 
so zealously contended for the prerogatives of 
the Roman see, and had preached the doctrine 
and furthered the sale of indulgences all over 
the world H 

In the commission appointed by the pope at 
Rome, the majority was for Reuchlin, but a 
considerable minority was against him, and 
the pope held it expedient to defer his decision. 
He issued a mandatum de supersedendum.\\ 

Reuchlin, conscious of a just cause, was 



* Cogentibus Thomistis quibusdam, veritns ne denuo 
ab episcopatu ejiceretur jussu ßomano pontificis." — Exa- 
men WesalicB, fasc. i. 327. 

+ Hutten's Preface to Livy, opp. iii. p. 334 ed. Munch 
proves the share of Lorenz Truchsess " quodara suo divine 
consilio." 

X Acta judiciorum in v. d. Hardt, Hist. Lit. Reforma- 
tionjs, 114. The chief source of information respecting 
these events. 

§ Erasmus ad Vergaram, Opp. Ill ; 1015. " Q.uis enim 
magis timet monachos quam Romani pontifices?" 

|( Reuchlin de Arte Cabbalistica, p. 730. Acta Judiciorum, 
p. 130. 



10» 



CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF LEARNED LITERATURE. 



Book IL 



not perfectly satisfied with this result, espe- 
cially after all that had gone before : he ex- 
pected a formal and complete acquittal ; never- 
theless, even this Avas to be regarded as little 
less than a victory. The fact that the party 
which assumed to represent religion and to 
have exclusive possession of the true doctrines, 
had failed to carry through their inquisitorial 
designs, and even, as secret reports said, had 
only escaped a sentence of condemnation by 
means of gold and favour,* was enough to en- 
courage all their adversaries. Hitherto the 
latter had only stood on the defensive ; they 
now assumed an attitude of open, direct offence. 
Reuchlin's correspondence, which was pub- 
lished expressly to show the respect and admi- 
ration he enjoyed, shows how numerously and 
zealously they rallied round him. We find 
the spiritual lords we have mentioned ; patri- 
cians of the most important cities, such as 
Pirkheimer of Nürnberg, who delighted in 
being considered as the leader of a numerous 
band of Reuchlinists ; Peutinger of Augsburg, 
Stuss of Cologne; preachers like Capito and 
OEcolampadius ; the Austrian historians, La- 
zius and Cuspinian; doctors of medicine — all, 
in short, who had any tincture of letters; but 
chiefly those poets and orators in the schools 
and universities who beheld their own cause 
in that of Reuchlin, and nov/ rushed in throngs 
to the newly-opened arena ; at their head Busch, 
Jäger, Hess, Hütten, and a long list of emi- 
nent names. "I" 

The remarkable production in which, the 
whole character and drift of their labours is 
summed up, is, the Epistolaj Obscurorum Vi- 
rorum. That popular satire, already so rife in 
Germany, but hitherto confined to generals, 
here found a particular subject exactly suited 
to it. We must not look for the delicate ap- 
prehension and tact which can only be formed 
in a highly polished state of society, nor for 
the indignation of insulted morality expressed 
by the ancients : it is altogether caricature, — 
not of finished individual portraits, but of a 
single type; — a clownish, sensual German 
priest, his intellect narrowed by stupid wonder 
and fanatical hatred, who relates with silly 
naivete and gossiping confidence the various 
absurd and scandalous situations into which 
he falls. These letters are not the work of a 
high poetical genius, but they have truth, coarse 
strong features of resemblance, and vivid col- 
ouring. As they originated in a widely-diffus- 
ed and powerful tendency of the public mind, 
they produced an immense effect : the See of 
Rome deemed it necessary to prohibit them. 

It may be affirmed generally that the genius 
of the literary opposition was triumphant. In 
the 3^ear 1518, Erasmus looked joyfully around 
him ;- his disciples and adherents had risen to 
eminence in every university — even in Leipsig, 



which had so long resisted : they were all 
teachers of ancient literature.:]: 

Was it indeed possible that the great men 
of antiquity should have lived in vain ? That 
their works, produced in the youth-time of the 
human race, — works with whose beauty and 
profound wisdom nothing that has since arisen 
is to be compared, should not be restored to 
later ages in their primitive form and perfec- 
tion 1 It is an event of the greatest historical 
importance, that after so many convulsions by 
which nations were overthrown and others 
constituted out of their ruins, — by which the 
old world had been obliterated and all its ele- 
ments replaced by other matter, — the relics of 
its spirit, which could now exercise no other 
influence than that of form, were sought with 
an avidity hitherto unknown, and widely dif- 
used, studied, and imitated. 

The study of antiquity was implanted in 
Germany as early as the first introduction of 
Christianity; in the 10th and 11th centuries it 
had risen to a considerable height, but at a 
later period it was stifled by the despotism of 
the hierarchy and the schools. The latter 
now returned to their original vocation. It 
was not to be expected, that great works of 
literary art could as yet be produced ; for that, 
circumstances w^ere not ripe. The first effect 
of the new studies showed itself in the nature 
and modes of instruction — the more natural 
and rational training of the youthful mind 
which has continued to be the basis of German 
erudition. The hierarchical system of opinions 
which, though it had been wrought up to a 
high point of brilliancy and refinement, could 
not possibly endure, was thus completely 
broken up. A new life stirred in every de- 
partment of human intelligence. "• What an 
age !" exclaims Hütten, " learning flourishes, 
tlie minds of men awake ; it is a joy to be 
alive." This was peculiarly conspicuous in 
the domain of theology. The highest eccle- 
siastic of the nation. Archbishop Albert of 
Mainz, saluted Erasmus as the restorer of 
theology. 

But an intellectual movement of a totall)'- 
different kind was now about to take place. 

EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 

The authorities, or the opinions which rule 
the world, rarely encounter their most dan- 
gerous enemies from without; the hostilities 
by which they are overthrov^n are usually 
generated and nurtured within their own 
sphere. 

In the bosom of theological philosophy itself, 
discords arose from which a new era in the 
history of life and thought may be dated. 

We must not omit to notice the fact, that 
the doctrines of Wickliffe, which had spread 
from Oxford over the whole of Latin Chris- 



* Tn Hogstratus Ovans, 336, it is said, through the in- 
tercession of Nicolaus von Schotnberg. 

t Even before the letters to ReuQhIin, we find set down 
the Exercitus Reuchlinistarum. Pirkheimer, Epistola 
Apologetica, in Hardt, p. 136, has another list. Later 
lists, e.g. in Mayerhoff, must, in several cases, be taken 
with restrictions. 



I In the Essay De Ratione conscribendi Epistolas, the 
dedication of which belongs to the year 1522, he exclaims 
(ed. of 1534, p- 71), " Videmus quantum profectum sit 
paucis annis. Ubi nunc est Michael Modieta, ubi glo?- 
sema Jacobi, ubi citatur Catholicon brachylogus aut 
Mammcetrectus, quos olim ceu rarum thesaurum aureis 
Uteris descriptos habebant monachorum bibliothecs." 
It is evident how much the method had changed. 



Chap. I. 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



101 



tendom, and broke out with such menacing 
demonstrations in Bohemia, had not, in spite 
of all the barbarities of the Hussite wars, 
been extirpated in Germany. At a much later 
period we find traces of them in Bavaria, 
where the Böklerbund drew upon itself the 
suspicions of Hussite, opinions; in Svvabia 
and Pranconia, where the council of Bamberg 
at one time thought it necessary to compel all 
the men in that city to abjure the Hussites; 
and even in Prussia, where the adherents of 
Wickliffite and Hassite doctrines at length 
submitted, though only in appearance.* It 
was the more remarkable that after such mea- 
sures, the society of the Bohemian brethren 
arose out of the fierce tempest of Hussite 
opinions and parties, and once more exhibited 
to the world a Christian community in all the 
purity and simplicity of the primitive church. 
Their religion derived a new and singular 
character from the fundamental principle of 
their secession — that Christ himself was the 
rock on which the church was founded, and 
not Peter and his successors. j- Their settle- 
ments were in those districts where the Ger- 
man and Slavonic elements are intermingled, 
and their emissaries went forth and traversed 
unnoticed the w'ide domain of either language, 
seeking those already allied to them in opinion, 
or endeavouring to gain over new proselytes. 
Nicholas Kuss of Rostock, whom they visited 
several times, began at this period to preach 
openly against the pope (a. d. 1511. ):|: 

The opposition to the despotism of the Do- 
minican system still subsisted in the universi- 
ties themselves. Nominalism, connected at 
the very moment of its revival with the adver- 
saries of the papacy, had found great accept- 
ance in Germany, and was still by no means 
suppressed. The most celebrated nominalist 
of that time, Gabriel Biel, the collector, is 
mainly an epitomizer of Occam. This party 
was in the minority, and often exposed to the 
persecutions of its enemies who wielded the 
powers of the Liquisition ;§ but it only struck 
deeper and firmer root. Luther and J\ielanch- 
thon are the offspring of nominalism. 

And perhaps a still more important circum- 
stance was, that in the 15th century the stricter 
Augustinian doctrines were revived in the per- 
sons of some theologians. 

Johann de Wesalia taught election by grace ; 
he speaks of the Book in w^hich the names of 
the elect are written from the beginning. The 
tendency of his opinions is shown by the defi- 
nition of the Sacrament which he opposes to 
that given by Peter Lombard : the former is 
that of St. Augustine in its original purity, 
while the latter is an extension of it; the 



* Zschokke, Baier. Gesell, ii. 429. Pfister, Gescli. von 
Schwaben, v. 378. Baczko, Gesch. von Preussen, i. 256. 

t What it was which appeared danjrerous in their doc- 
trines is shown particularly in the Refutations of the 
Dominican Heinrich Jnstitoris, from which ßinaldus 
(1498, nr. 25,) gives copious extracts. 

X Woltii Lectiones memorabiles, ii. 27. 

§ In the Examen Magistrale Driä Joh. de Wesalia, the 
Concipient describes these disputes at the conclusion: 
" adeo ut si universalia quisquam realia negaverit, exis- 
timeturin spiritum sanctum peccavisse, immo — contra 
deiim, contra Christianam religionem,— deliquisse." 
I* 



general aim of his w'orks is, the removal of 
the additions made in later times to the primi- 
tive doctrines of the church. || He denies the 
binding force of priestly rules, and the efficacy 
of indulgences ; he is filled with the idea of 
the invisible church. He was a man of great 
intellectual powers, capable of playing a dis- 
tinoruished part at a university like that of 
Erfurt : he arrived at these convictions by de- 
grees, and when convinced did not conceal 
them even in the pulpit; nor did he shrink 
from a connexion with Bohemian emissaries. 
At length, however, when advanced in age, he 
was dragged, leaning on his staff, before the 
Inquisition, and thrown into prison, where he 
died. 

Johann Pupper of Goch, who founded a 
convent of nuns of the rule of St. Augustine 
at Mechlin about the year 1460-7Q, made him- 
self remarkable by accusing the dom/inant 
party in the church of a leaning to Pelagia- 
nism.** He calls Thomas Aquinas the prince 
of error. He attacked the devotion to cere- 
monies, and the Pharisaism of vows, upon 
Augustinian principles. 

How often have the antagonists of the 
church of Rome made this the ground of their 
opposition! — from Claudius of Turin in the 
beginning of the ninth, to Bishop Janse in the 
17th century, and his followers in the ISth 
and 19th. The deeper minds within her pale 
have always felt compelled to point back to 
those fundamental doctrines on which she was 
originally based. 

The principles of the opposition now as- 
sumed the form of a scientific structure. In 
the works of Johann Wessel, of Groningen, 
we see a manly mind devoted to truth, work- 
ing itself free from the bonds of the mnghty 
tradition Avhich could no longer satisfy a reli- 
gious conscience. Wessel lays dovv-n the 
maxim that prelates and doctors are to be be- 
lieved only so far as their doctrines are in con- 
formity with the Scriptures, the sole rule of 
faith, which is far above pope or church ;|j' he 
writes almost in the spirit of a theologian of 
later times. It was perfectly intelligible that 
he was not permitted to set foot in the uni- 
versity of Heidelberg. 

Nor were these efforts completelj'' isolated. 

At the time of the council of Basle, the 
German provincial society of the Augustin 
Eremites had formed themselves into a se- 
parate congregation, and had from that mo- 
ment made it their chief endeavour to uphold 
the more rigorous doctrines of the patron of 
their order. This was peculiarly the aim of 
the resolute and undaunted Andreas Proles, 
who for nearly a half century administered the 
Vicariate of that province. :f::|: Another and a 

11 Joh. de Wesalia, Disputatio adversus indulgrentias in 
Walch, Mouinienta Medii ^vi, torn. i. fttsc. p. I'M. 

** Dialoüfus de Quataor Erroribus circa Legem Evansre- 
licara in Walch, Blonim. I. iv. p. 131. " Htec fuit insania 
Pelagii hcEretici, a qna error Thomistarum non solum 'in 
hoc loco sed etiam in multis aliis non multum degene- 
rare videtur." What impression this made, we perceive 
from Pantaleon's description. 

tt Ullmann, Johann Wesse], p. 303. 

XI Joh. Pelz, Supplemenlum AiirifodiniE, 1504, in Kapp, 
Nachlese, iv. p. 460. , 



102 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



Book IL 



cong-enial tendency came in aid of this in the 
beginning of the 16th century. The despotism 
of the schools had been constantly opposed by 
all those who were inclined to mystical con- 
templation : the sermons of Tauler, which had' 
several times issued from the press, became 
extremely popular from their mild earnestness, 
their depth of thouglit and reason, and the tone 
of sincerity so satisfactory to the German mind 
and heart. The Book of German Theology, 
which appeared at that time, may be regarded 
as an offspring of Tauler's teaching. It chiefly 
insisted on the inability of the creature, of him- 
self, to comprehend the Infinite and the Per- 
fect, to attain to inward peace, or to give him- 
self up_ to that Eternal Good, which descends 
upon him of its own free motion. Johann 
Staupitz, the successor of Proles, adopted these 
ideas, and laboured to develope and to diffuse 
them.* If we examine his views of the sub- 
ject, — as for example, the manner in which 
he treats of the love " which a man can neither 
learn of himself nor from others, nor even from 
the Holy Scriptures, — which he can only pos- 
sess through the indwellingof the Holy Spirit," 
— we are struck with their perfect connexion 
and accordance with the stricter ideas of grace, 
faith, and free-will; a connexion, indeed, with- 
out which these doctrines would not have been 
intelligible to the age. We must not assume 
that all Augustine convents, or even all the 
members of the one in question, were con- 
verted to these opinions ; but it is (tertain that 
they first struck root among this order, whence 
they spread abroad and tended to foster the 
resistance to the prevailing doctrines of the 
schools. 

It is manifest that all these agitations of 
opinion, from whatever source they proceeded, 
were allies of the literary opposition to the 
tyranny of the Dominican system. The fact 
that these various but converging tendencies 
at length found representatives within the cir- 
cle of one universit}'^, must be regarded as in 
itself an important event for the whole nation. 

In the year 1502, Elector Frederic of Saxony 
founded a new university at Wittenberg. He 
accomplished this object chiefly by obtaining 
the pope's consent to incorporate a number of 
parishes with the richly endowed chun^h at- 
tached to the palace, and transforming the 
whole into a foundation, the revenues of which 
he then allotted to the new professors. The 
same course had been pursued in Treves and 
in Tübingen; the clerical dignities of the in- 
stitution were connected with the offices in the 
university. The provost, dean, scholaster, 
and syndic formed the faculty of law; the 
archdeacon, cantor, and warden, that of theo- 
logy ; the lectures on philosophy and the exer- 
cises of the candidates for the degree of master 
of arts were attached to five canonries. The 
eminent Augustine convent in the town was to 
take part in the work.-j- 



* Grimm de Joanne Staupitzio ejusqiie in sacrorum 
Christianorum restaurationem meritis, in Illgen Zeits- 
chrift für die Hist. Theologie, N. F. i. ii. 78. 

t The papal privilege in Grohmann, Geschichte der 
Universität Wittenberg, comp. p. 110. 



We must recollect that the universities were 
then regarded not only as establishments for 
education, but as supreme tribunals for the 
decision of scientific questions. In the charter 
of Wittenberg, Frederic declares:|: that he, as 
well as all the neighbouring states, would 
repair thither as to an oracle; " so that," says 
he, " when we have come full of doubt, we 
may, after receiving the sentence, depart in 
certainty." 

Two men, both unquestionably belonging to 
the party hostile to the reigning theologico- 
philosophical system, had the greatest in- 
fluence on the foundation and first organization 
of this university. The one was Dr. Martin 
Pollich of Meirichstadt, physician to the elector, 
whose name stands at the head of the list of 
the rectors of the Leipzig university, where he 
was previously established. We know that 
he had contended against the fantastic exag- 
gerations of scholastic learning, and the strange 
assertions to which they gave birth ; such as 
that the light created on the first dajMvas the- 
olog)^ ; that discursive theology was inherent 
in the angels. We know that he had already 
perceived the necessity of grounding that 
science on a study of letters generally. § 

The other was Johann Staupitz, the mystical 
cast of whose opinions, borrowed from St. 
Augustine, we have just mentioned ; he was 
the first dean of the theological faculty, the 
first act of which was, the promotion of Martin 
Pollich to the doctor of theology : ]| as director 
of the Augustine convent, he likewise enjoyed 
peculiar influence. It was not an insignificant 
circumstance that the university had just then 
declared vSt. Augustine its patron. Notwith- 
standing his strong tendency to speculation, 
Staupitz was obviously an excellent man of 
business; he conducted 'himself with address 
at court, and a homely vein of wit which he 
possessed, enabled him to make his part good 
with the prince ; he undertook an embassy, 
and conducted the negotiation with success ; 
but the deeper spring of all his conduct and 
actions is clearly a genuine feeling of true and 
heartfelt religion, and an expansive benevo- 
lence. 

It is easy to irnagine in what spirit these 
men laboured at the university. But a new- 
star soon arose upon it. In the year 1508, 
Staupitz conducted thither the young Luther. 

W^e maist pause a moment to consider the 
early years of this remarkable man. 

"I am a peasant's son," says he; "my 
father, grandfather, and ancestors were genuine 
peasants ; afterwards, my father removed to 
Mansfeld, and became a miner ; that is my na- 
tive place."** Luther's family was from Möhra, 
a village on the very summit of the Thuringian 
forest, not far from the spot celebrated for the 

t Confirmatio diicis Frederici, ib. p. 19. 

§ Löscher, in the unoffending accounts of 1716, and in 
the Acts of the Reformation, i. 88, has given extracts 
from his writings. In his epitaph in the parish church 
at Wittenberg, lie is rightly called hujus gymnasii primus 
rector et parens, 

II Liber deranorum facultatis theologorum Vitebergen- 
sis, ed. Foerstemann, p. 2. 

** Tischreden, p. 581. 



Chap. f. 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



103 



first preaching of Christianity by Boniface ; it 
is probable that Luther's forefathers had for 
centuries been settled on their hide of land 
(Hufe) as was the custom with those Thurin- 
gian peasants, one brother agnong whom always 
inherited the estate, while the others sought a 
subsistence in other ways. • Condemned by 
such a destiny to seek a home and hearth for 
himself, Huns Luther was led to the mines at 
Mansfeld, where he earned his bread by the 
sweat of his brow, while his wife, Margaret, 
often fetched wood from the forest on her back. 
Such were the parents of Martin Luther. He 
was born at Eisleben, whither his sturdy mother 
had walked to the yearly fair; he grew up in 
the mountain air of Mansfeld. 

The habits and manners of that time were 
generally harsh and rude, and so w'as his edu- 
cation. Luther relates that his mother once 
scourged him till the blood came, on account 
of one miserable nut; that his father had pun- 
ished him so severely that it was with great 
difficulty that he could get over the child's 
terror and alienation ; at school he was flogged 
fifteen times in one forenoon. He had to earn 
his bread by singing hymns before the doors 
of houses, and new year's carols in the villages. 
Strange — that people should continuall}:^ exalt 
and envy the happiness of childhood, in which 
the only certain foretaste of coming )'ears is 
the feeling of the stern necessities of life ; in 
which existence is dependent on foreign help, 
and the will of another disposes of every day 
and hour, with iron sway. In Luther's case, 
this period of life was full of terrors. 

From his fifteenth year his condition was 
somewhat better. In Eisenach, where he was 
sent to the high school, he found a home in the 
house of some relations of his mother; thence 
he went to the university of Erfurt, where his 
father, Avhose industry, frugality and success 
had placed him in easier circumstances, made 
him a liberal allowance*: his hope vv^as, that 
his son would be a lawyer, marry Vn'oU and do 
him honour. 

, But in this weary life the restraints of child- 
hood are soon succeeded by troubles and per- 
plexities. The spirit feels itself freed from 
the bonds of the school, and is not yet distract- 
ed by the wants and cares of daily life; it 
boldly turns to the highest problems, such as 
the relation of man to God, and of God to the 
world, and while eagerly rushing on to the so- 
lution of them^ it falls into the most distressing 
state of doubt. We might be almost tempted 
to think that the Eternal Source of all life ap- 
peared to the youthful Luther only in the light 
of the inexoralDle judge and avenger, who pim- 
ishes sin (of which Luther had from nature an 
awful and vivid feeling) with the torments of 
hell, and can only be propitiated by penance, 
mortification and painful service. As he was 
returning from his father's house in Mansfeld 
to Erfurt, in the month of July, 1505, he was 
overtaken in a field near Stotternheim by one 
of those fearful tempests which slowly gather 
on the mountains and at length suddenly burst 

* Luther's Erklärung der Genesis, c. 49, v. 15; Attenb. 
torn. ix. p. 1525., 



over the whole horizon. Luther was already 
dejjressed by the unexpected death of an inti- 
mate friend. There are moments in which the 
agitated desponding heart is completely crushed 
by one overwhelming incident, even of the 
natural world. Luther, traversing his solitary 
path, saw in the tempest the God of wrath 
and vengeance ; the liohtning struck some 
object near him; in his terror he made a 
vow to St. Anne, that if he escaped, he w^ould 
enter a convent. He passed one more evening 
with his friends, enjoying the pleasures of 
wine, music, and song; it was the last in 
which he indulged himself; he hastened to 
fulfil his vow, and entered the Augustine Con- 
vent at Erfurt. 

But he was little likely to find serenity 
there; imprisoned, in all the buoyant energy 
of youth, within the narrow gates and in the 
low and gloomy cell, with no prospect but a 
few feet of garden within the cloisters, and 
condemned to perform the lowest offices. At 
first he devoted himself to the duties of a no- 
vice with all the ardour of a determined will. 
" If ever a monk got to heaven by monkish 
life and practices {durch Möncher ei) ^ I resolved 
that I would enter there," were his words. f 
But though he conformed to the hard duty of 
obedience, he was soon a prey to the most 
painful disquiet. Sometimes he studied day 
and night, to the neglect of his canonical hours, 
which he then passed his nights in retrieving 
with penitent zeal. Sometimes he went out 
into some neighbouring village, carrying with 
him his midday re'past, preached to the shep- 
herds and ploughmen, and then refreshed him- 
self with their rustic music ; after which he 
went home, and shucting himself up for days 
in his cell, would see no one. All his former 
doubts and secret perplexities returned from 
time to time with redoubled force. 

In the course of his study of the Scriptures, 
he fell upon texts which struck terror into his 
soul ; one of these was, " Save me in thy righ- 
teousness and thy truth." "I thought," said 
he, " that righteousness was the fierce wrath 
of God, wherewith he punishes sinners." Cer- 
tain passages in the Epistles of St. Paul haunt- 
ed him for days. The doctrine of grace was 
not indeed unknown to him, but the dogma that 
sin w^as a:t once taken away by it, produced 
upon him, w^ho was but too conscious of his 
sins, rather a sense of rejection — a feeling of 
deep depression, than of hope. He says it 
made his heart bleed — it made him despair of 
God.it: " Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins !" hp 
writes to Staupitz, w^ho was not a little aston- 
ished when he received tlie confession of so 
sorrowful a penitent, and found that he had no 
sinful acts to acknowledge. His anguish was 
j the longing of the creature after the purity of 
the Creator, to whom it feels itself profoundly 
and intimately allied, yet from whom it is 
severed by an immeasurable gulph : a feeling 
which Luther nourished by incessant solitary 



't Short answer to Duke George. Altenhurg. t. vi. p. 
22. Exposition of the eighth chapter of John, V. 770. 

X He relates this in the Sermo die S. Joh. 1516, in Lö- 
scher, Reformations Acta, i. p. 258. 



104 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



Book IL 



brooding, and whi(ih had taken the more pain- 
ful and complete possession of him because no 
penance had power to appease it; no doctrine 
truly touched it, no confessor would hear of it. 
There were moments when this anxious me- 
lancholy arose with fearful might from tlie 
mysterious abysses of his soul, waved its 
dusky pinions over its head, and felled him to 
the earth. On one occasion when he had been 
invisible for several days, some friends broke 
into his cell and found him lying senseless on 
the ground. They knew their friend ; with 
tender precaution they struck some chords on 
a stringed instrument they had brought with 
them ; the inward strife of the perplexed spirit 
was allayed by the well-known remedy; it was 
restored to harmony and awakened to healthful 
consciousness. 

But the eternal lav/s of the universe seem to 
require that so deep and earnest a longing of 
the soul after God should at length be appeased 
with the fulness of conviction. 

The first who, if he could not administer 
comfort to Luther in his desperate condition, at 
least let fall a ray of light upon his thick dark- 
ness, was an old Augustine friar who with 
fatherly admonitions pointed his attention to 
the first and simplest truth of Christianit}^ — 
the forgiveness of sins through faith in the Re- 
deemer; and to the assertion of St. Paul 
(Rom. iii.), that man is justified without works, 
by faith alone:* doctrines Avhich he might 
indeed have heard before, but obscured as they 
were by school subtleties, and a ceremonial 
worship, he had never rightly understood. 
They now first made a full and profound im- 
pression on him. He meditated especially on 
the saying, " The just shall live by faith." He 
read St. Augustine's commentary on this pas- 
sage. " Then was I glad," says he, " for I 
learned and saw that God's righteousness is 
his mercy, by which he accounts and holds us 
justified ; thus I reconciled justice with justifi- 
cation, and felt assured that I v/as in the true 
faith." This was exactly the conviction of 
which his mind stood in need : it was manifest 
to him that the same eternal grace whence the 
•whole race of man is sprung, mercifully brings 
back erring souls to itself and enlightens them 
with the fulness of its own light-; that an ex- 
ample and irrefragable assurance of this is 
given us in the person of Christ: he gradually 
emerged from the gloomy idea of a divine jus- 
tice only to be propitiated by the rigours of 
penance. He was like a man who after long 
wanderings has at length found the right path, 
and feeling more certain of it at every step, 
walks boldly and hopefully onward. 

Such was Luther's state when he was re- 
moved to Wittenberg by his provincial (a. d. 
1508). The philosophical lectures which he 
was obliged to deliver, sharpened his desire to 
penetrate the mysteries of theology, " the ker- 
nel of the nut," as he calls it, "the heart of 



* Short notice by Melancthon on the Life of Luther. 
Works. Attenb. viii. 876. See Matthesius, Historien Dr. 
Luther.^. First Sermon, p, 12. Bavarus ia Seckendorf, 
Hist. Lutheranismi, p. 21. 



the wheat." The books which he studied 
were, St. Paul's Epistles, St. Augustine against 
the Pelagians, and, lastly, Tauler's sermons : 
he troubled himself little with literature foreign 
to this subject; be cared only to strengthen 
and work out the convictions he had gained. f 

A few years later we find him in the most 
extraordinary frame of mind, during a journey 
which he took for the affairs of his order to 
Rome. As soon as he descried the towers of 
the city from a distance, he threw himself on 
the ground, raised his hands and exclaimed, 
" Hail to thee, O holy Rome !" On his arrival, 
there was no exercise in use among the most 
pious pilgrims which he did not perform with 
earnest and deliberate devotion, undeterred by 
the levity of other priests ; he said he was 
almost tempted to wish that his parents were 
dead, that so he might have been able certainly 
to deliver them from the fire of purgatory by 
these privileged observances. :|: Yet, at the 
same time, he felt how little such practices 
Vv-ere in accordance with the consolatory doc- 
trine which he had found in the Epistle to the 
Romans and in St. Augustine. While climb- 
ing the Scala Santa on his kne^s in order to 
obtain the plenary indulgence attached to that 
painful and laborious work of piety, he heard 
a reproving voice continually crying within 
him, "The just shall live by faith. "§ 

After his return in 1513, he became Doctor 
of the Holy Scripture, and from year to year 
enlarged his sphere of activity. He lectured 
at the university on both the Old and New 
Testament ; he preached at the Augustine 
church, and performed the duties of the priest 
of the parochial church of the town during his 



t In the " Histori, so zwen Aiiiriistinerordens gemartert 
seyn zii Bruxel in Prol)a!Klt,"—""nistor_v, how two monks 
of the order of St. Augustine underwent martyrdom at 
Brussels in Brabaiidt," — there is in sheet B the following 
excellent and authentic passage upon Luther's studies. 
" In welchen Verstand (dass er die Schrift co klar und 
guadeiircicli erkläre) er kummen ist erst durch maniche 
t-laupendye er erlitten hat von Got, und mit vleissigeu 
Bitteil zu Got, steten Lesen, und nemlich Aii.Tüstinus 
wider die Pelagianer hat ym grosse hiltf gethan tznr er- 
kerindnuss Pauli yn seyn Episteln. Sunderlich ein Pre-' 
digbiichlin der Tawicr genanndt yhm deutschen das iikt 
or uns oft zu erkauffen ermant unter &if?ym lesen yn der 
Schul, welches yn gefiirt hat yn geist. als er oü\ uns be- 
kannt: audi ist eyn Biichlyn genandt die deutsch Theo- 
logen, hat Er allzeyt hochgebrifft, als er den schreibtt yn 
der Vorrede gedachten I3üch!yns. — Hat auch oft gesagt, 
das seyn Kunst mer yhm geben sey auserfarendenn lesen, 
und das vyll Bücher nit gelert machon. Darnmb findt 
man (Spater, 1523) yhn sginer VVonung nit vyll Bücher, 
den eyn Bibel und Concordanz der Bybel." — "To what 
understanding (enabling him to explain the Scriptures 
with such clearness and crace) he has arrived, first by 
manifold chastisements which he has suffered from God, 
and through diligent prayer to God, and constant read- 
ing ; and for instance, Augustine against the Pelagians 
has been of great help to him towards the comprehension 
of Paul in liis Ejiistles. Especially a little book of ser- 
mons by Tawler, he has often admonished us to buy, in 
the middle of his teaching in the school, as v/hat has 
guided him in spirit, as he as often ackriowleged to us ; 
there is also a liule book (.'ailed the German Theology, 
which he has at all times highly praised, as he writes in 
the preface to the said little book. He has also often 
said, that his skill was given him more by experience 
than reading, and that many books do not make a man 
learned. Therefore many books are not to be found (this 
is later, in 1523) in his dwelling; but one Bible and a 
Concordance of the Bible." 

X Exposition of the 117lh Psalm to Hans von Sternberg. 
Luthers Werke, Altenb. v. 25]. 

§ Story told by Luther in the Table Talk, p. 609. 



Chap. I. 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



105 



illness; in 1516, Staupitz appointed him ad- j 
ministrator of the order durino^ his absence on \ 
a journey, and we trace him. visiting all the ; 
monasteries in the province, appointing or dis- \ 
placing priors, receiving or removing monks, j 
While labouring to introduce a profounder spi- 
rit of piety, he did not overlook the smallest 
economical details ; and besides all this, he 
had to manage his own crowded and extremely 
poor convent. Some things, written in the 
years 1515 and 1516, enable us better to 
understand the state and workings of his mind | 
during that period. Mystical and scholastic j 
ideas had still great influence over him. In j 
the first words of his on religious subjects in i 
the German language which we possess, — a 
sketch of a sermon dated Xoveml^er, 1515, — 
he applies, in somewhat coarse terms, the sym- 
bolical language of the Song of Songs to the 
operations of the Holy Ghost, which acts on 
the spirit through the flesh ; and also to the in- 
ward harmony of the Holy Scriptures. In 
another, dated December of the same year, he 
endeavours to explain the mystery of the Tri- 
nity by the Aristotelic theory of being, motion, 
and rest.* ^Meanwhile his thoughts were 
already turned to a grand and general reform 
of the church. In a speech which appears to 
have been intended to be uttered by the provost 
of Lietzkau at the Lateran council, he sets 
forth that the corruption of the world was to 
be ascribed to the priests, who delivered to the 
people too many maxims and fables of human 
invention, and not the pure word of God. For, 
he said, the word of life alone is able to work 
out the regeneration of man. It is well worthy 
of remark, that, even then, Luther looked for 
the salvation of the world far less to an amend- 
ment of life, which was only secondary in his 
eyes, than to a revival of the tme doctrines : 
and there was none with tiie importance of 
which he was so penetrated and filled as with 
that of justification by faith. He continually ; 
insists on the absolute necessity of a man de- 
nying himself, and fleeing for refuge under the 
wings of Christ; he seizes every opportunity , 
of repeating the saying of St. Augustine, that \ 
faith obtains what the law enjoins.j We see ; 
that Luther was not yet completely at one with | 
himself: that he still cherished opinions funda- ! 
mentally at variance with each other ; but all ; 
his writings breathe a powerful mind, a youth- ' 
ful courage, still restrained within the bounds ■ 
of modesty and reverence for authority, though ■ 
ready to overleap them ; a genius intent on es- : 
sentials, tearing asunder the bonds of system, ' 
and pressing forward in the new path which 
it has discovered. In the year 1516. we find 
that Luther was busily occupied in defending 
and establishing his doctrine of iustification.x 
He was greatly encouracred by the discovery 
of the spuriousness of a book attributed to Au- 
gustine, on which the schoolm.en had founded ' 

* Sermo Lutheri in Xativitate Christi, 1515. 

t Fides impetrat qufe lex imperat. 

i From the Serrao de propria Sapientia. it appears that i 
he bad already been attacked on this point. " Efficitur i 
mihi et errans et falsum. dictum."' i 



many doctrines extremely offensive to him, and 
which was quoted almost entire in Lombard's 
book, "De vera et falsa Penitentiä ;" and he 
now took heart to attack the doctrine of the 
Scotists on love, and that of the Magister Sen- 
tentiarum on hope ; he was already convinced 
that there was no such thingf as a work in and 
for itself pleasing to God — such as prayer, fasts 
and vigils; for, as their whole efficacy depend- 
ed on their being done in the fear of God, it 
followed that every other act or occupation was 
just as good in itself. 

In opposition to some expressions of Ger- 
man theologians which appeared to him of a 
Pelagian tendency, he embraced with uncom- 
promising firmness even the severer views of 
Augustine : one of his disciples held a solemn 
disputation in defence of the doctrine of the 
subjection of the will, and of the inability of 
man to fit himself for grace, much more to ob- 
tain it, by his own powers. § 

If it be asked wherein he discovered the 
mediating p.ower between divine perfection and 
human sinfulness, we find that it was solely 
in the mystery of the redemption, and the re- 
vealed word ; mercy on the one side, and faith 
on the other. These opinions led him to doubt 
of many of the main dogmas of the church. 
He did not yet deny the efficacy of absoiution ; 
but no later than the year 1516, he was per- 
plexed by the doubt how man could obtain 
grace by such means : the desire of the soul 
vras not appeased by it, nor was love infused ; 
those effects could only be produced by the 
enlightenment of the mind, and the kindling 
of the will by the immediate operation of the 
Eternal Spirit; for, he added, he could con 
ceive of religion only as residing in the inmost 
depth of the heart.] He doubted whether all 
those outward succours for which it was usual 
to invoke the saints, ought to be ascribed to 
them. "* 

Such vrere the doctrines, such the great gen- 
eral direction of mind immediately connected 
v/ith the opinions implanted by Pollich and 
Staupitz, which Luther disseminated amono; 
the Augustine friars of his convent and his 
province, and, above all, among the members 
of the university. For a tim.e Jodocus Trut- 
vetter of Eisenach sustained the established 
opinions ; but after his death in the year 1513, 
Luther was the master spirit that ruled the 
schools. His colleagues, Peter Lupinus and 
Andreas Carlstadt, who for a time withstood 
his influence, at length declared themselves 
overcomie and convinced by the arguments of 
Augustine and the doctrines of the Holy Scrip- 
ture v.-hich had made so deep an impression on 
him ; they were almost more zealous than Lu- 
ther himself. A totally difierent direction was 
thus given to the university of Wittenbersffrom 
that in which the other seats of learning con- 
tinued to move. Theology itself, mainly in- 

' Qusestio de viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia, 
iu'Löscher, i. 32S. 

Sermo X^a post Trinitatis. He still savs himself oc- 
casionally, " Ego non satis intelligo banc rem ; manet 

dubiura," izc— Löscher, p. 761. 



u 



106 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



Book IL 



deed in consequence of its own internal devel- 
opment, made similar claims to those asserted 
by general literature. In Wittenberg arose the 
opposition to the theologians of the old and the 
new way, the nominalists and the realists, 
and more especially to the reigning- thomis- 
lical doctiines of the Dominicans ; men now 
turned to the scriptures and the fathers of 
the church, as Erasmus (though rather as a 
conscientious critic than an enthusiastic reli- 
gionist) had recommended. In a short time 
there were no hearers for the lectures given in 
the old spirit. 

Such was the state of things in Wittenberg 
■ when the preachers of papal indulgences ap- 
peared in the country about the Elbe, armed 
with powers such as had never been heard of 
before, but which Pope Leo X. did not scruple, 
under the circumstances in which he found 
himself, to grant. 

, For no fear whatever was now entertained 
at Rome of any important division in the 
church. 

In the place of the council at Pisa, one had 
been convoked at the Lateran, in which devo- 
tion to the see of Rome, and the doctrine of 
its omnipotence, reigned unalloyed and undis- 
puted. 

At an earlier period, the college of Cardinals 
had often made an attempt to limit the powers 
of the papacy, and to adopt measures with re- 
gard to it like those employed by the German 
chapters towards their bishoprics; they had 
elected Leo because they thought he would 
submit to these restraints. But the event 
proved how utterly they had miscalculated. 
The men who had chiefly promoted Leo's elec- 
tion were precisely those who now most se- 
verely felt his power. Their rage knew no 
bounds. Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci several 
times went to the college v.'ith a dagger con- 
cealed beneath the purple ; he would have as- 
sassinated the pope had he not been withheld 
by the consideration of the effect which the 
murder of a pope by a cardinal would produce 
on the world. He therefore held it to be more 
expedient to take another and less violent way 
to the same end — ^o get rid of the pope by poi- 
son. But this course required friends and al- 
lies among the cardinals and assistants in the 
palace, and thus it happened that he was be- 
trayed.* 

What stormy consistories followed this dis- 
covery ! The persons standin^j- without, says 
the Master of the Ceremonies, heard loud cla- 
mours, — the pope against some of the cardi- 
nals, the cardinals against each other, and 
against the pope. Whatever passed there, Leo 
did not allow such an opportunity of establish- 
ing his powder for ever, to escape him. Not 
only did he get rid of his formidable adversa- 
ry, but he proceeded to create at one stroke 
thirty-one cardinals, thus insuring to himself a 



* All doubts whatsoever in the reality of ttiis conspi- 
racy cease, upon reading: the discourse held by Bandinelli 
upon receiving his pardon, in which he acknowledges, 
"qualiter ipse conspirarat cum Francisco Maria, . . . ct 
cum Alfonso Petrutio machinatus erat in mortem sancti- 
tatis vestrae praeparando venena," &.c. &c. 



majority in all contingencies, and a complete 
supremacy."!" 

The state, too, was convulsed by a violent 
storm. Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, 
who had been driven out of his territory, had 
returned, and had set on foot a vv^ar, the result 
of which long kept the pope in a state of min- 
gled exasperation and shame : gradually, how 
ever, he mastered this opposition also; the 
war swallowed up streams of gold, but means 
were found to raise it. 

The position which the pope, now absolute 
lord of Florence and master of Siena, occu- 
pied, the powerful alliances he had contracted 
with the other powers of Europe, and the 
views which his family entertained on the rest 
of Italy, rendered it absolutely indispensable 
for him, spite of the prodigality of a govern- 
ment that knew no restraint, to be well sup- 
plied with money. He seized every occasion 
of extracting extraordinary revenues from the 
church. 

The Lateran council was induced, immedi- 
ately before its dissolution (15th of March, 
1517), to grant the pope a tenth of all church 
property throughout Christendom. Three dif- 
ferent commissions for the sale of indulgences 
traversed Germany and the northern states' at 
the same moment.:|: 

These expedients were, it is true, resorted to 
under various pretexts. The tenths v/ere, it 
was said^ to be expended in a Turkish war, 
which was soon to be declared ; the produce 
of^indulgences was for the building of St. 
Peter's Church, where the bones of the martyrs 
lay exposed to the inclemency of the elements. 
But people had ceased to believe in these pre- 
tences. 

Devoted as the Lateran council was to the 
pope, the proposition was only carried by two 
or three votes : an extremely large minority 
objected to the tenths, that it was impossible 
to think of a Turkish war at present.§ Who 
could be a more zealous catholic than Cardinal 
Ximenes, who then governed Spain? Yet 
even in the year 1513, he had opposed the at- 
tempt to introduce the sale of indulgences into 
that country ; || he made vehement professions 
of devotion to the pope, but he added, as to the 
tenths, it must first be seen how they were to 
be applied.** 

For there was not a doubt on the mind of 
any reasonable man, that all these demands 
were mere financial speculations. There is no 
positive proof that the assertion then so gene- 
rally made — that the proceeds of the sale of 
indulgences in Germany was destined in part 
for the pope's sister Maddelena — was true. 
But the main fact is indisputable, that the 
ecclesiastical aids were applied to the uses of 
the pope's family. We have a receipt now 
lying before us, given by the pope's nephew 



t Paris de Grassis, in Rainaldus, 1517, 95. Comp. Jo- 
vius, Vita Leonis, iv. 67. 

X Leoni, Vita di Francesco Maria d' Urbino, p. 205. 

§ Paris de Grassis, in Sainaldus, 1517, un. 16, 

11 Gomez, Vita Ximenis, in Schott, Ilispania illustrata, 
i. p. 1065. 

** Argensola, Anales de Aragon, p. 354. 



Chap. I. 



SALE OF INDULGENCES. 



107 



' Lorenzo to the king of France, for 100,000 
livres which that monarch paid him for his 
services. Herein it is expressly said that the 
" king was to receive this sum from the tenths 
which the council had granted to the pope for 
the Turkish war.* This was, therefore, pre- 
cisely the same thing as if the pope had given 
the money to his nephew ; or, perhaps even 
worse, for he gave it him before it was 
raised. 

The only means of resistance to these impo- 
~ sitions were therefore to be sought in the pow- 
eh of the state, which were just now gradually 
acquiring stability, as we see by the example 
of Ximenes in Spain ; or in England, where 
the decision of the Lateran council could not 
have reached the government, at the time when 
it forced the papal collectors to take an oath 
that they would send neither money nor bills 
of exchange' to Rome.j But who was there 
capable of protecting the interests of Germany 1 
The Council of Regency no longer existed ; 
the emperor was compelled by his uncertain 
political relations (especially to France) to keep 
up a good understanding with the pope. One 
of the most considerable princes of the empire, 
the Archchancellor of Germany, Elector Albert 
of Mainz, born Markgrave of Brandenburg, 
had the same interests as the pope, — a part of 
the proceeds were to go into his own exche- 
quer. 

Of the three commissions into which Ger- 
many was divided, the one which was admin- 
istered by Arimbold, a member of the Roman 
prelature, embraced the greater part of the dio- 
ceses of Upper and Lower Germany ; another, 
which included only Switzerland and Austria, 
fell to the charge of Cristofero Numai of Forli,:|: 
general of the Franciscans ; and the Elector of 
Mainz himself had undertaken the third in 
his own vast arehiepiscopal provinces, Mainz 
and Magdeburg ; and for the following rea- 
sons. 

We remember what heavy charges had been 
brought upon the archbishopric of Mainz by 
the frequent recurrence of vacancies. In the 
year 1514 the chapter elected Markgrave Albert 
for no other reason than that he promised not 
to press heavily on the diocese for the expenses 
of the Pallium. But neither was he able to 
defray them from his own resources. The ex^ 
pedient devised was, that he should borrow 
30,000 gulden of the house of Fugger of Augs- 
burg, and detain one half of the money raised 
by indulgences to repay it.§ This financial 



* Molini, Documenti storici, t. i. p. 71. 

t Oath of Silvester Darius, the papal collector (in cnriu 
cancellaria in aulapalatii Westmoiiasteriensis) April 22, 
1517, in Rymer"s Fcedera, vi. i. p. 133. 

J His deputy plenipotentiary was Samson, of whom it 
was said in a pamphlet of 1521: er habe den Bauern 
" Bassporten geben in den Hymel durch ein Tolhnetschen, 
von welchem Kaufmannschätz hatt er gut silberin Plat- 
ten gefiretgen Mailand." — He had given the peasants 
"passports into Heaven through an interpreter, by means 
of which stock in trade he had taken good silver coin 
back to Milan." 

§ Notices from a manuscript essay^ from which Rath- 
mann Gesch. von Masdeburg, iii. p. 302, has made ex- 
tracts. In Erhard's Überlieferungen zur vaterländ. Gesch. 
part iii. p. 12, is to be found a calculation addressed to 
Leo X., and a motuproprio by him referring to this point. 
The money advanced by the Fuggers to the archiepisco- 



operation was perfectly open and undisguised. 
Agents of the house of Fugger travelled about 
with the preachers of indulgences. Albert had 
authorized them to take half of all the money 
received on the spot, " in payment of the sum 
due to them." |[ 'I'he tax for the plenary indul- 
gence reminds us of the measures taken for the 
collection of the Common Penny. V\e possess 
diaries in virhich the disbursements for spiritual 
benefits are entered and calculated together 
with secular purchases.** 

And it is important to examine what were 
the advantages w-hich were thus (btained. 

The plenary indulgence for all, the alleged 
object of which was to contribute to the com- 
pletion of the Vatican Basilica, restored the 
possessor to the grace of God, and completely 
exempted him from the punishment of purga- 
tory. But there were three other favours to be 
obtained by further contributions : the right of 
choosing a father confessor who could grant 
absolution in reserved cases, and commute 
vows which had been taken into other good 
works ; participation in all prayers, fasts, pil- 
grimages, and whatever good works were per- 
formed in the church militant; lastly, the re- 
lease of the souls of the departed out of purga- 
tory. In order to obtain plenary indulgence, 
it was necessary not only to confess, but to 
feel contrition ; the three others could be ob- 
tained without contrition or confession, by 
money alone. ft It is in this point of view- 
that Columbus extols the worth of money : 
"he who possesses it," says he seriously, 
" has the power of transporting souls into Par- 
adise." 

Never indeed were the union of secular ob- 
jects with spiritual onmipotence more strikingly- 
displayed than in the epoch we are now con- 
sidering. There is a fantastic sublimity and 
grandeur in this conception of the church, as a 
community comprehending heaven and earth, 
the living and the dead ; in which all the pen- 
alties incurred by individuals were removed 
by the merit and the grace of the collec^tive 
bod3^ What a conception of the power and 
dignity of a human being is implied in the 
belief that the pope could employ this accumu- 
lated treasure of merits in behalf of one or 
another at his pleasure l^t The doctrine that 
the powder of the pope extended to that inter- 
mediate state betw^een heaven and earth, called 
purgatory, was the growth of modern times. 

pal oratores in Rome towards the payment for the pal- 
lium amounted to 2L0G0 ducats (100 ducats are equal to 
140 gold gulden): the Fuggers received 500 Rhenish gul- 
den over, as commission. ~ 

II Gudenus, Diplom. Moguntiac, iv. 587. 

** e. g. Johannis Tichtelii Diarium, in Ranch, ji. 558. 
"Uxor imposuit pro se duas libras denariorum, pro pa- 
rentibus dimidiam 1 d., pro domino BartholomtBO dimi- 
diani 1 d." 

tt Instructio summaria ad subcommissarios, in Gerdes, 
Historia Evangelii, i. App. n. ix. p. 83. For the most 
part agreeing word for word with the Avvisanienti of 
Arcimbold in liapp's Nachlese. 

XX Summa diyi Thomas Suppl. Q,u. 25 art. I concl. 
"Prcedicta merita sunt communia totius ecclesife : ea 
autem qus sunt alicujus multitudinis communia, distri- 
buuntur singulis de multitudine secundum arbitrium ejus 
qui multitudini praeest." Further: art. 2, "Nee divinae 
justitiiE derogatur, quia nihil de poena dimittitur, sed 
unius poena alteri computatur " 



108 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



Book IL 



The pope appears in the character of the great 
dispenser of all punishment and all mercy. 
And this most poetical, sublime idea he now 
dragged in the dust for a miserable sum of 
money, which he applied to the political or 
domestic wants of the moment. Mountebank 
itinerant commissioners, who were very fond 
of reckoning how much they had already 
raised for the papal court, while they retained 
a considerable portion of it for themselves, and 
lived a life of ease and luxury, outstripped 
their powers with blasphemous eloquence. 
They thought themselves armed against every 
attack, so long as they could menace their 
opponents with the tremendous punishments 
of the church. 

But a m.an was now found who dared to con- 
front them. 

While Luther's whole soul was more and 
more profoundly embaed with the doctrine of 
salvation by faith, which he zealously diffused 
not only in the cloister and the university, but 
in his character of parish priest of Wittenberg, 
there appeared in his neighbourhood an an- 
nouncement of a totally opposite character, 
grounded on the merest external compromise 
with conscience, and resting on those ecclesi- 
astical theories which he, with his colleagues, 
disciples and friends, so strenuously combated. 
In the neighbouring town of Jüterbock, the 
multitude flocked together around the Domini- 
can friar, John Tetzel, a man distinguished 
above all the other pope's commissioners for 
shamelessness of tongue. IMemorials of the 
traffic in which he was engaged are preserved 
(as was fitting) in the ancient church of the 
town. Among the buyers of indulgences 
were also some people from Wittenberg ; Lu- 
ther saw himself directly attacked in his cure 
of souls. 

It was impossible that contradictions so 
absolute should approach so near w^ithout 
coming into open conflict. 

On the vigil of All Saints, on which the 
parochial church was accustomed to distribute 
the' treasure of indulgences attached to its 
relics, — on the 31st October, 1517, — Luther 
nailed on its gates ninety-five propositions ; — 
"a disputation for the purpose of explaining 
the power of indulgences." 

We must recollect that the doctrine of the 
treasure of the church, on which that of in- 
dulgences rested, was from the very first re- 
garded as at complete variance with the sacra- 
ment of the power of the keys. The dispen- 
sation of indulgences rested on the overflowing 
merits of the church : all that was required on 
the one side was sufficient authority : on the 
other, a mark or token of connexion with the 
church, — any act done for her honour or advan- 
tage. The sacrament of the keys, on the con- 
trary, was exclusively derived from the merits 
of Christ ; for that, sacerdotal ordination was 
necessary on the one side, and, on the other, 
contrition and penance. In the former case 
the measure of grace was at the pleasure of 
the dispenser ; in the latter, it must be deter- 
mined by the relation between the sin and 
the penitence. In this controversy, Thomas, 



Aquinas Rad declared himself for the doctrine 
of the treasure of the church and the validity 
of the indulgences which she dispensed : he 
expressly teaches that no priest is necessary, 
a mere legate can dispense them ; even in 
return for temporal services, so, far as these 
were subservient to a spiritual purpose. In 
this opinion he was followed by his school.* 

The same controversy was revived, after the 
lapse of ages, by Luther ; but he espoused the 
contrary side. Not that he altogether denied 
the treasures of the church ; but he declared 
that this doctrine was not sufficiently clear, 
and, above all, he contested the right of the 
pope to dispense them. For he ascribed only 
an inward efficacy to this mysterious com- 
munity of the church. He maintained that all 
her members had a share in her good works, 
even without a pope's brief; that his power 
extended over purgatory only in so far as the 
intercessions of the church were in his hand ; 
but the question must first" be determined 
whether God would hear these intercessions : 
he held that the granting indulgences of any 
kind whatsoever without repentance, was di- 
rectly contrary to the Christian doctrine. He 
denied, article by article, the authority given 
to the dealers in indulgences in their instruc- 
tions. On the other hand, he traced the doc- 
trine of absolution to that of the authority of 
the keys.f In this authority, which Christ 
delegated to St. Peter, lay the power of the 
pope to remit sin. It also extended to all 
penances and cases of conscience ; but of 
course to no punishments but those imposed 
for the purpose of satisfaction ; and eveij then, 
their whole efficacy depended on whether the 
sinner felt contrition, which he himself was 
not able to determine, much less another for 
him. If he had true contrition, complete for- 
giveness was granted him ; if he had it not, 
no brief of indulgence could avail him : for 
the pope's absolution had no value in and for 
itself, but only in so far as it was a mark of 
Divine favour. 

It is evident that this attack did not originate 
in a scheme of faith new to the church, but in 
the very centre of the scholastic notions ; ac- 
cording to which the fundamental idea of the 
papacy — viz. that the priesthood, and more 
especially the successors of St. Peter, were 
representatives and vicegerents of Christ, — 
was still firmly adhered to, though the doctrine 
of the union of all the povv'ers of the church in 
the person of the pope was just as decidedly 
controverted. It is impossible to read theäe 
propositions without seeing by what a daring, 
magnanimous, and constant spirit Luther was 
actuated. The thoughts fly out from his mind 
like sparks from the iron under the stroke of 
the hammer. 



* Scti Tliomse SumrriEE, Suppleraentum tertiiE partis 
CluEestio XXV. art. ii., expounds this doctrine very clearly. 
Its main ground, however, always remains the same, 
that the clmrch says thus : for, " si in prsedicatione «ccle- 
siffi aliqua falsitas deprehenderetur, non esseiit docu- 
ments ecclesicE alicujus autoritatis ad roborandam fidem." 

t Just as tlie adversaries, whom Thomas Aquinas re 
futes, maintained : " indulgentiee non habent effectuni 
nisi ex vi claviura." 



Chap. I. 



DISPUTE COXCERXIXG IXDULGEXCES. 



109 



Let us not for<ret to remark, however, that 
as the abuse complained of had a double cha- 
racter, religious and political, or financial, so 
also political events came in aid of the oppo- 
sition emanating from religious ideas. 

Frederick of Saxony had been present when 
the Conncil of Regency prescribed to Cardinal 
Raimund v.ery strict conditions for the indul- 
gence then proclaimed (a. d. 1501) : he had 
kept the money accruing from it in his own 
dominions in his possession, with the determi- 
nation not to part with it, till an expedition 
against the infidels, which was then contem- 
plated, should be actually undertaken ; the 
pope and, on the pope's concession, the em- 
peror had demanded it of him in vain :* he 
held it for what it really was — a tax levied on 
his subjects; and after all the projects of a 
■ war against the Turks had come to nothing, he 
had at length applied the money to his uni- 
versity. Nor was he now inclined to consent 
to a similar schem-e of taxation. His neigh- 
bour, Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, readily 
submitted to it : he com.manded his States to 
throw no obstacles in the way of Tetzel or his 
sub-commissioners ;f but his compliance was 
clearly only the result of the consideration that 
one half of the amount would go to his brother. 
For this ver}'" reason, hovvever, Elector Fre- 
derick made the stronger resistance : he was 
already irritated against the Elector of INIainz 
in consequence of the affairs of Erfurt, and he 
declared that Albert should not pay for his pal- 
lium out of the pockets of the Saxons. The 
sale of indulgences at Jiiterbock and the resort 
of his subjects thither, was not less offensive 
to him on financial grounds than to Luther on 
spiritual. 

Not that the latter were in any degree ex- 
cited by the former; this it would be impossi- 
ble to maintain after a careful examxinatiön of 
the facts ; on the contrary, the spiritual mo- 
tives were more original, powerful, and inde- 
pendent than the temporal, though these were 
important, as having their proper source in the 
general condition of Germany. The point 
•whence the great events arose which were 
soon to agitate the world, was the coincidence 
of the two. 

There was, as we have already observed, no 
one who represented the interests of Germany 
in the matter. There were innumerable per- 
sons who saw through the abuse of religion, 



* At the Diet of Ausfstiurg, 1510, the Saxon deputies 
declared to the papal nuncio, as appeared in one of their 
letters to Frederic the Wise : -'es habe Tp. Heiligkeit 
leiden mögen, das E. Gn. das Geld so in iren Landen ge- 
fallen zu sich genommen, mit einer Verpflichtung wann 
es zum Streit wider die Ungläubigen komme es wyderum 
darzulegen : aus der Ursach hab E. Gn, wyewol mehrmal 
darum angesucht von Keys Mt. wejen, "die auch gerne 
E. Gn. gemelte Summe um ihre Schuld gelien hätt, dy 
Summa noch wy sy gefallen ist."' " His Papal Holiness 
has been obliged to ~a!!o\v that your Grace should take 
into your keeping the money collected in your States, 
under an obligation to produce it again whenever a war 
with the infidels should come about ; from this cause, your 
Grace, although many times applied to for it, on behalf 
of his Imperial Majesty, who would gladly have given 
the before-mentioned sum to your Grace in payment of 
debts, still has the entire sum,' as it was collected." 

t Mandate of Joachim in Walch, Werke Luthers, sv. 
415, 

K 



but no one who dared to call it by its right 
name and openly to denounce and resist it. 
But the alliance between the monk of Witten- 
berg and the sovereign of Saxony was formed ; 
no treaty was negotiated ; they had never seen 
each other ; yet they were bound together by 
an instinctive mutual understanding. The in- 
trepid monk attacked the enemy ; the prince 
did not promise him his aid — he did net 
even encourage him ; he let things take their 
course. 

Yet he must have felt very distinctly what 
was the tendency and the importance of these 
events, if we are to believe the story of the 
dream which he dreamt at his castle- of 
Schweinitz, where he was then staying, on the 
night of All Saints, just after the theses were 
stuck up on the church door at "\Vittenberg. 
He thought he saw the monk writing certain 
propositions on the chapel of the castle at Wit- 
tenberg, in so large a hand that it could be read 
in Schweinitz; the pen grew longer and longer, 
till at last it reached to Rome, touched the 
pope's triple crown, and made it totter ; he was 
stretching out his arm to catch it, when he 
woke.t 

Luther's daring assault was the shock which 
awakened Germany from her slumber. That a 
man should arise who had the courage to un- 
dertake the perilous struggle, was a source of 
universal satisfaction, and as it were tranquil- 
lised the public conscience. § The most pov.- 
erful interests were involved in it; — that of 
sincere and profound piety, against the most 
purely external means of obtaining pardon of 
sins ; that of literature, against fanatical per- 
secutors, of whom Tetzel was one ; the reno- 
vated theology against the dogmatic learning 
of the schools, which lent itself to all these 
abuses ; the temporal povrer against the spir- 
itual, whose usurpations it sought to curb ; 
lastly, the nation against the rapacity of 
Rome. 

But since each of these interests hacl its an- 
tagonist, the resistance could not be much less 
vehement than the support. A numerous body 
of natural adversaries arose. 

The university of Frankfurt on the Oder, like 
that of Wittenberg, was an off-shoot of Leip- 
zig, only founded at a later date, and belonging 
to the opposite party. Determined opponents 
to all innovation had found appointments there. 
Conrad Koch, surnamed Wimpina, an old 
enemy of Pollich, who had often had a literary 
skirmish with him, had acquired a similar in- 
fluence^ there to that possessed by Pollich at 
Wittenberg. Johann Tetzel now^ addressed 
himself to Wimpina, and with his assistance 
(for he was ambitious of being a doctor as well 
as his Augustine adversary) published two 
theses, on one of which he intended to hold a 
disputation for the degree of licentiate, on the 

i A divine and scriptural dream from Caspar Rothen, 
Gloria Lutheri, in Tentzefs Histor. Bericht, p. 239. 

§ Erasmus to Duke George of Saxony, Dec. 12, 1524. 
" Cum Lutherus aggrederetur hanc fabulum, totus muu- 
dus illi magno consensu applausit, — susceperat enim op- 
tinam causam adversus corruptissimos scholarum et ec- 
clesiiB mores, qui eo progressi fuerant ut res jam nuUi 
bono viro tolerabilis videretur." 



110 



EARLY CAREER OF LUTHER. 



Book IL 



other, for that of doctor: both were directed 
against Luther. In the first he attempted to 
defend the doctrine of indulgences by means 
of a new distinction between expiatory and 
saving punishment. The pope, he said, could 
remit the former, though not the latter.* In 
the second thesis he extols most highly the 
power of the pope, who had the exclusive right 
of settling the interpretation of Scripture, and 
deciding on articles of faith ; he denounces 
Luther, not indeed by name, but with sufficient 
distinctness, as a heretic, nay a stiff-necked 
heretic. This now resounded from pulpit and 
chair. Hogstraten thundered out invectives, 
and clearl}?^ intimated that such a heretic was 
worthy of death ; while a manuscript confuta- 
tion by an apparent friend, Johann Eck of In- 
golstadt, was circulated, containing insinua- 
tions concerning the Bohemian poison. j- Lu- 
ther left none of these attacks unanswered : and 
in every one of his polemical writings he 
gained ground. Other questions soon found 
their way into the controversy ; e. g. that con- 
cerning the legend of St. Anne, the authenti- 
city of which was disputed by a friend of 
Luther's at Zwickau, but obstinately maintain- 
ed by the Leipzig theologians.j;: The Witten- 
berg views concerning the Aristotelian philos- 
ophy and the merit of works spread abroad : 
Luther himself defended them at a meeting of 
his order at Lleidelberg; and if lie experienced 
opposition from the elder doctors, a number of 
the younger members of the university became 
his adherents. The whole theological world 
of Germany was thrown into the most violent 
acritation. 

But already a voice from Rome was heard 
through the loud disputes of excited Germany. 
Silvester Mazolini of Prierio, master of the 
sacred palace, a Dominican, who had given out 
a very equivocal and cautious opinion concern- 
ing the necessity of repentance and the sinful- 
Ficss of lying, but had defended the system of 
teaching practised by his order with inflexible 
zeal ; — who, in Reuchlin's controversy, had 
been the only member of the commission that 
had prevented it from coming to a decision fa- 
vourable to that eminent scholar, now deemed 
himself called upon to take up arms against 
this new and far more formidable assailant. 
He rose, as he said, from the commentary 
in " Prim.am Secundae " of St. Thomas, in the 
composition of which he was absorbed, and 
devoted a few days to throw himself like a 
buckler between the Augustine monk and the 
Roman See, against which he had dared to rear 
his head § ; he thought Luther sufficiently con- 
futed by the mere citation of the opinions of 
his master, St. Thomas. An attack emanating 

* Disputatio prima, J. Tetzelii Thesis, 14. To this re- 
fers the jiapsaje in Luther's second sermon on Indulg- 
ences, in which he calls such a distinction mere talk. 

t Obelisci Ockii, nr. 18 et 22. 
- t Job. Sylvii Apologia contra Calumniatores suos, in 
qua Annam niipsisse Cleophce et Salomse evangelicis tes- 
timonjis refellitur. Reprinted in Rittershusii Commen- 
tarius de Gradibus Cognationum, 1674. 

§ Dialogus revdi patris fratris Sylvestri Prieriatis — in 
prsBsumptuosas Martini Luthericonclusiones, in Löscher, 
ii. 12. 



from Rome made some impression even upon 
Luther : feeble and easy to confute as Silves- 
ter's writing appeared to him, he now paused ; 
he did not wish to have the Curia his open and 
direct foe. On the 30th May he sent an expla- 
nation of his propositions to the pope himself, 
and seized this occasion of endeavouring to 
render his opinions and conduct generally in- 
telligible to the Holy Father. He did not as 
yet go so far as to appeal purely and exclusive- 
ly to the Scriptures; on the contrary, he de- 
clared that he submitted to the authority of the 
fathers who were recognized by the church, and 
even to that of the papal decrees. But he could 
not consider himself bound to accept the opin- 
ions of Thomas Aquinas as articles of faith, 
since his works were not yet sanctioned by the 
church. "I may err," he exclaims, " but a 
heretic I will not be, let my enemies rage and 
rail as they will." 

Affairs, however, already began to wear the 
most threatening aspect at Rome. 

The papal fiscal, Mario Perusco,|| the same 
who had rendered himself celebrated by the 
investigation of the conspiracy of cardinals, 
commenced criminal proceedings against Lu- 
ther; in the tribunal which was appointed, the 
same Silvester who had thrown down the 
gauntlet to the accused on the literary ground 
was the only theologian. There was not much 
mercy to be expected. 

There is no question that German infl-uences 
were also at work here. Elector Albert, who 
instantly felt that the attack from Wittenberg 
was directed in part against himself, had re- 
ferred Tetzel to Wimpina ; the consequence 
of this was, that Frederic was attacked in Tet- 
zel's Theses (indirectly indeed, but with the 
utmost bitterness), as a prince who had the 
power to check the heretical wickedness, and 
did not — who shielded heretics from their right- 
ful judge.** Tetzel at least affirms, that the 
Elector had had an influence in the trial. Per- 
sonal differences, and the jealousies of neigh- 
bouring states, had influenced, from the very 
beginning, the course of these events. ff 

Such was the state of the spiritual power in 
Germany. As yet, a secession or revolt from 
the pope v;as not thought of; as yet, his power 
was universally acknowledged, but indignation 
and resistance rose up against him from all 
the depths of the national feeling and the na- 
tional will. Already had his sworn defenders 
sustained a defeat ; — already some of the found- 
ations of the edifice of dogma, on which his 
power rested, tottered ; the intense desire of 
the nation to consolidate itself into a certain 
unity, took a direction hostile to the authority 
of the Court of Rome. An opposition had 
arisen which still appeared insignificant, but 
which found vigorous support in the temper 
of the nation and in the favour of a powerful 
prince of the empire. 



II Guicciardini (xiii. p. 384) and Jovius mention him. 
' ** Disputatio secunda, J. Tetzelii Thesis, 47, 48. 

tt Tetzel to Miltitz in Löscher, ii. 568: "so doch hoch- 
benannter Erzbischof inen bestellt hat zu citiren und 
nicht ich."—" Thus then the above-named archbishop has 
summoned him (Luther) and not L" 



Chap. II. 



DIET OF AUGSBURG, 1518. 



Ill 



CHAPTER II. 

DESCENT OF THE IMPERIAL CROWN FROM MAXI- 
MILIAN TO CHARLES V. 

DIET OF AUGSBURG, 1518. 

Had there been at this moment a powerful 
emperor, he might have turned these agitations 
to vast account. Supported by the nation, he 
would have been able to revive the ancient op- 
position to the papacy, and to inspire his peo- 
ple with a new life founded upon religious 
ideas. 

Maximilian was by nature far from being 
inaccessible to such a project. Indeed, the ex- 
pression he once let fall to Elector Frederic, 
thathe wished " to take good care of the monk," 
for that it might be possible some time or other 
to make use of him, betrays what was passing 
in his mind ; but for the moment he was not 
in a condition to follow it out. 

In the first place, he was old, and wished to 
secure to his grandson Charles the succession 
to the empire. He regarded this as the closing 
business of his life. He had laboured all his 
days, as he said, to aggrandize his house : all 
his trouble v/ould, however, be lost, if he did 
not attain this his final aim.* But, for this, 
he especially required the support of the spiri- 
tual power; for the minds of men were not 
yet so far emancipated from the ideas of the 
middle ages, as that they could be brought to 
recognize in him the full dignity of emperor, 
without the ceremony of coronation. While 
meditating the project of raising his grandson 
to the rank of king of the Romans, the first 
difficulty that occurred to Maximilian was, that 
he himself had not been crowned. He con- 
ceived the idea of causing himself to be crown- 
ed, if not in Rome, at least with the genuine 
crown of a Roman emperor, which he hoped 
to induce the papal court to send across the 
Alps, and opened negotiations with that view. 
It is evident how necessary it became for 
him, not only 'not to irritate, but to conciliate 
the pope. 

On another point also, advances were made 
towards a good understanding between the em- 
peror and the pope. We have mentioned the 
grant of a tenth for a Turkish war, Vvh.ich the 
Lateran council was induced to coi>sent to, just 
before its close. It is a very significant fact, 
that while this excited amazement and resist- 
ance throughout Europe, Maximilian acqui- 
esced in it. He, too, wished nothing more 
earnestly than once more to levy a large tax 
on the whole empire; we know, however, 
what a mighty opposition he encountered, and 
that even the grants which he wrung from the 
States had been fruitless : he now hoped to 
obtain his end in conjunction with the pope. 
He therefore assented without a question to the 
plan of the Court of Rome. It seems as if 
not only his self-interest was moved, but his 
imagination captivated. He exhorts the pope, 



* Letter of the 24th of May, 1518. 



in letters of the greatest ardour and vivacity, 
to undertake the campaign in person, surround- 
ed by his cardinals, under the banner of the 
cross ; then, he says, every one would hasten 
to his aid : he, at least, had from his youth had 
no higher ambition than to do battle against 
the Turks. f The victories of Selim I. over 
the Mamelukes revived his sense of the gene- 
ral danger. He convoked the States of the 
empire, in order at length to conclude on 
means of raising efficacious succour against 
the Turks, to whom already all Asia, as far 
as the domains of Prester John, belonged; by 
whom Africa was occupied, and whom it would 
soon become utterly impossible to resist.:[: He 
hoped that the moment was come for realising 
his long-cherished project of establishing a 
permanent military constitution. Thus, after 
long interruption, the ancient union of the 
spiritual and temporal powers was once more 
beheld at the diet. Instead of opposing the 
pope, the emperor united with him; while the 
pope sent a le^-ate to assist the emperor in his 
negotiations with the States. , 

His choice fell on the Dominican, Thomas 
de Yio, the same who had so zealously defend- 
ed the papal prerogatives ; this had opened to 
him the way to higher dignities, which had 
terminated in that of cardinal. The brilliant 
appointment of legate, now superadded, placed 
him at the summit of his ambition. lie deter- 
mined to appear with the greatest magnificence, 
and almost acted in earnest upon the pretension 
of the Curia, that a legate was greater than a 
king.§ At his nomination he made special 
conditions as to the state and splendour of his 
equipments; for example, that a white palfrey 
with bridle of crimson velvet, and hangings 
for his room of crimson satin, were to be pro- 
vided for him : even his old master of the cere- 
monies could not refrain from laughing at the 
multiplicity of demands which he had to make. 
Vvhen at Augsburg he delighted beyond all 
things in magnificent ceremonies ; such as the 
high mass which he celebrated before all the 
princes, spiritual and temporal, in the .cathedral, 
on the 1st of xiugust; when he placed the car- 
dinal's hat on the head of the Archbishop of 
Mainz, kneeling at the altar, and delivered to 
the emperor himself the consecrated hat and 
sword — the marks of papal grace and favour. 
He indulged also in the most extravagant ideas. 
W"hile exhorting the emperor to m.arch forth 
against the hereditary enemy who thirsted for 
the blood of Christendom, he reminded him 
that this was not only the day on which Au- 
gustus had become master of the world at the 
battle of Actium, but also that it was sacred to 
St. Peter : the emperor might accept it as an 
augury of the conquest of Constantinople and 
Jerusalem, and the extension of the emipire and 



t Letter of Maximilian, Feb. 28, in Rainaldus, 1617, 
2-5. 

t Address of the 9th Febniaiy in the Frankf. A., vol. 
xxxiii. B}' a letter from Fürsten berg (July 3, 1518) it ap- 
pears that the States had met by the beginning of July. 

§ " Legati debent esse supra reges quoscunque." — Faris 
de Grassis in Hofmanni Scriptores novi, p. 408. 



112 



DIET OF AUGSBUKG, 1518. 



ir. 



the church to the farthest ends of the earth. =* 
Such was the style of a discourse, framed ac- 
cording to all the rules of rhetoric, which he 
delivered to the assembly of the States. 

It may easily be imagined, that it cost him 
no labour to persuade the emperor; after a 
short deliberation they now made the joint 
proposal, that in order to bring an army against 
the Turks into the field, every fifty house- 
holders should furnish one man, and theciergy 
should pay a tenth, the laity a twentieth, of 
their income for its maintenance. 

It w^as extremely difficult, however, to carry 
this measure through the States. Whatever 
were the real designs of the emperor, people 
refused, whether in Germany or abroad, to be- 
lieve that he was in earnest. Publications 
appeared, in which the intention of the See of 
Rome to make war on the infidels was flatly 
denied; these were all Florentine arts, it was 
affirmed, to cajole the Germans out of their 
money ; the proceeds of indulgences were not 
even applied to the building which was repre- 
sented as so urgently wanted ; the materials 
destined for the building of St. Peter's wan- 
dered by night to the palace of Lorenzo de 
Medici ; — the Turks whom they ought to make 
war upon were to be found in Italy. | As to 
the emperor, it was suggested that bis object 
was to impose a tax on the empire under 4hese 
pretexts. 

The ansvv-er which the States returned on 
the 27th of August, therefore, was a decided 
negative. They observed, that it would be 
impossible to raise so considerable a tax, in the 
state to which the country had been reduced 
during the last years by war, scarcity, and in- 
testine disorder. But that, independently of 
this, the common people complained of all the 
money that was sent out of Germany to no 
purpose ; the nation had already frequently 
contributed funds for a Turkish war by means 
of indulgences and cruciata, but it had never 
yet heard that any expedition against the 
Turks had been attempted. The refusal thus 
assumed the character of an accusation. The 
States seized the opportunity afforded by the 
demand on the part of the See of Rome to 
retort upon it a multitude of grievances : e. g. 
the annates which were now exacted from 
abbeys, prebends, and parishes ; the constantly 
increasing costs of the confirmation in spiritual 
offices caused by the creation of new officia; 
the apparently eternal burthens imposed by the 
rules of the Roman chancery ; all the various 
encroachments on the right of patronage; the 
appointment of foreigners to spiritual posts in 
Upper and Lower Germany ; and, generally, 
an incessant violation of the concordat vväth 
the German nation. 4: A memorial presented 



* Jncohi Manlii Historiolfi duoruin Actuum; Frehev, 
ii. p. 700. 

t Oratio Dissuasoria ; Frehor, ii. 701. Tlie " conclusion 
of this discourse makes against the opinion that it is by 
Hütten. But how is the fact to be explained, that the 
dialogue, unquestionably Hutten's, ' Pasquillus Exul," has 
so extraordinary a resemblance in many passages to this 
discourse, that it cannot possibly be accidental ? It might, 
however, very well have had an influence upon the con- 
sultations, as it reached Wittenberg on the 2d of Septem- 
ber." — Luther's Letters, i. nr. 79. 



by the Bishop of Liege to the head and princes 
of the empire, served to give additional force 
to these complaints. It contained a complete 
catalogue of acts of injustice which the Ger- 
man church had to suffer from the courtiers of 
Rome ; those mighty huntsmen, sons of Nim- 
rod, as it said, sallied forth daily in chase of 
benefices ; day and night they meditated on 
nothing but how to thwart the canonical elec- 
tions ; the German gold, formerly too heavy 
for an Atlas, had fled across the Alps.§ Such 
a writing, "so full of boldness," said the 
Frankfurt envoy, had never been seen. 

How greatly had the emperor deceived him- 
self in imagining that he should more readily 
attain his end by the aid of the spiritual 
power ! 

Charges against the pope w^ere now also 
advanced at the discussions on the grievances 
which had been brought forward a year be- 
fore at l\iainz ; e. g. his encroachment on the 
right of collation; the conduct of the clergy 
generally ; above all, the use of excommuni- 
cation, to which the people had no mind to 
concede a validity equal to that of the sentence 
of the civil tribunals. But in urging these 
complaints, they did not lose sight of those 
against the emperor. They again demanded 
a better composition of the courts of justice, 
and a more perfect execution of the judgments 
of the Imperial Chamber; a commission was 
appointed in order to deliberate on the code of 
criminal procedure. 

Nor was this all; the opposition to the 
imperial authority took a perfectly new di- 
rection in the important discussions on the 
Turkish war. 

The States did, indeed, after m.uch debate, 
at length seem to come to some agreement as 
to the nature and mode of a new tax; it was 
actually decreed in the Recess, that for three 
years every one who communicated at the 
Lord's Supper should pay at least a tenth of a 
gulden, and that the sum resulting from this 
collection should be kept by the government 
till the commencement of a Turkish war ; but 
even a grant of so strange and equivocal a 
kind was rendered nearly illusory b}'- a condi- 
tion attached to it. The princes declared that 
they must first consult with their subjects upon 
it. The emperor's answer shows how aston- 
ished he was at this innovation. He said, that 
was not the usage in the Holy Empire; the 
princes were not bound by the consent of their 
subjects ; it was the duty of the latter to exe- 
cute the decisions of their lords and rulers. |1 

X Answer of the States, Friday after the Feast of St. 
Bartliolomev/. Frankft. A. 

§ Erardus de Marca Sacram» Cffis® ?^ajestati. Kapps 
Nachlese, ii. nr. 1. 

II Declaration of the emperor on the 9th of Sept. " Item, 
dass in dem allen Churfürsten Fürsten und Stände kein 
Ausred noch Entschuldigung füniemen, noch solch Zu- 
sage thun mit cynicher Weigerung oder Condicion auf 
ihre ünterthanen, denn sollichs in bisher bewilligten 
Hülfen nie bedacht worden und daruf gestellt ist, sondera 
Churff. FF. und Stend haben allezeit "frei gehandelt und 
bewilligt, nachdem sy Kais^ Mt. und des Reichs Churf. 
belehnt seyen, auch die Ünterthanen schuldig seyn den 
Willen der Fürsten und Obern und nit die Fürsten und 
Obern der Ünterthanen Willen zu verfolgen und Gehor- 
sam zu beweisen." "Also, that in all these things the 
electors, princes, and States, take upon themselves no 



Chap. IL 



DIET OF AUGSBUEG, 1518. 



113 



The princes replied, that they had often made 
promises without consulting their subjects, and 
the consequence had been, that it had gene- 
rally been found impossible to execute them : 
continuance in such a course could end in no- 
thing but disgrace and contempt. The Recess, 
accordingly, contained nothing more than that 
the princes promised to treat with their sub- 
jects, and to report the result at the next 
diet. 

It is evident that the disposition which this 
betrays must have rendered it impossible to 
come to any agreement on the other affairs of 
the empire. 

A great deal was done about the Imperial 
Chamber, but without any results.* The Elec- 
tors protested in a body that in virtue of their 
franchises they were not subject to the Impe- 
rial Chamber: they could not agree on the 
suggestions for a reform; the old objections to 
the matricula for the contributions were urged 
again ; its operation was no longer felt, and in 
a short time it was entirely at a stand. f 

Disorder once more prevailed on all sides. 
The same torrent of complaints poured in upon 
the diet at Augsburg, as the year before at 
Mainz. 

The Count von Helfenstein invoked assist- 
ance against Wiiitemberg, Ludwig von Boyne- 
burg against Hessen, the Archbishop of Bre- 
men against the Worsats : all in vain. The 
disputes between the city of Worms and their 
bishop, between the Elector Palatine and a 
company of merchants who were robbed when 
under his escort, were brought to no conclu- 
sion. The behaviour of the Elector Palatine 
in this affair, and the support which he ap- 
peared to find, raised the indignation of the 
city to the highest pitch. if: There was hardly 
a part of the country which was not either dis- 
tracted by private warfare, or troubled by in- 



evasion or excuse, nor make such promise with any hesi- 
tation or condition having reference to their subjects, for 
none such had ever been made, nor grounded thereon, on 
occasion of succours granted heretofore ; but electors, 
princes, and estates, have in all times freely acted and 
made grants, as lieges of his Imperial Majesty and elec- 
tors of the empire • also the vassais are bound to follow 
the wills of, and to show obedience to, princes and supe- 
riors, and not princes and superiors to follow the will of, 
and to show obedience to, subjects." — Frankft. j3cten. 

* TJie reason of the bad appointments lies in the bad 
pay. Fürstenberg (Letter of the 8th of Sept.) remarks 
that no better pay could be obtained. " Daraus folgt, 
dass es auch nit mit dem Inkommen, so jetzunder geben 
vyird, mit gelehrt fromm und verständig Leuten besetzt 
mag werden." "Thence follows, that it (the Imperial 
Chamber) cannot, with the income which is now given, 
be provided with learned, pious and sensible men." 

t Fürsteuberg, Sep. 14. " Somma Sommarum aller Han- 
delung die uf diesem Reichstag gehandelt ist, dass von 
Friede und Recht nichts beschlossen wird, dass die Schät- 
zung des Türkenzugs, wie K. Mt. dawider, bei den Un- 
terthanen anbracht (wird). "The sum total of all the 
affairs which have been transacted at this Imperial Diet 
is, that nothing is determined as to the peace and the 
Jaws, and that the taxation for tlie Turkish war, although 
his Imperial Majesty is opposed to it, is laid on the vas- 
sals." 

t Fürsten berg, in transmitting the correspondence, ex- 
presses his dissatisfaction. " Hie ist nit anders ; ein jeder 
sehe sich für. Die Churf. Fürsten und Andre haben nit 
alle ob der Handlung Gefallens : es will aber diess Mal 
aus Ursachen nit anders seyn. Gott erbarms." "Here 
things are not otherwise: let each man look to himself. 
The electors, princes, and others, are not all content with 
the transaction ; but this time there are causes why it 
cannot be otherwise. God have raercv on us," 
15 K* 



ternal divisions, or terrified by the danger of 
an attack from some neighbouring pjwer. 
Those who wished for peace must take their 
own measures to secure it : it was in vain to 
reckon upon the government. 

Such a state of anarchy necessarily led to a 
general conviction that things could not go on 
thus. For a long time the emperor could 
come to no agreement with the Estates on any 
measure M^hatever, whether for tranquillity at 
home, or against the enemy abroad : what he 
had been unable to accomplish single-handed, 
he had tried to effect in conjunction with the 
pope — an attempt which had ended in more 
signal failure than before. The highest au- 
thorities could no longer fulfil the prime duties 
of a government. 

In so far it was of great importance that the 
States of the Empire made the innovation we 
have just mentioned ; viz. to render the grants 
dependent on the will of their subjects. The 
life of the nation showed a tendency to fall off 
from what had hitherto been its centre, and to 
form itself into independent self-sufiicing pow- 
ers in the several territories. This tendency 
was now greatly increased by the interests 
connected with the election of an emperor, 
which were already very active in Augsburg, 
and shortly afterwards began to occupy all 
minds. 

In fact, we cannot advance a step further 
without some preliminary inquiry into the re- 
lations of the German principalities. 

MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE GERMAN PRINCES. 

It was impossible as yet to speak of Ger- 
man states, properly so called. The unity of 
even the larger principalities was not yet suf- 
ficiently cemented : — attempts were here and 
there made at a common government, which, 
however, seldom succeeded, so that people 
constantly returned to the principle of divi- 
sion ; — nor was there any settled system of 
representation. A vast number of independent 
powers and privileges still existed, incompati- 
ble with any form of government whatever. 
But, in the larger territories, there were efforts 
towards the establishment of unity and order; 
in the smaller, local associations took the place 
of the princely power : in all directions the 
force of the local spirit struggled for ascend- 
ancy with the imperial authorities, and with 
the greater success, the more vain v>'ere the 
attempts of the latter at concentration and 
general efficient control. 

It was unquestionably an important circum- 
stance, that the head of the empire was less 
intent on the tranquil exercise of his legal so- 
vereignty, than on acquiring influence by per- 
sonal and irregular interference. It was only 
in moments of enthusiasm and excitement that 
Emperor Maximilian beheld his high station 
in its national point of view ; in ordinary mo- 
ments he regarded it rather as a fraction of his 
personal power. The nature of his adminis- 
tration was exactly calculated to excite agita- 
tions of every kind in the somewhat formless 
world around him. 



114 



MUTUAL RELATIONS OF 



Book IL 



In Upper Germany the emperor had natu- 
rally, after all that had passed, to encounter 
much opposition. The Elector Palatine could 
not yet forget the injuries he had sustained in 
the last war; he was still unappeased, nor had 
he received his investiture. Although the em- 
peror had then espoused the party of Bavaria, 
the people of that country were not the less 
sensible to what the two branches of the sove- 
reign house, 'viewed collectively, had lost. 
The young princes, William and Louis, had 
such a profound sense of this, that they ar- 
ranged the disputes which had broken out be- 
tween them as to their respective shares in the 
government, as quickly as possible, when they 
thought they detected, on the part of the em- 
peror, a design of turning their disagreements 
to advantage in order to promote another inte- 
rest, as in the year 1504.* They remembered 
what Bavaria had been stripped of; and the 
first act of their combined government was to 
pledge themselves niutually to reconquer all 
that had been lost, as soon as the emperor, 
their uncle, was dead.f 

It appeared that Maximilian might reckon 
more securely on Duke Ulrich of Würtenberg, 
whom he had declared of age before the legal 
term, who had accompanied him in his wars, 
had made conquests under his banner, and to 
whom he had given a consort : Ulrich seemed 
bound to him by every tie of gratitude. But 
this prince soon began to display a determ.ined 
spirit of resistance to the emperor's designs, 
inspired by the most arrogant self-conceit. He 
was displeased that he was of so little import- 
ance in the Swabian league. He considered 
it an insufferable abridgement of his pov/er, 
that of the one-and-twenty votes in the council 
of that body, fourteen belonged to the lower 
states, — prelates, counts, knights, and above 
all, cities ; and had the right of deciding on 
peace and war; so that "his will and posses- 
sion were in the hands of strangers. "4: In the 
year 1512, when the league was renewed, he 
obstinately refused to join it. He thus oßended 
the league, began consequently to fear its hos- 
tility, and allied himself with its enemies, es- 
pecially the Elector Palatine and the Bishop 
of Würzburg. He thus got into innumerable 
difficulties and quarrels with the emperor, with 
all his neighbours, and even with his ow^n 
states and councils, which would rather have 
adhered to the emperor and the league. In all 
these affairs his behaviour became more and 
more violent, harsh, and overbearing. The 
peasants revolted against his taxes ; the estates 
.of his dominions compelled him to sign a con- 
tract limiting his authority, which he showed 
an inclination to break : his councillors medi- 
tated setting a regency over him, which filled 



* From a letter of Duke Ludwig ; Freiberg, LanJstände, 
ii. 149. 

t The first document in the Urkundenbuch to Stumpf, 
Baierns Politische Gesch. i. 

X " Beswerung so wir Herzog Ulrich zu Wirtemperg ha- 
ben, des Pundts Schwaben Erstreckung anzunemen." 
" Difficulty which we, Duke Ulrich of Würtenberg, have 
to consent to the extension of the Swabian League." 
Sattler, Herzoge, i. Appendix, nr. 56, p. 129. 



him with rage. At length the consummation 
of all these evils burst upon him in his own 
house; 

Unhappily he had suffered himself to be 
carried away by an inclination for the wife of 
one of his courtiers, Flans von Hütten, his 
comrade in the field and the chase. liutten at 
length seized an occasion to speak to his lord, 
on this subject; the duke threw himself at his 
feet, extended his arms imploringly to him, 
and conjured him to permit him to see and to 
love her; he had tried in vain, he said, to 
conquer his passion — he could not.§ It is re- 
ported, that in a short time they exchanged 
characters ; Hutten became the lover of, the 
duchess Sabina. One day~ Ulrich thought he 
saw the betrothing ring which he had given 
his wife, on Hutten's finger, and fell into the 
most violent transports of jealousy. It is im- 
possible, in the dearth of authentic accounts,^ 
to say how much of the story is true. Ac- 
cording to the legal documents, what peculiarly 
incensed the duke was, that Hutten had not 
kept the secret of his master's passion, and had 
given currency to reports by which he appeared 
at once vicious and ridiculous. It seemed that 
the servant was little alarmed at the anger 
which his lord gave vent to on this occasion ; 
he thought he should have to encounter some 
sharp words, to which he could return others 
as sharp and as proud. But Ulrich was now 
worked up to deeds of vengeance. They were 
riding together, and as they came into the 
Boblinger wood, the duke took the knight 
aside, upbraided him v;ith his falsehood, called 
out to him to defend his life; f^nd, as Hutten 
was not armed, overpowered and killed him.** 
lie then stuck his sword into the ground, and 
tied the lifeless body fast to it with a girdle 
twisted round the neck. He said that as Frei- 
schöffe, as initiated member of the Fehme, he 
had the right and authority to do so. He car- 
ried home the bloody sword, and laid it by his 
wife's bedside. Alarmed for her freedom, and 
even for her life, she fled, first to her uncle the 
emperor, who was taking the diversion of 
hunting in the neighbourhood, and then to her 
brothers in Bavaria, between whom and Ulrich 
there was already much bad blood. Sabina 
accused her husband to the emperor, and de- 
manded that her enemies should be delivered 
up. Ulrich, on the other hand, persecuted 
with vindictive fury her friends and all those 
whom he regarded as adherents of the emperor 
and the league. Attempts at reconciliation 
only served to bring the secret hostilities fully 
to light: a treaty was concluded, but imme- 



§The printed address of the family of von Hutten in 
Sattler, ä. a. O. p. 213. 

II See Heyd, Duke Ulrich, i. p. 394. It is not to be for- 
gotten that a certain respect was observed in the state- 
ment in spite of all its violence. The Huttens vv'ould not 
have brought forward the connection with the wife of the 
murdered man, had not the Duke first mentioned it. 

** Address of Duke Ulrich, a. a. O. p. 305. The rela- 
tions maintained, that Hutten had been positively invited 
to join in the ride; the Duke, that he had been warned 
and yet had obstinately accompanied them. The account 
of the Duke seems to me to have greater moral probabi- 
lity. 



Chap. IL 



THE GERMAN PRINCES. 



115 



diately broken; letters injurious to the honour 
of both parties were interchanged : never, in 
short, did a prince rend asunder all the ties 
that bound him to a party, as whose ally and 
associate he had risen to power, with greater 
violence than Duke Ulrich. At the diet of 
1518 it was reported that he had arrested fol- 
lowers of the emperor, put them to horrible 
tortures, and threatened them with death. On 
the other hand, Maximilian intimated that he 
would appoint a criminal tribunal to try the 
duke, and would execute whatever sentence it 
might pronounce •.■^' he immediately issued a 
special writ to the States, not only authorising, 
but summ.oning them to set at liberty their 
lord's prisoners. f This furnished an additional 
motive to the emperor for desiring a reconcilia- 
tion with the Elector Palatine. This he ac- 
complished so far that that prince appeared at 
the diet and received his investiture. It is 
clear that the emperor's policy acquired by this 
event, and by his influence over the league and 
Bavaria, the ascendency in Upper Germany ; 
nevertheless, affairs wore a very perilous aspect, 
and it was easy to foresee that, be the event 
what it might, differences could not be adjusted 
in an amicable manner. Their ramifications 
extended over the whole empire. 

Another and far more formidable opposition 
to the emperor arose out of the affairs of Lower 
Germany connected with the house of Bur- 
gundy. 

One of the earliest acts of Maximilian's 
government, in 1486, the year of his election, 
had been to grant the reversion of Juliers and 
Berg to the house of Saxony, in case that those 
provinces should, " by reason of failure of 
lineal heirs male," become vacant.41 In the 
year 1495 he confirmed this for himself and all 
his successors in the empire, " now as then, 
and then as now." The event in question 
seemed not far distant, since Duke William 
VII. had only a daughter ; this opened to the 
house of Saxony a prospect of a more com- 
manding, indeed of what might be called an 
European position, since Friesland had then 
been transferred to the younger line. 

But difficulties soon arose. This assign- 
ment to so distant a master was by no m.eans 
popular in the country itself, which would 
have thought itself better provided for by an 
union with the neighbouring province of Cle- 
ves. Princes and states were unanimous in 
this opinion. In the year 1496 they already 
determined to marry the daughter of the Duke 
of Juliers with the heir of Cleves, and to unite 
the two countries. A solemn treaty, v/hich 



* Fürstenberg, Sept. 9, calls it, " eine scharfe und über- 
messliche Antwort :" " a sharp and immoderate answer." 
" Wo er sich nicht fiie;e, wolle ihm S. M. ein Hals£;ericht 
setzen, daas er daselbst in Schranken homme, und wess 
von anderen und Sr. Maj. Interessen wegen an ihn er- 
lanjrt wird, dass dem auch Vollzug geschetie." — " In case 
he do not yield, his Majesty will s^it in judsment on him, 
that he may be thereby brought within bounds, and what- 
ever, by reason of his Majesty's and other interüsts may 
be decreed against him, that the same may also be exe- 
cuted." 

t July 17, 1518. Sattler, i. App. 263. 

I Document in Müller, Imp. Utth. Fr. vi. 48. 



may be regarded as effecting a union of all 
thesö provinces, was entered into and signed 
by nobles and cities. § They prayed the em- 
peror to confirm it, and to acknowledge the 
Princess of Juliers as heiress of her father's 
possessions. 

The emperor, however, would have paid 
little attention to this petition, and would have 
adhered to the grant of reversion, had not cer- 
tain political events occurred to change his 
designs. 

From the time that Duke Charles, son of 
the Duke of Gueldres, formerly deposed by 
Charles the Bold, had returned to his heredi- 
tary dominions, and, in defiance of the unfa- 
vourable decrees of the empire, had found 
means, with the aid of his estates, to maintain 
himself, there had not been one moment's 
peace in those parts. He was closely allied 
with France ; all the enemies of Austria found 
in him an ever-ready protector. It was, there- 
fore, a serious thing to make another powerful 
enemy in that neighborhood. The Duke of 
Cleves threatened, in case his petition was 
refused, to enter into a matrimonial connexion 
and an indissoluble alliance with the Duke of 
Gueldres — a threat which filled the, Nether- 
lands with alarm.** The Governess Margaret, 
Maximilian's daughter, thought it wonld be 
impossible to wrest Juliers and Berg from the 
Duke of Cleves ; the only effect would be to 
cause him to unite vv'ith Gueldres, Arenberg, 
and Liege, all foes of the house of Burgundy : 
this would furnish a power strong enough 
even to drive the emperor's posterity out of the 
Netherlands. 

In Saxony it was believed that the emperor 
connected schemes of another kind with this 
design. Elector Frederic enjoyed singular 
consideration in the empire. He steadily ad- 
hered to the principles and sentiments of the 
old electors, and his power was constantly on 
the increase. His intellectual superiority 
checked the inclination which his cousin 
George now and then betrayed to oppose him ; 



§ Treaty of Marriage and Agreement in Teschenma- 
cher, Anuales Clivite, Cod. dipl. nr. 98, 99, wherein the 
two princes promised one another— the Duke of Juliers, 
that his daughter should bring the son of his brother of 
Cleves his principalities of Juliers, Berg, his countship 
of Ravensburg, with all his other lordships,— the Duke 
of Cleves, that his son should bring the daughter of his 
brother of Juliers his principality of Cleves, his ^count- 
ship of the Mark, and all his other lordships, now actually 
possessed, or still to be acquired. 

** The emperor says to Cesar Pflug; "Die klevisch 
Tochter hindre I. M. Frau Tochter Margr." " The daugh- 
ter of the Duke of Cleves stands in the way of the Lady 
Margaret, his Imperial Majesty's daughter." Renner 
states: " Clef lässt sich vernehmen, wolt man die Lehen 
nit thun, so musste sich Clef mit den Herrn verbinden, 
von denen es Trost und Hülf haben mecht das Sine zu 
erhalten." "Cleves says thus— if they will not bestow 
the fief, then Cleves must join the lords from whom she 
may have comfort, and help to hold her own." — Weimar 
Acts. Comp. Correspondance de I'Empereur Maxim.ilien 
I. et de Marguerite d'Autriche I. p. .390. Margaret further 
wrote in 1511 to the emperor, as is said in his answer: 
"Clue se povons taut faire que nostre cousin le due de 
Zaxssen voulsist quieter ou du moins mectre en delay la 
queretle qu'il pretend a la duche de Juillers, le jeusneduc 
de Cleves et san pere se condescendroient facilement a 
eulx declairer ä la guerre et aydier ii la eduction de nostre 
pays de Gheldrcs." Tlie emperor hoped to conciliate the 
elector at the approaching imperial diet, but in this he did 
not succeed. 



116 



MUTUAL RELATIONS OF 



Book IL 



so that the house of Saxony might still be re- 
garded as one power. His brother Ernest had 
been Archbishop of Magdeburg up to the year 
1513, and certainly one of the best that see 
had ever possessed ; his cousin Frederic was 
Grand Master in Prussia ; his sister Margaret, 
Duchess of Lüneburg, ancestress of that house. 
It is evident how extensive was the influence 
of this family ; an influence further augmented 
J)y the act of the States of Hessen, which, on 
the death of Landgrave "William, in 1510, ex- 
cluded his wddow" Anne from the guardianship 
of the minor, claimed by her, and committed 
it to the elector and house of Saxony, to which 
the regency thereupon appointed was subject. 
Boyneburg, the governor of the province, who 
was at the head of afliairs, was entirely de- 
voted to Frederic* It appeared to the empe- 
ror highly inexpedient to thrown Juliers, and 
Berg also, which must soon be without a 
sovereign, into the hands of this pov/erful 
prince, who might thus become too mighty a 
vassal. 

Under the influence of these considerations, 
Maximilian retracted the promise he had made 
at the time of his election (and doubtless with 
a view to that), and in various documents of 
the years 1508-9 revoked the contingent rights 
on Juliers and Berg which had been conferred : 
he declared that the duke's daughter, IMaria, 
was the worthy and competent successor of 
her father.f In the year 1511 William VII. 
died ; his son-in-law, John of Cleves, took 
possession of the country without opposition. 
All attempts to recall the past, all persuasions 
and negotiations on the part of the house of 
Saxony, were vain. 

The effect of this certainly was to induce 
Cleves to refuse the alliance with Gueldres, 
and to adhere faithfully to Austria. Saxon)^ 
on the contrary, declined in importance. The 
spiritual principalities which were occupied by 
members of that house passed into other hands 
on the death of their possessors. Boyneburg, 
by his somewhat tyrannical mode of governing, 
provoked the discontent of the States of Hes- 
sen, and especially of the cities (a. d. 1514). 
By a sort of revolution, the Princess Anne was 
restored to the guardianship of w^iich she had 
been deprived ; Elector Frederic retaining no- 
thing more than the name. Another proof of 
this anti-Saxon spirit was, that the emperor, at 
the suggestion of the order of knights, declared 
the young Landgrave Philip of age when only 
fourteen years old (March 1518) ; alleging that 
he would be better off so, than under any 
guardianship or tutelage whatsoever. In these 
Hessian transactions, Duke George took part 
against the elector: so far from raising any 
cordial opposition to the designs of Anne, he 
betrothed his son with her daughter. Mean- 
while he had already resto.red Friesland to 
Austria. 

In this case, too, the policy of Austria was 



triumphant ; the dreaded coalition of the Ne- 
therland adversaries was prevented, and Saxo- 
ny kept at a distance and depressed.^;: On the 
other hand, however, the hostility of the most 
able and prudent of all the princes of the em- 
pire was provoked. What the weight of that 
hostility w^as, soon appeared at the diet of Co- 
logne (a. d. 1512). Frederic's resistance suf- 
ficed to defeat all the emperor's plans ; at least 
his biographer imputes to his opposition the 
rejection of the project of a new tax. This 
enmjty affected even the Netherlands through 
another channel. The niece of the elector, a 
Lüneburg princess, married Charles of Guel- 
dres (of whom we have already spoken), who 
thus secured in two of the most powerful 
princely houses, such a support as he had ne- 
ver before been able to obtaip. 

While the house of Saxony was thus weak- 
ened by a contest with Austria. Brandenburg 
rose upon her favour. It was with the empe- 
ror's assistance that Brandenburg princes suc- 
ceeded to those of Saxony both in the grand 
mastership of the Teutonic Order and the see of 
IMagdeburg: he then further favoured the ele- 
vation of the young archbishop, who w^as also 
bishop of Halberstadt, to the Electorate of 
Mainz, which had formerly been enjoyed by a 
brother of Elector Frederic : we have already 
seen what was the nature of the relations 
which subsisted between these two princes. 
Maximilian also renewed his alliance with the 
Franconian line of this house. He confirmed 
the removal of the old Margrave, who had 
been declared idiotic, from the government; 
and marrying the Margrave's eldest son Casi- 
mir to his own niece, Susanna of Bavaria, he 
gave that prince the whole support of his au-^ 
thority and an important advantage over his 
brothers. For this very reason, however, he 
did not win them over completely; with one 
of them, indeed, the Grand Master, he had a 
serious difference. The emperor had at first 
induced him to assume a hostile attitude to- 
wards KintT Sigfismund of Poland,^ who was 



* See Rommel, Philipp der Grossmüthige, vol. i. p. 26. 
t The document in Teschenmacher, nr. 100, is inconclu- 
sive ; nr. 101, leaves no room for doubt. 



t The Saxon councillors, as early as 1512, dreaded fur- 
ther disfavour: " Darum er (der Kaiser, nach jener Erk- 
lärung für Cleve) fort und fort auf Wege trachten mocht, 
Ewer Aller Fürstl. Gnaden zuzuschieben so viel ihm mö- 
glich, damit Ew. Aller Fürsti. Gn. in Dempfung und Ab- 
fall kämen." — " Lest he (the emperor, after that declara- 
tion in behalf of Cleves) should more and more strive 
after means of embarrassing your most Princely Grace as 
much as possible, so that your most Princely Grace may 
fall into weakness -ftnd decline." — Letter from Cologne 
■written Thursday after Jacobi, 1512. TVeimar Records. 

§ The Fuffger MS. " Desweffen die Kais. Maj. nach sol- 
chem Wege'getrachtet, dieweil S. M. erachtet, dass König 
Sigmund seinem Schwager Graf Hansen von Trentschin 
Grossgrafen in Ungarn Rath und Hülfe erzeiget und den- 
selben nach Absterben des Köniss Lasslew zu dem Reich 
Ungarn . . . befordern macht, dass er demselben etliche 
Könige und Fürsten zu Feinden machen wollt, und ward 
durch S. Mt. so vil gehandelt, dass P/larkg. Albrecht von 
Brandenburg Hochmeister in Preussen den Hochernann- 
ten König Sigmundt von Polen anfeindet." " His Impe- 
rial Majesty on this account, because his Majesty cons* 
dered that KingSigismund had yielded counsel and aid Ui 
his brother-in-law, Count Hans %'on Trentschin Gross- 
graf in Hungary, and after the decease of King Ladislas 
might advance the same to the kingdom of Hungary, that 
he wished to render sundry kings and princes enemies to 
the same; and so much was done by his Majesty, that 
Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, Great Master in Prus- 
sia, opposes the above-named King Sigismund of Poland." 
The alliance with Russia was concluded expressly for the 



Chap. IL 



THE GERMAN PRINCES. 



117 



rendered extremely formidable to the Austrian 
claims on the king-dom of Hungar}', by his 
connexion with the Hoüse of Zapolj^a. Älaxi- 
milian wished to hold him in check, on the 
one side by the Grand Dake of Moscow, on 
the other by the Teutonic Order. But the situ- 
ation of things was now much altered. In the 
year 1515, Sigisraund of Poland had formed 
very amicable relations with the emperor; he 
now recognised the hereditary right of Austria 
to Hungary, and took a wife out of the Italian 
branch of that house. IMaximilian, on his side, 
waived the claims of the empire : he granted 
Danzig and Thorn an exemption from the juris- 
diction of the Imperial Chamber in 1515, as 
he had to Switzerland in 1507; a measure the 
more important in this case, since it substitut- 
^ a Polish for a German jurisdiction; it was, 
in fact, a sort of cession. It may readily be 
imagined how mu||[i less inclined he must now 
be to interpose earnestly on behalf of the Or- 
der ; and accordingly we find it stated in the 
preamble to the agreement, that the emperor 
recognised the peace of Thorn, — the very thing 
against which the Grand Master protested, and 
by which he had been made a vassal of the 
crown of Poland. Prussia was thus again 
alienated from the emperor, and this re-acted 
on the other members of the house of Branden- 
burg. Elector Joachim, at least, was not dis- 
inclined to give the same support to the 
Grand IMaster as he did to his brothers in 
Franconia. 

It ma)^ easily be imagined that the position 
of the other sovereign houses was affected in 
various ways by all these friendships and en- 
mities. 

Pomerania, forced to give way before the 
claims of Brandenburg to the supreme feudal 
lordship, was alienated from Austria by the 
support its rival received from that power. The 
Pomeranian historians ascribe it to the influ- 
ence of Joachim I. that the projected marriage 
of a Pomeranian princess with King Christian 
II. of Denmark did not take place ; and on 
the contrary, that that monarch married a 
grand-daughter of IMaximilian.* The result 
of this again was, that the uncle and rival of 
Christian Frederic of Holstein, who thought 
himself unjustly dealt with in the partition of 
the ducal inheritance, and, as king's son, be- 
lieved himself to have claims even on Nor- 
way,! ^°""^ sought to ally himself with the 
house of Pomerania ; whilst the third member 
of this house, the Count of Oldenburg, adher- 
ed firmly to the Austro-burgundian alliance, 
and once more received a stipend from the Ne- 
therlands. Every event that occurred in the 
northern states immediately affected the dynas- 



re-conquest of the lands of the Order seized on by Poland. 
This is the famous document in which Zar was translated 
into Kaiser (emperor). — Karamsin, Hist, of Russia, vii. 
45, 450. 

* Kanzow, Pomerania, ii. 313. 

t Chief points of complaint, as set forth in the different 
publications on the dispute; Christiani, Neuere Gesch. 
von Schleswig-Holstein, i. p. 318. These complaints suf- 
ficiently refute the supposition of a good understanding, 
to which Christiani previously adheres. 



tic houses of Germany through these various 
combinations. 

It must not be imagined that open hostility 
broke out amongst them. There v/as a greater 
or lesser influence of the House of Austria; a 
more or less visible favour shown by or inclina- 
tion tov/ards it ; but they remained on the foot- 
ing of good neighbours, met at diets, inter- 
cha;|^ged visits at farail}^ festivals, endured what 
they could not alter, and kept their eye steadily 
on the point in view. 

The discord was most fierce and undisguised 
in the house of the turbulent Welfs. Calen- 
berg and Wolfenbüttel held to the friendship 
of Austria ; indeed it was in her service that 
the duke of the former state had revived the 
ancient warlike renown of his house. Lüne- 
burg sided with the opposition. There were a 
multitude of old disputes between them, mainly 
caused by an attempt of the Bishop of Minden, 
a Wolfenbüttler by birth, to appropriate to 
himself the countship of Diepholz, to vv-hich 
Lüneburg had ancient contingent claims.^: 
Lauenburg Avas now drawn into these quarrels. 
During the absence of the Archbishop of Bre- 
men — another Wolfenbüttel — the Worsats, 
who had recently been conquered, killed his 
officers; Magnus of Lauenburg, to whom they 
appealed as the true Duke of Lower Saxony, 
lent them aid, and destroyed the fortress erected 
by the archbishop. § On his return, open war 
among all these princes appeared imminent, 
and was only prevented from breaking out by 
Mecklenburg, which stood in a tolerably im- 
partial situation in the midst of all these dis- 
putes ; or rather, in that of an ally of both 
parties. 

This example suffices to prove that there was 
but little distinction between temporal and spi- 
ritual princes. 

For the highest posts in the church had long 
been distributed, not in consequence of spiritual 
merits, but in compliance with the wishes of 
some powerful prince, especially the emperor; 
or of the interests of the neighbouring nobles, 
who had seats in the chapters : indeed it was, 
as we have seen, a maxim of the court of Rome, 
ever since the last century, to use its influence 
in promoting the younger sons of sovereign 
houses. !| In the beginning of the sixteenth 
century this policy had been pursued with suc- 
cess in many sees. In Lower Germany, Bruns- 
wick, and Lauenburg in particular, rivalled 
each other in this respect. The house of 
Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel and Grubenhagen had 
got possession of the archbishopric of Bremen, 
the bishoprics of Minden, Verden, Osnabrück 
and Paderborn ; the house of Lauenburg, of 
Münster and Hildesheim. We have seen how* 
richly Brandenburg was provided for. We 
find princes of Lorraine as bishops of Metz, 
Toul and Verdun. The palatinate possessed 
Freisingen, Regensburg, Speier, Naumburg, 
and afterwards Utrecht. Bavaria obtained 



J Delius, Hildesheimische Stiftsfehde, p. 96. 
§ ChytrEBUs, Saxonice Chronicon, lib. vii. p. 227. 
jl See p. 16. .iEneas Sylvius, Epistola ad Martinum 
Maier, p. 679. 



118 



MAXIMILIAN. 



Book II. 



Passau. In the year 1516, the chapter of 
Schwerin chose Princö Magnus of Mecklen- 
burg, although not j^et seven years -old, its 
bishop.* It were impossible to enumerate all 
the prebends which came into the hands either 
of members of the l^ss powerful houses, or 
favourites of the emperor. Melchior Pfinzing, 
his chaplain and secretary, was dean of St. 
Sebald, in Nürnberg, of St. Alban and St. Vic- 
tor in Mainz; and prebendary both in Trent 
and Bamberg. Hence it follow^ed that the in- 
terests of the house to which a dignitary of the 
church belonged, or to which he owed his ele- 
vation, influenced the exercise of his functions : 
we fmd the spiritual principalities implicated 
in all the intrigues or dissensions of the tempo- 
ral rulers. 

These circumstances re-acted on the other 
states of the empire, though perhaps less ob- 
viously. The cities of the Oberland, for ex- 
ample, W'hose strength was the main support 
of the Swabian league, belonged to the one 
party ; while the Franconian knights, who were 
at open war with the league, sided more with 
the other. 

For imperfect and undefined as all relations 
w^ere, the powers of Germany may be ranged 
under two great political parties. On the side 
of Austria w^ere Bavaria, the League, Bran- 
denburg (for the most part), Hessen, Cleviss, 
the Count of East Friesland (which had lately 
joined this party), Oldenburg, Denmark, Ca- 
lenberg, Wolfenbüttel, and Albertine Saxony. 
On that of the opposition, w^ere Ernestine Sax- 
ony, Pomerania, Lauenburg, Lüneburg, the 
Franconian knights, Würtemberg, and Guel- 
dres. The Duke of Gueldres was indeed in a 
state of open warfare. In the year 151T, his 
troops devastated the whole of Holland ; he 
gave up Alkmaar to pillage for eight days : in 
the year 1518, the Frisian corsair, Groote Pier, 
appeared in the Zuyder Zee, and made him- 
self complete master of it for a considerable 
time. The duke employed all his influence to 
keep the Frieslanders in a continual state of 
revolt. The palatinate and Mecklenburg oc- 
cupied a sort of neutral or middle ground be- 
tween these two parties. The Elector palatine 
inclined to the house of Austria for a singular 
reason. His brother Frederic, who had served 
for many years at the court of Burgundy, had 
form.ed an attachment to the Princess Leonora. 
One of his letters was found in her possession, 
and excited such displeasure, that the unhappy 
prince w^as obliged to quit the court, with the 
persuasion that he had thus thrown away all 
his well-earned claims on the emperor's favour, 
unless he could re-establish them by still more 
important services. But his brother was not 
disposed to forget what he had suffered in the 
war of inheritance. On the contrary, the brave 
knight who had risen to fame and ^honour in 
his service, Franz von Sickingen, now took 
revenge on Hessen for those very injuries. f 



While the diet was sitting at Augsburg, he 
marched an army of 500 horse and 8000 foot 
upon the fortified town of Darmstadt, and ex- 
torted from the inhabitants contributions to the 
amount of 45,000 gulden, on the hardest and 
most oppressive terms. A deputation of the 
empire made representations to the emperor 
against this breach of the Public Peace ; but 
he did not venture to do anything; he had for- 
merly taken Sickingen into his own service, 
and he had no mind to alienate the palatinate 
again. 

Such is the situation in which w^e find Maxi- 
"unilian towards the close of his career. 
^ The received opinion which recognises in 
him the creative founder of the later constitu- 
tion of the empire, must be abandoned. We 
saw above that the ideas of organisation which 
first became currrent in the early years of hisi, 
reign experienced far more «|)position than en- 
couragement from him ; and that he w^as in- 
capable of carrying even his ov/n projects into 
execution. We now see that he had not the 
power of keeping the princes of the empire 
together; that, on the contrary, everything 
about him split into parties. It followed of 
necessity that abroad he rather lost than gained 
ground. In Italy nothing was achieved : Switz- 
erland acquired greater independence than she 
possessed before ; Prussia w^as rather endan- 
gered than secured. The policy of France 
had obtained new influence in the heart of 
Germany ; first Gueldres and then Würtem- 
berg openly declared for that power. 

The glory which surrounds the memory of 
Maximilian, the high renow^n which he en- 
joyed even among his contemporaries, were 
therefore not won by the success of his en- 
terprises, but by his personal qualities. 

Every good gift of nature had been lavished 
upon him in profusion ; health up to an ad- 
vanced age,' so robust that when it was de- 
ranged strong exercise and copious draughts 
of W' ater w^ere his sole and sufficient remedy ;:|: 
not beauty, indeed, but so fine a person, so 
framed for strength and agility, that he outdid 
all his followers in knightly exercises, out- 
wearied them in exertions and toils ; a memory 
to which everything that he had learnt or wit- 
nessed w^as ever present; so singular a natural 
acuteness and justness of apprehension, that 
he w^as never deceived in his servants ; he em- 
ployed them exactly in the services for which 
they were best fitted ; an imagination of une- 
qualled richness and brilliancy ; everything 
that he touched came new out of his hands ; a 
mind, as we have already remarked, which 
always seized with unerring instinct on the 
necessary, though unfortunately the execution 
of it was so often embarrassed by other condi- 
tions of his situation ! He was a man, in 
short, formed to excite admiration, and to in- 
spire enthusiastic attachment ; formed to be 



* Born July 4, 1509, elected June 21, 1516. Rudloff, 
Mecklenburgische Gesch. iii. ], 37. 

t That this was the motive, is. asserted in the Chronicle 
of Flersheim, by Munch, iii, 210. 



J Pasquajrlio, Relatione di 3507: " IVon molto bello di 
volte nia bene proportionato, robustissimo, di comples- 
sione san^uinea e collerica, e per 1' eta sua molto sano, 
ne altro il molesto che un poco di catarro che continua- 
mente li discende, per rispetto del quale ha usato e usa 
sempre far nelle caccie gran esercitio." 



Chap. IL 



MAXIMILLVrN. 



119 



the romantic hero, the exhaustless theme of 
the people. 

What wondrous stories did they tell of his 
adventures in the chase I How, in the land 
beyond the Ens, he had stood his ground alone 
ag-ainst an enormous bear in the open coppice : 
how in a sunken way in Srahant he had killed 
a stag at the moment it rushed upon hirn : how, 
when surprised by a wild boar in the forest of 
Brussels, he had laid it dead at his feet with 
his boar-spear, without alighting from his 
horse. But above all, what perilous adven- 
tures did they recount of his chamois hunts in 
the high Alps, vrhere it was he who sometimes 
saved the practised hunter that accompanied 
him, from danger or death. In all these scenes 
he showed the same prompt and gallant spirit, 
the same elastic presence of mind. Thus, too, 
he appeared in face of the enemy. '\Yithin 
range of the enemy's fire, we see him alight 
from his horse, form his order of battle, and 
win the victory: in the skirmish, attacking 
four or five enemies single handed : on the 
field, defending himself in a sort of single 
combat against an enemy who selected him as 
his peculiar object ; for he was always to be 
found in the front of the battie, always in the 
hottest of the fight and the danger.* Proofs 
of valour which served not merely to amuse 
an idle hour, or to be celebrated in the romance 
of Theuerdank : the Venetian ambassador can- 
not find words to express the confidence vrhich 
the German soldiers of every class felt for the 
chief who never deserted them in the mom.ent 
of peril. He cannot be regarded as a great 
general; but he had a singular gift for the 
organization of a particular body of troops, the 
improvement of the several arms, and the con- 
stitution of an array generally : the militia of 
the Landsknechts, by which the fame of the 
German foot soldiers was restored, was founded 
and organised by him. He also put the use 
of fire-arms on an entirely new footing, and 
his inventive genius displayed itself pre-emi- 
nently in this department; he surpassed even 
the masters of the art, and his biographers 
ascribe to him a number of very successful 
improvements :]■ they add, that he brought 
even the Spaniards who served under him to 
the use of fire-arms. AYherever he was pre- 
sent he found means to allay the mutinous 
disorders which often arose in these bands of 
mercenaries, in consequence of the irregular 
state of h^s finances. We are told that once 



* See the Geschichtbibel of Seb. Frank ; and particu- 
larly the Key to Theuerdank, reprinted in the edition of 
Theuerdank by Haltaus, p. 111. 

t Grünheck in Chinel, p. 9ö. " Bellicas machinas in 
minutas partes resolvere. parvis viribus bigis aptari et 
squocunque fert voluntas faciliter deduct primus invenit." 
The FusserMS. '^ Durch S. Mt. Erfindung sind die Poller 
und Mörser zu dem vs^erfen, auch die langen Ror zu dem 
weitraich^n, desgleichen die weited kurzen Ror zu dem 
Haglschiessen in'die Streichwehre darin auch etwa eisern 
Ketten und Schrot geladen werden, alsdann auch die 
grossen Karthaunen von neuen erfunden und zu gebrau- 
chen aufbracht worden." "By his majesty's invention, 
rnortars for throwing, also long tubes for distant range, 
likewise broad short tubes for firing canister shot from 
fortifications, and which may also be loaded with iron 
chains and bails; moreover large carronades have been 
afresh discovered and brought into use." 



in extremity he appeased the discontent of his 
men by the jests and antics of a court fool, 
whom he sent among them. He had a match- 
less talent for managing men. The princes 
who were oiTended and injured by his policy 
could not withstand the charm of his personal 
intercourse. " Never," says the sagacious 
Frederic of Saxony, " did I behold a more 
courteous man." The wild turbulent knights 
against whom he raised the empire and the 
league, yet heard such expressions from his 
lips, that it was, as Götz von Berlichingen 
said, "a joy to their hearts; and they could 
never bear to do any thing against his Imperial 
rjajesty or the house of Austria." He took 
part in the festivals and amusements of the 
citizens in their towns — their dances and their 
shooting matches, in which he was not unfre- 
quently the best shot ; and offered prizes — 
damask for the arquebusiers, or a few ells of 
red velvet for the cross-bowmen : he delighted 
to be among them, and found in their company 
and diversions a relief from the arduous and 
weary business of the diet. At the camp be- 
fore Padua he rode up to a suttler and asked 
for something to eat. John of Landau, who 
was with him, offered to taste the food; the 
emperor inquired where the woman came frona-. 
From Augsburg, was the reply. " Ah !" ex- 
claimed he, " then there is no need of a taster, 
for they of Augsburg are God-fearing people.' 
In his hereditary dominions he often adminis- 
tered justice in person, and if he saw a bash- 
ful man vvho kept in the back-ground, he called- 
him forward to a more honourable place. He 
was little dazzled by the splendour of the su- 
preme dignity. " My good fellow," said he to 
an admiring poet, " thou knowest not me nor 
other princes aright."^ All that we read of 
him shows freshness and clearness of appre- 
hension, an open and ingenuous spirit. He 
was a brave soldier and a kind-hearted man ; 
people loved and feared him. 

And in his public life, we should do him 
injustice if we dwelt exclusively on his abor- 
tive attempts to re-constitute the empire. It 
is an almost inevitable defect of that form of 
government which excites a competition be- 
tween the highest person in the state and a re- 
presentative body or bodies, that the sovereign 
separates his personal interests from those of 
the communit}^. Maximilian, at least, was^ar 
less intent on the prosperity of the empire 
than on the future fortunes of his house. 
When a youth of eighteen, he went to the 
Netherlands, and, by the union of Burgundy 
and Austria, founded a new European power. 
In states, as in the world of science, there are 
certain minds whose vocation it is to act as the 
pioneers of those gifted with the genius of 
construction. Incapable of bringing any thing 
new into existence, thej' are actively employed 
in preparing the materials and the instruments 
with which their more creative successors are 



t The Fugger MS. Cuspinian. duerini paints him, 
Nov. 1507, as "homo virtuoso, religioso, forte, liberal, 
quasi prodego. Adeo tutti T ama : ma raancha di pruden- 
tia..''—Sanuto, vol. vii. 



120 



MAXIMILIAN. 



Book II. 



to work. The force that was in embryo did 
not assume its complete form under Maximil- 
ian. But by maintaining the sovereign pre- 
rogatives in the Netherlands, as well as in 
Austria; by defending the former against the 
French, the latter against the' Hungarians ; by 
securing for his house the great JSpanish in- 
heritance; by definitively founding that of 
Hungary and Bohemia, he exerted a vast and 
permanent influence on succeeding ages. How 
different was the position of his grandson from 
that of his father, an exile from his paternal 
land, or from his own, a prisoner in Bruges ! 
Never did a family enjoj more magnificent or 
more extensive prospects than those which 
now lay before that of Austria. This was the 
point of view from which Maximilian regarded 
the aflfairs of Germany. Until the latter half 
of the fifteenth century, Austria was almost 
shut out from Germany : she now interfered 
with a high hand in the affairs of every state 
and province, temporal or spiritual — territories 
of cities or of knights ; nothing could stir, 
whether in an amicable or a hostile direction, 
by which she was not immediately affected. 
If it be undeniable that the empire, regarded 
as a wiiole, had sustained losses, it is not less 
true that it was the union of the house of 
Austria with Burgundy which restored the 
province of the Low Countries again to a con- 
scious connection with Germany ; and that 
the remote prospects which were involved in 
the Hungarian, and still more in the Spanish 
family alliance, opened a new theatre of ac- 
tivity to the nation. The shadows of coming 
events continually flitted before the mind of 
Maximilian : it was this presentiment which 
influenced his whole conduct and actions, and 
produced all that was apparently unsteady, 
mysterious, and one-sided in his policy. It 
was not given to him to perfect or to found ; 
his mission was solely to prepare, to maintain, 
and to extend the views and the claims of his 
house, amidst the conflicting powers of the 
world. 

The last decisive moment still remained ; 
and although he would never hear any thing 
on the subject at an earlier period of his reign, 
it is clear how earnestly he must have desired 
to secure his grandson's succession. 

From the situation of things in Germany 
which we have just contemplated, it is easy to 
infer what was the support he might reckon 
upon, and what the obstacles he v,-as likely to 
encounter. He had already made great pro- 
gress in his negotiations at the diet of Augs- 
burg. The renewal and confirmatio« of his 
good understanding with the Hohenzollern, 
and the large promises he made to that family, 
secured to him two electoral votes, those of 
Brandenburg and of Mainz, both of which had 
very recently been extremely dubious.* Her- 

* Albert and Joachim had made preliminary promises 
in 1517 to the king of France, which they now retracted. 
The state of things appears from a memorandum which 
the emperor had drawn up for his grandson in Oct. 3518, 
wherein it is said : " Le mariage de dame Catherine avec 
le fils du Marquis Joachim n'importe pas moins; le mar- 
quis pour donner sa voix, Charles a du renoncer a son 
mariage avec dame Renee de France et ä une grande 
- somme d'argent que le roi de France luy avoit promis." 



mann of Cologne, of the family of Wied, who 
was intimately connected with Cleves, and 
hence well inclined to the emperor, was com- 
pletely won by presents made to hiinself, and 
by pensions promised to his brothers and kins- 
men :f lastly, the old misunderstandings with 
the palatinate were arranged by the mediation 
of the Count Palatine Frederic; the elector 
received his investiture, entered into an agree- 
ment with Austria as to the inheritance, and 
gave his sanction to the order of succession. 
After certain preliminary arrangements had 
taken place, these four electors had a meeting 
with the emperor, who was surrounded by his 
own council and that of his nephew, on the 
27th August, 1518, and ratified their consent 
by a formal treaty. The ambassadors of Bo- 
hemia, who was now restored to her place in 
the Germanic body (as since the. league of 
1515, Austria was sure of her vote), gave their 
assent. 

On the other hand, Frederic of Saxony, as 
may readily be believed, did not forget his 
numerous wrongs and affronts, and was not to 
be propitiated. With him .was Elector Richard 
of Treves, a Greifenklau by birth, who had 
already been opposed to the Prince of Baden, 
and had, at a more recent vacancy, obtained 
the electorate. Their chief objections were, 
that it was an unheard-of thing to place a king 
of the Romans by tlie side of an uncrowned 
emperor, and that a papal constitution forbade 
the union of the kingdom of Naples, which 
Charles possessed, with the crowTi of Germany. 

Maximilian laboured incessantly to remove 
these objections, as well as the deeper reasons 
for which they were only a cover. Active 
negotiations were carried on with the court of 
Rome, both as to the sending of the crown 
across the Alps,:|: and the repeal of the above- 
mentioned constitution. The strangest plans 
were suggested. Maximilian once thought of 
abdicating and passing the rest of his life at 
Naples ; not, indeed, without receiving the 
crown of that country as compensation for the 
one which he renounced, so as to remove both 
of those obstacles at once. Besides this, the 
ph5'sicians had told him he might recover his 
health in Naples. The German negotiations 
he thought he should conclude at a meeting 
which was to take place in the following 



t Argent Comptant et Pensions pour I'Archevesque de 
Coulongne: Mone, Anzeiger für Kunde der teutschen 
Vorzeit, 1838, p. 409. The records therein inserted from 
the Archives of Lille have all been of great use to me. 
M. Mone had, however, left a great many untouched, 
from which M. Gachard of Brussels has lately given an 
extract in a " Rapport ä Monsieur le Ministre de I'Int6- 
rieur siir les Archives de Lille," Annexe C. p. 146. In 
addition to printed sources, I made use of a correspond- 
ence of the Venetian ambassador at Rome, who trans- 
mits home the news which reaches him, and paints admi- 
rably the varying dispositions of the court. 

J Maximilian even demanded that the pope himself 
should come to Trent and crown him. He alleged that 
the pontifi^ had gone to meet Francis I. at Bologna. But 
the master of the ceremonies held a coronation out of 
Rome to be thoroughly inadmissible. Even were pope 
and emperor in one province, the pope might not, he 
said, then and there crown the emperor; he must rather 
suffer him to proceed alone to Rome and be there crowned 
by a cardinal. — Paris de Orassis, in Hoffmann, p. 425. 
Another idea was, that the cardinals, Giulio de' Medici 
and Albert of Mainz, should perform the ceremony at 
Trent. 



Chap. II. 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



121 



March at Frankfurt. He hedged Elector Fre- 
deric in the most urgent manner not to fail to 
be present, and added that he himself intended 
to set out soon after the new year. 

But this was not permitted him. He fell 
sick on the journey, at Wels, within his own 
dominions. His illness did not prevent him 
from carrying on the negotiations concerning 
the succession : in his sleepless nights he had 
the genealogical history of his early progeni- 
tors read to him ; he was occupied with the 
past and the future fortunes of his race, when 
he expired, on the 12th January, 1519. 

His death suddenly plunged the issue of the 
pending negotiations into fresh uncertainty. 
The engagements already entered into related 
only to the election of a king, as next in dig- 
nity and succession to the emperor ; the affair 
altered its aspect now that the subject of them 
was an immediate, reigning king and emperor. 
But so much more weighty was noAv the deci- 
sion, both as it regarded the distant future, and 
the present, pressing, tempestuous moment. 

Possibilities of every kind still presented 
themselves. 

ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 

Had the powers and functions of the head 
of the empire been defined by a regular con- 
stitution, such as was once contemplated, the, 
most illustrious princes of the empire might 
have chosen one out of their own body to fill 
that station. But as the project had failed, 
who among them all would have been power- 
ful enough to allay the storm of hostilities that 
raged on all sides, and to uphold the dignity 
of the empire among the powers of Europe ] 
It was a great question whether any one of 
them would venture upon such a task. 

Maximilian had entertained and declared 
various singular projects before he would suffer 
it to be known that he had designs for his 
grandson. He had offered the succession to 
the king of England : in one of the most extra- 
ordinary documents existing, he at another 
time nominated the young king Louis of Hun- 
gary and Bohemia, administrator of the empire 
during his lifetim.e, and after his death, his 
successor ; and these two princes now actually 
cherished some hopes, of the imperial crown: 
but the one was at too great a distance, the 
other not sufficiently powerful at home; it 
was impossible to entertain serious thoughts 
of either. 

In declaring himself openly in favour of his 
grandson. Archduke Charles, King of Spain 
and Naples, Maximilian now proposed a 
scheme which had much to recommend it.. 
Charles was of German blood, heir to Austria, 
and to many provinces of the German Nether- 
lands, and sprung of the house which had 
already acquired a sort of title to the imperial 
dignity. There was, however, no want of 
objections to this young prince. It was ob- 
served that he did not even understand Ger- 
man, and had given no proofs of personal 
valour or ability; the multitude of his domi- 
nions would leave him no time to devote to 
16 L 



the empire ; lastly, he was expressly excluded 
by the papal constitution. His prospects, in- 
deed, began to be overclouded. The electors, 
as we have observed, did not think themselves 
bound by their promises ; nor did Maximilian's 
daughter INIargaret, who now conducted the 
negotiations, deem it expedient to lay before 
them the sealed copies of their several com- 
pacts, as she had been advised to^do; she 
contented herself with reminding them in 
general terms of their expressions of good- 
will. ,. Added to this, disturbances of a very 
serious nature had broken out in Austria aftei 
Maximilian's death, in which the States estab- 
lished a government of their own* without 
troubling themselves about the young and 
absent princes ; " poor boys, of whom nobody 
could tell whether they would ever be seen in 
Germany." In Tyrol similar troubles broke 
out.f Louis, King of Hungary, thought it 
expedient to recall his sister Anna from Aus- 
tria, where she had already arrived in order to 
conclude her marriage with one of the brothers. 

Under these circumstances, a foreign mon- 
arch, already the natural rival of the Austro- 
Burgundian power, — Francis I. of France, — 
determined to grasp at the supreme dignity of 
Christendom.:!: 

The fortune and fame of Francis were still 
in the ascendant. ^Fhe battle of Blarignano, 
by vrhich he had reconquered Milan, and the 
personal valour which he had displayed there, 
had secured him a high station in Europe, and 
a great name. He was on an intimate footing 
Vv'ith Leo X. We find that this pope commu- 
nicated the briefs Which he intended to address 
to the German princes, first to the court of 
France. King Henry of England, after a short 
hesitation, promised him his co-operation '• by 
word and deed," A still more essential thing 
was, that he had gained an influence over at 
least a portion of the German opposition. 
We have spoken of the Dukes of Gueldres 
and Würtemberg; the existence of the one, 
and all the hopes of the other, depended on 
France : old relations, never entirely broken, 
united the palatinate to that country, and Duke 
\Henry der Mittlere of Lüneburg now also took 
|)art with the king. " I rejoice in his good for- 
tune," says he in a letter, " I grieve at his bad 
fortune ; whether he be up or dovrn I am his." 
The king affirmed that he v.'as solicited by Ger- 
many to try to acquire the crown. His adher- 
ents insisted particularly on his bravery ; they 
urged that no other prince was so well fitted 
to conduct the war against the Turks, which, ' 
sooner or later, must be undertaken. 



* Narratio de Dissensionibus Provincialium Austria. 
Fez. Scriptt. ii. 990. 

t Zevenberghen to IMargaret, I\Iarch 23, Mone, p. 292. 

X II CI. di Bibbiena al CI. de' Medici, 13 Ott. 1518. He 
gives an account of an audience he had of Ihe king re- 
lating to the elettion del Catholico (the grants wliich had 
beenrnade at Augsburg for Charles): " sopra che in sus- 
tanza mi disse, in grandissimo secreto, sua opinione et 
volontä esscre, che per Nostro Sijrnore (the pope) e per 
sua Mtä si faccia ogni opera possibile, accioche ella non 
vada innanzi et che si corrompano con danari et con 
promesse et con ogni possibil mezzo gli elettori." — Lettere 
di Principi, i. p. 47. The whole correspondence, which is 
printed in this collection, ought to be read: it perfectly 
shows the relations between Leo X. and Francis I 



122 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



Book II. 



Kino's of France, both before and after Fran- 
cis, have entertained similar projects — for ex- 
ample, Philip of Valois and Louis XIV. ; but 
none ever had so much encouragement from 
the posture of affairs, none such favourable 
prospects, as Francis I. 

Two things M^ere necessary to the success 
of his undertaking ; the electors must be won 
over, and the anti-Austrian party must be sup- 
ported and strengthened. Francis was resolv- 
ed to do everything in his power to accomplish 
both these ends, especially to spare no money ; 
he gave out that he would spend three millions 
of kronthalers to become emperor. In February 
1519, Germany was again filled with his emis- 
saries. Somewhat later, his confidential minis- 
ter, Admiral Bonnivet, in whose talents the pub- 
lic had great confidence from his late successful 
conclusion of the peace with England and Spain, 
set out for the Rhine, largely provided with mo- 
ney ; whence he ventured, but in profound se- 
crecy, further into the interior of Germany.* 

At one time it really appeared as if the king 
would attain his object with the electors. f 

He had long had the most perfect understand- 
ing with Richard ^ Greifenklau, Elector of 
Treves. Whatever were the cause, — whether 
ancient dissensions between Treves and the 
house of Burgundy concerning their claims on 
Luxemburg, or perhaps the hope which the 
Elector (who was already " Archchancellor 
through Gallia and the kingdom of Aries") 
might entertain of an accession to his power 
and importance in case France were once more 
so closely united to the empire, — it is certain 
that Elector Richard had been equally deaf to 
the seductions of Maximilian and to the pray- 
ers of delegates from the Spanish Netherlands. 
On the other hand, the terms of the credentials 
given him by Francis show the most implicit 
confidence in him. " Convinced of his fidelity, 
his zeal, his honour, and his prudence," the 
king nominated him his lawful and unques- 
tioned procurator, envoy and commissary, with 
full powers to grant to the remaining electors 
and their confidential servants, or to any other 
princes of the empire, as much money as he 
thought fit, either in one sum, or in the form 
of yearly pension ; and to that intent, to mort- 
gage the crown lands in the name of the king, 
and even in that of his successors : Vv'hatever 
he agreed to v/as to have the same force and 
validity as if concluded by the king in person. 
While he declared himself ready to protect the 
rights and privileges of the princes, the nobles 
and the cities ; and, generally, to do every- 
thing appertaining to an emperor, — especially 
to undertake the war against the Turks for the 
defence and extension of the faith, — he em- 



* In Rome it was asserted, "che 1' era in Augusta el 
dito Arnirante," accordin<j to letters of the 1st of April ; 
but I find no further proof of it. 

t The statements of Flassans, Histoire de la Diplom. 
Fr. i. 321, are not of importance. But he there mention.s 
a " liasse contenant des memoires, lettres et instructions 
donnees par Francois I. ä ses envoyös aupres des elec- 
teurs," in the Tresor des Chartes. ([ looked them over 
myself in the year 1839, and have extracted from them 
some remarkable notices.) The accounts of the jeune 
aventureux (Memoires de Fleuranges, Coll. univ. xvi. 
227,) though vv^ell worth reading, do not go deep enough. 



powered the Elector of Treves, should the oc- 
casion present itself, to take the required oath . 
on the salvation of his soul. ^ 

Nor were the king's negotiations fruitless in 
other quarters. A complete outline of a treaty 
with the Elector Palatine was drawn up by his 
envoys,:!;: and in the beginning of April that 
prince raised his pecuniary demands on Austria 
threefold, and revived his claim to the Stew- 
ardship {Landvogtei) of Ilagenau. Cologne 
received a warning from Austria not to allow 
herself to be seduced into the wron^ way? 
while the French sometimes thought them- 
selves nearly sure of her support. 

All these Rhenish electors feared the vio- 
lence and vengeance of Francis I. in case they 
resisted him ; they were alarmed at perceiving 
no refuge or defence on the other side. But 
the support of the See of Rome was still more 
advantageous to the king's cause, than the 
fears or the sense of weakness of these princes. 
Pope Leo X. indeed sometimes expressed 
hnnself doybtfuUy, and it appeared as if he 
would not take part against Austria; but he 
was far too deeply versed in the policy of Italy, 
not to see the dangers^that would impend over 
himself if Naples were united to the empire. 
The Venetian ambassador, who enjoyed his 
confidence, affirms that Leo would on no ac- 
count consent to that.§ Nor was the court of 
Spain deceived ; King Charles once ordered 
the pope's messengers to be arrested in Tyrol, 
in order to obtain proof of the illicit practices 
of the court of Rome in that country.|| He 
knew that the legate spoke ill of him ; one of 
his councillors was astonished when the Elec- 
tor of Mainz showed him all the letters he had 
received from the papal court in the interest of 
the French. Of all the electors he was the 
one whom it was the most important to gain ; 
and who had such ample means of gaining 
him as the pope 1 One of the favourite objects 
of the elector of Mainz was to get himself no- 
minated legate of Germany, like Araboise in 
France and Wolsey in England. It is well 
known how difficult it was to induce the See 
of Rome to grant that dignity to a native ; but 
at the present moment, and in favour of Fran- 
cis L, it was disposed to do so. In a letter 
dated from St. Peter's, March 14, 1519, and 
bearing the seal of the fisherman's ring, Leo 
X. authorized the king, in the event of his ob- 
taining the imperial crown by the vote and in- 
fluence of the Elector of Mainz, to promise, the 
same the dignity of legate in Germany : he, 
Leo X., binding himself, on the word of a true 
pope of Rome, to fulfil the engagement. There 
seem.ed little reason to doubt that the elector 
would yield to such a temptation. =^* 

X In the extract in Stumpf, Baierns polit. Gesch. i. p. 
24. 

§ " II papa dice vol far osni cosa in favor del re chris- 
tianissimo, et non vol sia il re cattolico perniuno partido 
per esserli troppo vicino, e poi S. S'^ e in lisa col re chris- 
tianissimo dicendo aver raandato al re cattolico il jura- 
mento ha fatto per il reame di Napoli accio si aricordi ; 
poi prego I'orator tenesse silentio." Roma, ]2.April. 

II "Pour d6voiier ses illicitos poursuites." From the 
letter of the 31st of March in Gacharri. 

** I give in the Appendix the letter from the Archives 
of Paris. 



Chap. II. 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



123 



The bait which he held out to Joachim I., 

Elector of Brandenburg, brother of the Cardi- 
nal, was at least equally alluring-. Joachim, 
to whom IMaximilian had promised his grand- 
daughter Catherine, the sister of Charles, in 
marriage to the hereditary prince, with a very 
large dowry, had conceived some suspicions 
that- there was a design to disappoint him. 
The contract was indeed ratified, but only by 
Charles, not by the princess, without whose 
consent it could not be considered binding. 
The Fuggers declared themselves not autho- 
rized to fulfil the pecuniary obligations con- 
tracted with the Elector. Joachim, whether 
at home or in his foreign relations, was fiery, 
resolute, and suspicious ; in money matters, 
above all, he was not to be trifled with. He 
was already mortified that the affair had not 
been terminated a year sooner, as he wished. 
He therefore fixed a term within v\iiich the 
promises made him were to be fulfilled, and 
meanwhile gave audience to the French am- 
bassador, de la Motte. The French now in 
their turn promised him a princess of the blood 
for his son, — Madame Renee, daughter of 
Louis Xn. and Queen x\nne, — with a still 
larger dowrj'', for the payment of vrhich they 
oflfered greater security than their rival. But 
they did not fail to accompany these promises 
■with others of a far more extensive character. 
In case Francis I. w^as really chosen, they de- 
clared themselves empowered to acknowledge 
the elector his lieutenant or viceroy ; but if that 
was found to be impracticable, they would use 
all their influence to raise Joachim himself to 
the throne. Joachim was not so free from am- 
bition as not to be captivated by proposals of 
such a kind. The moment of Brandenburg's 
greatness seemed to him arrived. It was some- 
thing that he should be lieutenant of the future 
emperor; his brother, legate of the pope; the 
highest secular and spiritual honours would 
thus be united in his house. Behind these, 
floated the far more splendid vision of the im- 
perial (trown. 

While however the French became thus 
deeply implicated with the house of Branden- 
burg, they did not desist from attempts to gain 
over the elector of Saxony.* We have no ac- 
curate knowledge of the negotiations carried 
on with him, but we have evidence that the 
French were perfectly well informed of the 
disgusts the elector had latterly had to endure 
respecting the Netherlands; and presumed that 
he would not be very willing to recognize the 
sovereign of that province as his emperor. 

During these negotiations, which awakened 
such lively hope, the opposition in the interests 
of France, so long kept down by the late em- 
peror, broke out in acts of open violence. Ul- 
rich of Würtemberg, even on his way home 
from the obsequies of Maximilian, made an 
attack on Reutlingen, where one of his stew- 
ards was killed, took the town, and, w^ith the 
aid of French money, | collected a numerous 



* Letter from the Venetian ambassador, dated Poisy, 
March 28 : " Del duca di Saxonia si confida ; non vorrä il 
re catolico." 

t Francis complained afterwards that Ulrich had de- 
dared the sum which lie had received. See Sattler, ii. 



army, with which he thought to revenge him- 
self on all his enemies, especially the Duke of 
Bavaria, He negotiated with the Swiss, and 
hoped to excite them to take up arms against 
the Swabian league. Somewhat later, the 
Bishop of Hildesheim also put himself at the 
head of his troops, and, during Passion week, 
unxler the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, 
inflicted the most fearful devastations on the 
territory of his Brunswick enemies. The D«ke 
of Lüneburg, who had also received money 
from France, acted in concert with him, gained 
friends on all sides, and made magnificent pre- 
parations for war. The Duke of Gueldres had 
promised to send him succours, and took troops 
into his service. 

The French endeavoured to gain over other 
military chiefs, as for example, in Upper Ger- 
many, Sickingen ; in Lower, Henry of Meck- 
lenburg. The latter was to bind himself to 
appear with his troops at Coblentz in the ter- 
ritory of Treves, immediately after the elec- 
tion, in order to earn the pension premised him 
by the king.^i French money was offered to 
the Counts of the Harz, and to the nobles of 
Westphalia, through the mediation of Guel- 
dres.§ 

The idea of the French doubtless was, that 
they should best attain their end by a union 
of negotiation and warlike demonstrations, — 
of persuasion and terror. The court already 
regarded the event as nearly certain. It is 
said that the king's mother had ordered the 
jewels in which she meant to appear at the 
coronation.]) The ambition of her son took a 
higher flight. When the English ambassador 
asked him whether it was his serious intention, 
if he became emperor, to take any active mea- 
sures as to the long-talked of Turkish war, he 
solemnly assured him, laying his hand on his 
heart, that in three 5'ears he would either not 
be alive, or be in Constantinople.** 

But he was far from being so near the goal 
of his wishes as he and his courtiers imagined. 
The attachment to Austria was not so weak 
in Germany as to have lost all its force on the 
death of the emperor. The electors might in- 
deed vacillate, but they were not yet won by 
France. Enemies of the House of Austria 
might arise, but it found friends who adhered to 
it with constancy. A>.bove all, too, that house 
possessed a head resolved to defend his claims, 
prepared to accept the challenge of his French 
rival, and to sustain the combat to the last. 

Some former councillors of Maximilian, 
Matthew Lang, Villinger, Renner, and cer- 
tain delegates from the court of the Ne- 
therlands, among whom the most con- 
spicuous was Maximilian of Zevenberghen, 
formed a commission in Augsburg, v/hich, 

92. A letter in Sanuto, dated April 27, 3519. " S. M. 
Xma era quello che dava danari al duca de Virtemberg, 
accio teuesse la guerra in Germania." 

X Rudlnir, Neuere Gesch. von Mecklenberg, 1. p. 50. 

§ The Count of Schvvarzbur<j declared, according to a 
letter of Nassau, of the 20th of March, in Mone (p. 136), 
that a peusion of 600 livres for his life had been offered 
him, and that he had not accepted it. 

|( Le Ferron, v. 118. 

** Sir Thomas Boleyn to King Henry. Ellis Letters, i, 
147. 



124 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



Book II. 



under the presidency of Margaret, watched 
over the interests of Austria. Able and de- 
voted as these men vi^ere, they sometimes took 
a very gloomy viev7 of aftairs, and feared for 
the event. At one time the thought passed 
through their minds, that it would be better to 
put forv/ard the Archduke Ferdinand, Charles's 
brother, who was just arrived in the Nether- 
lands from Spain : they were at all events very 
desirous that he should come to Germany with- 
out loss of time. But they little knew their 
master, King Charles, if they thought this 
could be agreeable . to him. He was not only 
displeased, but incensed at it. He declared to 
the Archduchess Margaret, that he was abso- 
lutely determined to have the crown himself, 
hj whatever means it was to be obtained, and 
at whatever cost ; he forbade his brother's jour- 
ney.* He who united in his person so many 
monarchies, felt that his ambition would be un- 
satisfied till he had achieved the supreme dig- 
nity of Christendom. He had long reflected 
not only on the advantages likely to result from 
it, but on the disadvantages he had to expect if 
he failed, and that dignity was bestowed on 
another. He resorted without delay to every 
form of canvass. To the electors he represent- 
ed that his great-grandfather, and his grand- 
father, the late Maximilian, when invested with 
the imperial majesty, had governed the German 
nation long and well ; he was resolved to tread 
in their footsteps, and to protect all franchises, 
spiritual and temporal, particular and general ; 
and to abate everything which could be preju- 
dicial to the liberties of Germany. He declared 
that his sole object was to maintain peace 
throughout Christendom ; and, after the pattern 
of his other grandfather, the King of Arragon, 
to make war upon the unbelievers, and to re- 
serve his whole force for the defence and diffu- 
sion of the Catholic faith.f From this time 
Ferdinand was no more thought of: the coun- 
cillors reverted to their original project — to 
raise their elder lord, the King of Spam, to the 
station of " Prince of prmces," at whatever risk 
or sacrifice. 

We must here examine a little in detail 
what v/ere the means to which they resorted, 
what the circumstances which favoured them, 
and what the obstacles they encountered. 

Their greatest advantage was precisely that 
from which their antagonist had hoped the 
most — the connection between Francis and the 
Pope. 

At a meeting of the Rhenish electors at 
Wesel, in the beginning of April, the papal 
legate formally admonished them, in virtue of 
a prohibitory bull of Clement IV., not to elect 
the King of Naples, which country, he said, 
was the property of the Church of Rome. 
Though the negotiations between the French 
and the electors were at that moment pecu- 
liarly active, such a demand as this roused 
their spirit of independence. They replied 
that they were astonished that the Pope should 



endeavour to throw a prohibition in the way of 
the election — a thing which the See of Rome 
had never done ; and expressed their hope that 
his holiness would desist from- such an attempt. 
The legate answered with some bitterness ; he 
reminded them of their not altogether lawful 
transactions with Maximilian. A correspond- 
ence arose which betrayed great irritation, and 
was not much fitted to advance the cause the 
pope had espoused.^ 

The warlike movements of Francis and his 
allies were, if possible, yet more advantageous 
to his rival ; above all, the rising of the restless 
Würtemburger. Some few of the imperial 
council thought to settle the affair in good Ger- 
man fashion, by peaceful means ; but the more 
sagacious prevented this : they foresaw with 
certainty on whose side the superior strength 
lay, who would be victorious, and what an ad- 
vantage would result to the interests of the 
election; they wished for war. § The Swabian 
league, irritated by former and by recent af- 
fronts, and now strengthened by considerable 
subsidies, was ready to take the field. Franz 
von Sickingen at length accepted a yearly pen- 
sion from the house of Burgundy, broke off all 
negotiations with France, and promised to come 
to the aid of the league with his cavalry. It 
was, however, at the same time, necessary to 
restrict the struggle within these limits, to pre- 
vent a general conflagration, and especially to 
keep the Swiss from siding with Wlirtemberg. 

Duke Ulrich had already taken 16,000 Swiss 
into his pay ; and it was to be feared that the 
old hostility between the Confederation and the 
Swabian league might break out anew, as it 
had done twenty years before. This would 
have been as welcome a sight to Francis as it 
was to his predecessor Louis XII. It was all- 
important not only that it should be avoided, 
but that contrary dispositions should be excited. 

The election of emperor had already been 
discussed in the Swiss diet. French ambassa- 
dors had presented themselves to seek the sup- 
port of the Confederation : the Swiss in Paris, 
among them Albert von Stein, advised their 
countrymen to declare for tlie king, were it only 
in order to enjoy the credit and the favour result- 
ing from an event which was no longer to be 
averted.il The Confederation was not, however, 
so decidedly French as to follow this course. 
The Cardinal von Sitten, the old enemy of the 
French, well skilled in all the secret ways of 
diplomacy, was then in Zürich, and in the en- 
joyment of great consideration. In the middle 
/3f March, Zevenberghen came from Augsburg 
to his aid. They had, indeed, no easy task. 
Zevenberghen makes loud complaints of the 
bad words and threats he was obliged to endure 
from the pensionaries and speakers; what it 



* Margaret to Zevenberghen, May 15. " Absolument 
le roi est delibörö de luirmesme parvenir ä I'empire, com- 
ment que ce soil et quoi que il luy doibve couster." 

t Papiers d'Etat du CI. Granvelle, t. i. p. 132. 



X Correspondence in Bucholtz, iii. 670. Acta Legationis 
in Goldast, Political Inaper., p. 102. This coincides with 
the fact of the electors demanding back so seriously and 
pressingly their circular letters from Augsburg. 

6 Letter from Zevenberghen, March 28. Mone. Matth. 
Schiner. Feb. 12. " Q.ue ce Due de Wirtemberg estoit le 
plus grand ami du roi (Charles)— car a cause de sa folie la 
grande lighe ferout de si grosses arm6es qui feront crainte 
aux Francois et autres qui veuillent empescher son elec- 
tion." 

I Anshelm, Chronicle of Berne, v. 375. 



Chap. II. 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



125 



cost him to acknowledg-e " this low rabble as 
gentlemen, and to pay them respect; he would 
rather carry stones ;" but he bore it all : he did 
among- them, he said, as if at a fair — paid much 
and promised more ; at length he succeeded. 
The main cause of his success was, indeed, the 
interests of Switzerland herself; not onl}^ the 
recollection of the Swiss blood shed in the late 
wars, or of the numerous claims which still 
remained unsatisfied ; but above all, the consi- 
deration that France vrould, by the acquisition 
of the imperial dignity, become too migbty, 
would no longer need the assistance of the 
Swiss, and would consequently trouble herself 
no more about them^still less, pay their pen- 
sions. On the 18th of March, the Swiss diet 
came to a formal resolution to oppose the elec- 
tion of the French king to the imperial crown, 
with body and soul (as they expressed it) ; and 
on the contrary to promote the election of a 
German prince, whether an elector or another. 
In pursuance of this they wrote to the electors, 
and to* Francis himself; they took the liberty 
to admonish the latter to content liimself with 
his own kingdom. The Austrian ambassadors 
wished the Confederation to declare openly for 
King Charles, but this they could not accom- 
plish. " Wherever they fall," says Zevenber- 
ghen, "there they ai3ide."* JN^evertheless, 
much was effected. The ancient union with 
Austria was renewed." The diet determined 
to recall from the field those of their people 
who had joined the duke, and with such una- 
nimous earnestness that they should not dare 
to resist. 

This decided Duke Ulriclis rum. Zeven- 
berghen justly gloried in having persuaded the 
diet to pass such a resolution. 

At the moment when letters of challenge 
(Fehdebriefe) poured in upon the duke from ail 
sides — when even some of his own vassals re- 
nounced their allegiance, and the powerful 
troops o^ the league were preparing to fall upon 
his country — at that moment he was abandoned 
by those who alone could have defended him. 
His Würtemberg militia did not understand 
regular warfare ; his cavalry was no match 
whatever for that of the league. The league 
encountered no resistance. On the 21st of 
April they took Tubingen, where the duke's 
children were residing : and he himself was 
compelled to abandon his country. 

So complete a victory — deciding the con- 
quest of a considerable principality — turned 
the scale in favour of the Austrian hiterest 
through the whole of Upper Germany. 

A simuar change soon followed in Lovv'er 
Germany. Towards the end of May the dukes 
of Calenberg and Wolfenbuttel had completed 
their preparations, and appeared in the field, 
with their auxiliaries from Hessen and Meissen, 
in undisputed superiority. They destroyed 
Waidenstein, stormed Peine, and plundered 
the Lüneburg territory. Fifty villages were 
seen in flames at once on their path, nor did 
they spare a single church ; they defaced the 

* Mars 22. " La ou ils tombent, ils demeurent corame 
tels gens qu'ils sont." Gachard, 178. See Maroton to 
Margaret, April 10, Mone, 397. 



arms of their own house, the house of Welf, on 
their cousin's castle, and carried off rich booty, 
" They were of a proud spirit," says a song of 
that day ; " they had silver and the red gold ; 
they went m velvet with golden chains ; they 
had two thousand chariots with them." They 
challenged the Duke of Lüneburg in mockery 
to do battle, while he was still waiting for the 
succour promised him from Gueldres. 

But if the French thought to attain their end 
by the aid of the intestine wars of Germany, 
they soon found how completely they had de- 
ceived themselves. Exactly at the decisive 
moment, these private wars took a turn in fa- 
vour of Austria. 

Under the impressions produced by these 
events, the plenipotentiaries of King Charles 
renewed their negotiations with the electors 
with the greatest diligence. 

Towards the end of April, a Spanish charge- 
d'affaires arrived, bringing the archbishop of 
Mainz the assej^t to all his demands. Very re- 
markable concessions and promises v/ere made 
to him; fiill power over the chancery of the 
empire ; the protection of the emperor in the 
dispute of the archbishopric with Saxony about 
Erfurt, and in that Vvath Hessen about a nev.dy- 
erected toll; the emperor's intercession with 
the pope that he would allovv^ the archbishop to 
hold a fourth bishopric in Germ.any ; and, lastly, 
(for the example of France was to be followed 
m this) his appointment as legate of the Apos- 
tolical See in the empire. Moreover, the pen- 
sions promised hhn v.'ere secured to him hy 
special legal instruments fi-om Mechlin and 
Antwerp.! From this time we find the arch- 
bisliop, who had vacillated for a moment, un- 
shaken in his attachment to Austria and doubl}'" 
zealous m her cause. He threw the whole 
weight which the dignity of archchancellor 
gave him in Germany, mto the scale of Kmg 
Charles. 

The elector palatine's support was secured 
by similar means. He had wavered, only be- 
cause the publication of his new agreement 
with Austria as'to the succession, and the pro- 
mised compensation for the stewardship of 
Hagenau were delayed; while, on the other 
hand, the Swabian league threatened to espouse' 
the pecuniary claims urged against him by the 
Rhenish merchants. The Austrian plenipoten- 
tiaries hastened to allay these troubles ; they 
satisfied the demands of the merchants at their • 
ovrn cost. Count Palatine Frederic, moreover, 
exerted all his influence with his brother in 
favour of Austria, and considerable sums of 
money v\'ere granted to both.:}: Though the 
elector had said at first, that whatever wind 
blevv% he would alwaj^s be for Austria, he had 
not entirely kept his word ; but he gradually 
returned to his first intention, and remained 
constant to it. 

The difliculties with Cologne were not so 
gTeat. The Count of Nassau, who conducted 
the negotiations in this part of the country, un- 



tCarolus ad Albertum 12 Martii, in Gudenus, iv. C07. 
Jean de le Sauche ä Marguer. 2Sth April ; Mone, p. 403. 

J Correspondence in Mone, p. 34. See Hubert Tliomas 
Leodius, Vita Friderici Palatini, iv. p. 100. sq. 



126 



ELECTION. OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



Book II. 



derstood the means of conciliating- the Rhenish 
counts generally, and the archbishop — who was 
by birth one of that body — in particular. The 
concessions made to that prelate at Aug-sburg 
were now extended. We have a letter of his, 
dated the 6th of June, in which he treats the 
affair of the election as settled, as soon as Bo- 
hemia shall be secured.* 

The King of Bohemia had indeed at first 
contemplated availing himself of the engage- 
ments entered into with him by Maximilian, 
^and had in consequence sent his ambassadors 
to Italy ; but he soon saw how little he had to 
expect. The pope treated his documents with 
the greatest contempt, as some of the many 
privilegia v/hich Maximilian had created in 
order to put money into the pockets of his 
clerks. Upon this the government of Bohemia 
resolved to support the house of Austria, with 
which it was about to enter into so near a 
family alliance. Perhaps the circumstance 
that John, brother of the Margrave George of 
Brandenburg, who had great mfluence at that 
court, vv&s, just married to the widow of Fer- 
dinand the Catholic, and nominated Viceroy 
of Valencia,! contributed greatly to this result. 

There remained, therefore, only Treves, 
Brandenburg, and Saxony; and the Austrian 
plenipotentiaries shov/ed no lack of zeal in 
their endeavours to secure these important 
votes. 

With Treves there was nothing to be done. 
Although the dependents of the elector gave 
some hope, he himself declared he would keep 
his vote free, and fi'om this resolution no re- 
presentations could induce him to depart. If, 
notwithstanding this, he had entered into the 
close connexion with France which we have 
already noticed, it must have been under some 
reservation which secured to him his freedom 
of voting at the decisive moment. Such, at 
least, was the case with Brandenburg. 

On the 20th of April, the plenipotentiaries 
of King Charles, the Count of Nassau, M. de 
la Roche, and Nicholas Ziegler, who enjoyed 
the especial confidence of the archbishop of 
Mainz, arrived at Berlin. They w^ere com- 
missioned to renew to Elector Joachim all the 
promises wdiich had formerly been made to 
him, especially in relation to the marriage of 
his son with the archduchess and infanta Cathe- 
rine. They brought with them the infanta's 
ratification, and placed it in the hands of a 
kinsman of the elector, Markgrave Casimir. 
But they found Joachim little disposed to listen 
to them. The utmost that he w^ould promise 
was, that he would vote for Charles, if the four 
electors who preceded him had done so; and 
even for this very unsatisfactory engagement, 
he made greater demands than they were em- 
powered to grant. Nor had he given any pro- 
mise to the King of France, but with the con- 
dition that two electors should have voted on 
that side before it came to his turn ; yet that 
sovereign had, in addition to various other con- 



cessions, agreed to these exorbitant demands. 
According to the first proposal made by Mar- 
garet, her ambassadors certainly gave the elec- 
tor reason to hope that he would have the 
lieutenancy of the empire, but I do not find 
whether this was confirmed by Charles or not. 
The ambassadors did not accede to a sugges- 
tion of Joachim's as to the vicariate of the em- 
pire for the Saxon provinces ; still less would 
they permit him to hope for the crown, in any 
case or under any condition. As this was 
the prospect that first allured the elector, we 
need not wonder that they had no success with 
him. 

It was the more important to obtain the vote 
of him whom Austria had lately so deeply 
offended, and whom the councillors regarded as 
their most formidable opponent — Frederic of 
Saxony. I As the Bohemian vote did not carry 
great weight (and indeed the last election was 
concluded without Bohemia), the vote of Sax- 
ony v/as necessary to the formation of a majority 
that would be universally recognised. The 
refusal of the elector to take part in the mea- 
sures agreed on at Augsburg, which excited 
great discontent in the nation when they were 
known, had increased the already high consi- 
deration he enjoyed. Moral authority and the 
consent of public opinion were attached to this 
vote ; every effort must be made to secure it. 

The elector himself remained inaccessible. 
He would hear of no promises ; he forbade his 
servants to receive presents, and, referred all 
inquiries to the day of election, when it would 
be seen to whom he gave his vote ; till theh he 
would keep it free. 

But there is no position on earth so lofty or 
so impregnable, that it cannot be reached by 
some means or other. The deputies determined 
to take a step which, if successful, would cer- 
tainly put an end to all the animosities that had 
been accumulating between Saxony and Aus- 
tria. They now offered the Archduchess 
Catherine, sister of King Charles, who had just 
been the subject of their fruitless negotiations 
with Joachim I., to Duke John, brother of the 
elector, for his son, John Frederic, the future 
heir to the electorate. 

To this proposal Duke John replied, that the 
king would be able to place his sister in a more 
exalted position. The ambassadors answered, 
that the king only wished to renew the ancient 
alliance of the two houses. They overruled 
the objections raised by his modesty in the most 
dexterous and flattering manner, by reminding 
him that the sister of Emperor Frederic was 
the grandmother of the dukes of Saxony. § 

The elector took no part in these negotia- 
tions, but he allowed them to go on. The am- 
bassadors thought they discovered that the 
whole business of the election depended on the 
success of them. They v/rote first from Lo- 
chau, and again on the 16th of May from Ru- 
dolstadt, to the king, in Spain, urging him to 
send them full powers to conclude this treaty . 



* Bucholtz, iii. 671. 

t Letter from Charles to Casimir on this subject, March 
6, 1519 : öpiess, Brandenburgische Münzbelustigungen, i. 
p. 389. 



X Marnix to Margaret, March 16, traces the unfavour- 
able disposition of Bohemia, amongst other sources, to 
Saxony. Mone, p. 131. 

§ Müller, Geschichte der Protestation, p. 689. 



..IL 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



127 



of marriage as quicldy as possible, if he would 
not have their endeavours prove fruitless ; this 
was the only means of arrivino- at the desired 
end.* This was so obvious to the king- that he 
did not hesitate an mstant. On the 30th of 
May he signed the act empowering his envoys 
to negotiate this marriage and everythmg re- 
latmg to it, in his name, and to arrange the 
terms with an authority equal to his o\Yn.\ 
Hereupon Duke John granted his council full 
powers to treat ; in the preamble to which lie 
said that, " bearmg in mind the dignity of the 
crown of Spain, and the name and race of the 
honourable house of Austria, he wished most 
especially to see his son, who was also well 
inclined thereto, advised to a friendly marriage 
v/ith the most illustrious princess, the Lady 
Catherine." The Austrian ambassadors had 
now only to ascertain what effect this good un- 
derstanding with the duke was likely to have 
on the elector, and to act accordmgly. 

At all events, it is evident that they had suc- 
cessfully employed the interest of the house 
they served. 

But the affair was not decided thus, 

Austria had now unquestionably a majority 
of declared friends in the electoral college ; 
but the Frencii, too, could reckon on more than 
one partisan, and did not relmquish the hope of 
gaining over one or tvro of the others. They 
had just m.ade a vehement, and, as they be- 
lieved, successful attempt on the elector of 
Cologne : they thought that even if the}^ had 
only three votes, the pope Vvould declare the 
election valid ; and his legate, at least, adhered 
firmly to their side up to the middle of June, 

Austria was mdeed victorious, and remained 
with arms in her hands ; but the partisans of 
France in Lower Germany were by no means 
crushed. We find traces of very extensive and 
unexpected plans ; e. g. an original document, 
in which Francis promises to pay whatever 
troops the electors of Treves and Brandenburg- 
should levy in Germany, under the extraordi- 
nary pretext that they were to m.aintain the 
neace of the country and the freedom of the 
roads for the meeting in Frankfurt. The Duke 
of Gueldres Vv^as already up in arms again. 
The Frenqh troops did not yet advance upon 
the German frontier, but they v/ere prepared to 
do so. I 

The two powers vied with each other in pro- 
digal expenditure of money. It was a peculiar 
advantage on the side of Austria that the great 
mercantile house of Fugger, vv'hich conducted 
nearly the whole m.onetary business of Ger- 
many, refused its services to the Fi*ench.5 
Admiral Bonnivet had, however, brought large 
sums in hard mioney to Germany, whicli many 
might think better than any bills of exchange 
whatsoever. 

*Nassou ec Peine, May 16, Mone, p. 406. 

t Document in Arnoldi's Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 8. 

X Letter from France, May 26. " In Franza non e 
alcun raotivo di arme, ma ben la zente preparata." 

§ Letter from Zevenbershen ; Mone. p. 36. Li the Neth- 
erlands Margaret forbade business reiatins to French bills 
of exchange to be transacted. Ibid. p. 293. But we find 
the imperial agents not always on a good understanding 
with the Fuggers. The Welsers seeui to have done busi- 
ness on lower terms. 



Had the event depended exclusively on pe- 
cuniary interests, its decision would have re- 
mained very doubtful. 

But considerations of a totally different nature 
evidently had weight. 

We must do the princes of Germany in old 
times the justice to admit, that, spite of the 
many scandalous transactions they engaged in, 
the mterests of the nation always prevailed at 
last. 

To uphold the ancient privileges of the em- 
pire against all attacks or encroachments of the 
See of Rome, was tlie motive Vv'hich led the 
Rhenish electors to reject the proposals and 
arguments of the legate. 

But was not Francis also a foreigner ] Could 
the electoral college venture so lightly to alien- 
ate from the nation that imperial crown which, 
at every diet, they solemnly promised to main- 
tain? There were those who did not fail to 
remark that Francis was an absolute monarch, 
accustomed to implicit obedience and possessed 
of great pov/er, under whose sceptre the main- 
tenance of German liberties could hardly be 
expected. The violent acts of his partisans 
were not calculated to make quiet patriots his 
Ixiends. 

On the other hand, the young King of Spain 
Vv'as without question a German. He remmded 
the German princes that the true stem and the 
first blossom of his nobility were fi'om Austria , 
V7ere he not a Gennan, had he not land and 
lordships in Germany, he would Vvdthdraw from 
the contest. 

How profound an effect was produced by this 
difference m the pretensions of the rivals, is 
distinctly shown by a remark of the papal dele- 
gates. They say, every one will, in the end, 
deem it infaujous to receive money from France ; 
but to take it fi"om King Charles, is thought 
nothing of. 

Public opinion had also already declared 
itself on the matter. The electors had it in 
their power to choose one of their ov/n body-— 
a German prince. Had they chosen the King 
of France, takmg money too for their votes, 
the result might have been dangerous to them- 
selves. 

All these things were gradually so distinctly 
felt, that, by the middle of June, Charles's su- 
periority vras decided, and no further doubt vras 
entertained of the event, 

Henry YIIL of England for a moment che- 
rished the hope of placing the crovm on his 
own head, during the contest of the other two 
sovereigns ; but his ambassador acted v;ith great 
discretion and reserve. He looked at the afiair 
like a man of business, and, on calculation, he 
found his crown too dear a purchase for its 
value and utility. H A letter of his, of the 12th 
of June, shows that he had then given up all 
hope. 

At this conjuncture Carracciolo, one of the 
pope's charges-d'affaires, caused himself to be 
carried, ill as he vras, to the archbishop of 
Mainz, in order that he might once more re- 
commend to that prelate the interests of the 



il Richard Pace ; Ellis, i. 156. See Herbert, Life of 
Henry VIIL, p. 74. 



123 



ELECTION OF EMPEROR IN 1519. 



Book II. 



church and of the King of France. The arch- 
bishop answered, that he took upon his own 
head the affairs of the church, but that he would 
have nothing to do with the King- of France. 
The envoy asked upon whom the choice of the 
electors would fall ! The cardmal said, on the 
King of Spain ; and, if not upon him, then upon 
the Elector of Saxony. The envoy was per- 
fectly astonished that the cardinal, notwith- 
standing such repeated misunderstandmgs, still 
preferred the Elector of Saxony to the King of 
France.* These words perhaps decided the 
conduct of the Roman see. When Pope Leo 
found what the dispositions of Germany were, 
he was heard to exclaim that it Vv'ould not do 
to run one's head against the wall ; an-^xpres- 
sion characteristic of his policy, which was 
always that of giving way before an obstinate 
resistance. After having so long held out, he 
at length yielded (June 24tli), and announced 
to the electors his assent to the election of the 
King of Spain and Naples. 

When the electors assem.bled in Frankfurt 
there was not the smallest hope left for Francis: 
the only remaining obstacle to Charles's suc- 
cess was the wish which had existed among 
them, of having a native of the soil of Germany 
for their emperor. f The elector Joachim, who 
now put forward urgent claims,| was thought 
of; but his own relations, above all his brother 
of Mamz, were against him ; they found that 
the maintenance of the imperial dignity would 
necessitate exertions and expenses v/hich Vv'ould 
consume the resources of the Mark, and those 
of their whole family ; they knev»% too, that the 
princes of the empire would not choose a liead 
of so harsh, severe and self-willed a character. 
Joachim would never have conciliated a suffi- 
cient number of voices. A far more formida- 
ble rival existed in the person of Frederic of 
Saxony, on whom the eyes of the assembly 
v/ere nov/ turned. Richard of Treves went to 
him once by night, and offered to take a part 
of the labour of the canvass on himself His 
own hopes behig utterly at an end, the King of 
France determined to use his influence in fa- 
vour of Frederic. Considering the conduct of 
that prince in the Lutheran affairs, and the 
national tendencies with which these affairs 
v/ere connected, this certainly opened one of 
the grandest prospects for the destiny of Ger- 
many. The electors were, on the whole, well 
disposed towards the measure ; indeed it was 
afterwards said, in the way of reproach, tliat 
if there had been one among them " capable 
of sustaining the empire," he would have been 

*" Lzesso Mojjuntino habbi jrran iniinicitia con Saxo- 
nia, lo vul avanti che il re christian issinio." 

tThe Italians, for instance, could not at all compre- 
hend why such an one was not chosen. "Li electori," 
, says Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador at Rome, 
" saranno pazzi a non si far uno di loro." On this ground 
they v.illingly believed tliat the Elector of Brandenburg 
would be chosen. " Scrive ii CI. Sedunese, sarä il Bran- 
denburg, 5 Giugno." Hereon rests also Vettori's opinion, 
that Leo had never wished to dve his support to tl)e kin^, 
in whose behalf, however, he iiad expressed himself far too 
decisively. 

X According to a letter from the admiral, of the 17th or 
18th of June, " 11 Treverese havea rimosso il Marchese di 
Brandenburg qual volea esser electo lui ;" but he con- 
cluded thence, that the king had fresh hope. 



chosen. Had Frederic only been inspired by 
a more daring ambition ! Had he not been of 
so cautious a nature, rendered still less enter- 
prising by age ! But he had too long and too 
profound an acquaintance with the history of 
the empire, not to know that a vast preponder- 
ance of power was necessary to hold together 
m union and subordination these haughty, ener- 
getic princes and states, all striving for inde- 
pendence. 

Although liis resolution was taken, he once 
asked his follower, Philip of Solms, his opi- 
nion. Philip replied, that he feared his lord 
would not be able to use his power of punish- 
ing with due severity. Frederic answered, 
that he was of the same opinion ; and declined 
the proffered support. 5 The time was come, 
too, when no more reserves could be mamtain- 
ed: he declared himself openly for King 
Charles. This declaration decided those who 
had till then been wavering. 

On the 2Sth of June, the tocsin was sounded, 
according to ancient custom, and the electors 
assembled, clad in their scarlet robes of state, 
in the small dark chapel in the choir of the 
church of St. Barthplomew, which served them 
as conclave. They were already unanknous. 
Mainz addressed himself first, accordmg to 
ancient precedent, to Treves, who replied that 
he voted for the Archduke Charles of Austria,, 
Prince of Burgundy, King of Spain. So said 
they all ; the King of France had not a vote.ji 

The electors were however mindful, in 
choosing so puissant a prince, immediately to 
take measures for securing the rights of the 
empire. They laid before the elected King 
of the Romans a rigorous capitulation, con- 
structed on the principles which had been eßta- 
blished during the last negotiations with Maxi- 
milian.^ In this it was decided that the public 
ofhces should be filled exclusively by Germans, 
the public proceedings carried on exclusively 
in the . German language, and the assemblies 
of the empire invariably held vrithin the fron- 
tiers of the German nation. Nor did the elec- 
tors forget their own pri-\-ileges. They stipu- 
lated that they were to have seats in the 
Council of Regency ; that no war was to be 
declared, no alliance concluded, no diet con- 
voked — it is hardly necessary to add, no tax 
imposed — Vv'ithout their consent ; whatever was 
acquired by the counsel and aid of tlie States 
in war, should remam'for ever the property of 
the empire.** 

And here another reflection suggests itself 
The princes, it is true, elected a puissant mon- 
arch as their chief But it may be asked, v/as 
not his position, v.-hich rendered inevitable his 
^frequent absence, favourable to the development 
of their own power 1 , 



§ Extract from Lucas Geierberg, Leben Philipsen, Gra- 
fen von Solms, after the preface to Gobel's Beiträgen zur 
Staatsgeschichte von Europa, p. 19. 

II Protocollum Electionis in Goldast's Polit. Reichshün- 
deln, p. 4L The speeches said to have been delivered on 
this occasion are fictitious. See Ranke, Zur Kritik 
neuerer Geschichtschreiber, p. 62. 

¥ Revers in Bucholtz, iii. 668. 

*''= Capitulation, amongst others, in Dtimont, iv. 1. Un- 
fortunately 1 have not been able to examine the docu- 
ments. 



ghap. ir. 



KEV/ GOVERNMENT. 



12(5^ 



Under a prince like this, who had to govern 
• so many countries, to provide against so many 
I wars, they could most easily obtain that repre- 
j sentative constitution, that share in the g-overn- 
\ ment of the «mpire, which it had been the 
i constant object of their endeavours to acquü*e 
under JMaximilian. 

How strange a mixture of the most hetero- 
geneous m.otives combmed to bring about the 
election of .Charles V. ! Pecuniary bribes (it 
is not to be denied) to a large amount, both to 
the princes, among whom were even Treves 
and Duke John of Saxony, and to their depend- 
ents and councillors ; the concession of new 
privileges; family alliances, near or remote, 
which either already existed, or were now con- 
cluded, or ^ contracted for the f jture : on the 
other* hand, som-O degree of dread of the army 
of the Swabian league, which was still in the 
field and in the pay of Austria ;* and, lastly, 
antipathy to the stranger, in spite of his still 
more profuse offers of money ; attachment to 
the house which had already given several em- 
perors to Germany, and which enjoyed tradi- 
tional respect; the dangers attending everj- 
other course ; the expectation of good results 
from that pursued; — in sliort, a mixture of 
purely personal considerations and of sincere 
regard for the public weal ! Among the various 
influences which determined the event, we must 
not omit to add that of luck. On the very day, 
nay the very hour, of election, an event took 
place hi Lower Saxony, which, had it occurred 
earlier, might easily have rendered the issue 
once more doubtful, and have revived the hopes 
of the French party. 

The cavalry of Gueldres had at length joined 
Duke Henry of Lüneburg, vrho had set out 
without delay to seek in the field the pkinder- 
laden army of his cousins. He came up with 
this near So],tau on the Haide, and began tlie 
attack without vraiting for his infantry. His 
strength lay. in his cavalry, which rushed up to 
the enemy's artillery and took it, then broke 
tiie lines of the infantry, partly mercenaries, 
who took to flight and threw their arms into 
tiie sand : animated by this success, the con- 
quering troop then made a violent attack on 
tlie squadron of Calenberg horse. Here they 
met Vvdth a gallant resistance ; Duke Eric of 
Calenberg, distinguishable by his white plume, 
forced his way into their ranks ; hut, in spite 
of his bravery, the Limeburgers' overpovrered 
him by their numbers, and gained a complete 
victory. Eric himself, his brother William, 
and a hundred and twenty knights, were made 
prisoners by the partisans of the King of 
France.f 

But since, as v/e have observed, the election 
of the emperor was concluded on the same day, 
this victory was utterly firuitless. The victors 
were now compelled to avoid all coimexion 
with France, while the vanquished found favour 
and assistance fi:om the commissioners of 



*Eichard Pace to Cardinal Wolsey, i. ]57. " Suerly 
tbey wold nott have electidde him j-ff.fere of these per- 
sons hadde not dryven them thereunto." 

t Chytraeus, Saxonia, lib. viii. p. 207. Carmen prolisius, 
in Leibnitz, Scriptores ßer. Brunsv. iii. 257. 

17 

/ 



Charles V. at x\ugsburg. In October, Henry 
the Younger of Wolfenbüttel took up arms 
anew, aided, as it was believed, by money fi-om 
Augsburg, and committed devastations in Hil- 
desheim, estimated at a hundred and fifly thou- 
sand gulden ; and it was with difiiculty that he 
could be induced by the neighbouring princes 
to grant a truce. He would agree to no defin- 
itive terras proposed by the mediators. He 
quitted Zerbst, where they were assembled, by 
night, Vv'ithout bidding them fiirewell, and only 
leaving word that he must reserve the matter 
for the depision of his imperial majesty- (May 
1520). If France had defended the Lünebm-g- 
ers, Austria and her fortunes now lent more 
powerful support to then- adversaries. 

The aftliirs of Upper Germany at the same 
moment took a still more decisive turn in the 
same direction. Würtemberg passed entirely 
into Austrian hands. 

The cause of this was that Duke Ulrich, in 
this unexpected attack m August, had driven 
out the government of the league, taken the 
coimtry again into his own possession, and was 
only expelled from it by renewed efforts of that 
body. I This conquest was now burdensome to 
the conquerors : the expenses of the former 
war, for vrhich they earnestly desired some 
compensation, were now, on the contrary, in- 
creased by new ones. The members of the 
league, therefore, joynally accepted the empe- 
ror's proposition to take into his charge and 
custody the country, together with the duke's 
children ; and in consideration of this conces- 
sion, he promised to accede to the demands of 
the States. 5 In February 1520, the imperial 
commissioners took the administration into their 
ov\"n hands; and by confirm.ing the treaty of 
Tübingen, which Uh'ich at his return had been 
imprudent enough to revoke, they secured a 
considerable party in the country. 

This first act of Charles's government wore 
a very arbitrary aspect. For it vras utterly 
unheard of that, as the Swiss expressed it, " a 
prince of the Holy Empire should be driven 
from his illustrious house, contrary to all law, 
and forcibly despoiled of the principality which 
v.^as his by paternal inheritance and right." 
But the commissioners regarded the election as 
a triumph of the Austrian party, and were only 
anxious to turn it to then- ov,m advantage. 

This had not been the intention of the elect- 
ors — least of ail that of Frederic of Saxony ; 
on the contrary, they had immediately consi- 
dered how to introduce an uniform representa- 
tive govermnent, to convoke an imperial diet, 
and to appoint a Council of Regency. The 
court of Spain appeared to approve cordially 
of these measures ; a proclamation arrived, in 
which Elector Frederic v/as nomhiated lieute- 
nant (Statthalter) of the Regency, and was 
also entreated to give his good counsel in public 
afiairs. But the commissioners did not think 
fit to convoke a diet, still less to nominate a 
Council of Regency. They carefiilly avoided 



J Stiimphart, Chronica gvs-altiger Verjagung Herzog Ul- 
richs (Chronicle of the forcible Expulsion of Duke Ulrich) 
Sattler, Herzgoge, ii. Appendixes, p. 43. 

§Gwalt K. Karls V. auf seine Commissarien, ibid. p. 79 



130 



CAJETAN. 



Book IL 



consulting the elector, and kept the diploma 
of his nomination to themselves. They were 
as fully determined now, as under Maximilian, 
to resist all interference on the part of the 
States ; they chose to retain the whole of the 
public business in their own hands. 

This ought to eicite no wonder. These 
imperial functionaries remained firmly attached 
to those views which had become current under 
Maximilian, and regarded the new government 
as a mere continuation of the old. 

It therefore became a matter of double soli- 
citude to ascertain in what light the young 
prince, on his arrival in Germany, and those 
around him, v/ould regard affairs, or in what 
spirit he would undertake their management. 
His commanding station and wide sovereignty 
naturally led people to expect views propor- 
tionally grand and elevated ; and such indeed 
were displayed in all his letters. He \^Tote to 
Elector Frederic that he should find that he 
had given his vote to the most grateful of 
princes ; that he would shortly appear in per- 
son, hold a diet, and order the affairs of the 
empire with the counsel and approbation of his 
well-beloved, the Elector ; " for," said he, " we 
esteem marvellously the designs, the counsel, 
and the wisdom of thy rule."* 

Before, liov>'ever, Charles could arrive, the 
religious aftairs of Germany had assum.ed a 
character which rendered the question, what 
course he would embrace, no less important to 
the church than to the empire. 



CHAPTER ni. 

FI2ST DEFECTION FR03I THE PAPACY, 1519-20. 

CAJETAN AND MILTITZ. 

During the interval Ave have been treating 
of, it had more than once appeared probable 
that the Lutheran controversy v,'ould be brought 
to a peacefiil termination; to this both sides 
v/ere inclined. 

Daring the diet/ at Augsburg, Elector Fre- 
deric prevailed on himself to pay a visit to the 
papal legate, and to invite his mediation. I do 
not find that the latter had any special com- 
mission from Rome to this effect, but his gene- 
ral powers gave him full liberty to accept such 
an office. He promised the elector to listen to 
the monk whenever he should appear before 
him, and to dismiss him with paternal fcmd- 
-iiess.f 

The business of the meeting was already 
ended, v/hen Luther, well pleased at not being 
obliged to go to Rome, set out to present him- 



* Instruction to Hieronymus Brunner, Barselona, Sept. 
25, ]519, in a register in the Weimar archives, which lays 
open the whole of the circumstances. 

t Frederic's letter to Cajetan (Löscher, ii. 543): " Per- 
suaseramus nobis, vestram pietatem audito Martino se- 
cundum vestram multiplicem promissionem eum paterne 
et benevole dimissuram esse." See Luther, wider Hans 
Worst Altenb. vii. 462. Letter to Lang in de Wette, i. 
HL 



self before the cardinal. He travelled indeed 
in a most lowly guise ; the cowl he wore was 
borrowed, and he wandered on, craving hospi- 
tality from convent to convent, lQ, and some- 
times exhausted even to faintin^.| He often 
said afterwards, that if the cardinal had treated 
him kindly, he might easily have induced him 
to keep silence. - When he came into his pre- 
sence, he fell down at his feet. 

Unhappily, however, this legate, Thomas de 
Vio of Gaeta (Cajetan), was not only a repre- 
sentative of the Curia, but a most zealous 
Thomist. His mother, it is said, dreamt when 
she was with child of him, that she saw St. 
Thomas in person teaching him, and afterwards 
bearing him to heaven. § In his sixteenth year, 
in spite of the great reluctance of his family, 
he was not to be withheld fi'om entering a 
Dominican convent, where laying aside his 
origmal name of James, he took that of his 
saint, and exerted all his powers thoroughly to 
imbue his mind with the doctrines of St 
Thomas, whom he esteemed the most perfect 
theologian that ever existed. He undertook 
to defend his great work, the Summa, step by 
step, agaiast the objections of the Scotists.|| 

Luther, therefore, was already extremely 
odious to him as a nominalist, as an impugner 
of the theological despotism of St. Thomas, 
and as leader of an active opposition party in a 
newly-created university. At first he replied 
to Luther's humility vv-ith the official fatherl)'' 
condescension of a spiritual superior. But the " 
natural antagonism between them soon broke 
out. The cardinal was not disposed to be satis- 
fied with mere silence, nor would he permit 
the matter to come to a disputation, as Luther 
proposed ; he thought he had demonstrated the 
monk's error to him in a few words, and de- 
manded a recantation. This awakened in Lu- 
ther a feelmg of that complete contrariety of 
opinions and systems, which acknowledges no 
subordhiation, whether spiritual or temporal. 
It appeared to him that the cardinal did not 
even understand his idea of faith, far less con- 
fute it : a conversation arose in which Luther 
displayed more reading, more distinctness and 
depth of views, than the legate had given him 
credit for ; speculations of so extraordinary a 
kind had never come before him ; the deep-set 
glittering eyes, fixed upon his, inspired him 
with a sort of horror ; at length he exclaimed 
that Luther must either recant or never ven- 
ture mto his sight a^ain.^f 

It was the dominican system which here, 
clad in purple, repulsed its antagonist. . Luther, 
though furnished with a safe-conduct from the 
emperor, thought himself no longer secure 
from violence ; he drew up an appeal to the 
pope, praying him to inquire into the matter. 



t Luther to Spalatin, Oct. 10, 1518, in de W. 142. 

§So says the Biography in Roccaberti, Bibl. Max. t. 
xix. p. 443. 

!,'" Divi ThomaB Summa cum commentariis Thomae de 
Vio, Lugduni, J587. Prasfatio : Inter theologos quern divo 
Thomce Aquinati praeferre ausis, invenies neminem." 

TT Luther^s report in the Acta Augustana, his letters, the 

addresses of the legate, finally a letter from Staupitz, in 

Grimm (passim, p. 123"), give sufficient information about 

this interview. It is to be regretted that the account sent 

1 by the legate to jaome lias neVer come to light. 



Chap. III. 



MILTITZ. 



131 



and took to flight. His going corresponded 
with his coming. Escaping through a secret 
gate which his Augsburg friends opened for 
him by night, mounted on a horse procured for 
him by his provincial, Staupitz, habited in his 
cowl, and without any proper riding garments, 
be rode, accompanied by a mounted guide, 
eight long German miles the first day ; on 
alighting, he fell half dead from fatigue by the 
side of his horse on the straw. But he was 
happily out of the immediate jurisdiction of the 
legate. 

Cajetan's accusations soon followed him to 
Saxony. He conjured the elector not to stain 
the glory of his house for the sake of an here- 
tical friar ; if he did not choose to send him to 
Rome, at least to get rid of him out of his 
country ; he declared that Rome would never 
suffer this affair to drop. But he could no 
longer produce any impression ; his indiscreet 
and violent conduct had robbed him of all 
credit with Frederic. The university wrote to 
then- prince that they Imew no otherwise than 
that Luther showed all due reverence for the 
church, and even for the pope ; were there 
wickedness in the man, they would be tlie first 
to notice it. This corporation Vv^as irritated that 
the legate should treat one of its members as 
a heretic, before any sentence had been pro- 
nounced.* Thus seconded, Frederic replied 
to the legate, that it had not yet been shown 
by any of the numerous learned men in his 
own states, or those contiguous, that Luther 
was a heretic ; and refused to banish hirn.f 

Luther however did not conceal from him- 
self that the sentence pronounced by Rome 
-might very probably be unfavourable to him.. 
He hastened to secure himself against tliis as 
far as possible by a fresh appeal to the general 
council vdiich was just about to be called. 

But the conduct of the cardinal did not ob- 
tain the approbation of Rome. That court vras 
not disposed to alienate so considerable and re- 
spected a sovereign as Frederic, who had just 
acquired twofold weight by his conduct at the 
election, and with whom, it had probably rested 
to raise the King of France to the miperial 
throne, as the pope had desired. Leo there- 
fore now made an attempt to bring the discus- 
sion concerning Luther to an amicable conclu- 
sion. He determined to send the elector the 
golden rose, a mark of the apostolical favour, 
for which that prince had ah.vays been very 
anxious. In order to draw the loosened ties 
closer betvv-een them, lie likewise despatched a 
native of Saxony, and agent of the elector at 
Rome, to him as nuncio. 

Karl von Miltitz unquestionably showed 
great address m the manner in which he set 
about the affah*. 

On his arrival in Germany he abstained 
from visitmg the legate, who indeed had lost 
all mfluence, and now showed a sullen resent- 
ment against the elector ; even on the journey, 
Miltitz contracted an intimacy with one of 



* With regard to the brief in which mention is made 
of a sentence already passed (in Löscher, ii. 438). I think 
I have shown in an Excursus, that it is not genuine; 

t Correspondence in Löscher, 537-512. 



Frederic's privy councillors, Degenhard PfefSn- 
ger. He did not scruple among friends, over 
the convivial table, or even in mns and taverns, 
to join in the complaints which were made in 
Germany of the Curia, and of the abuses of 
the church ; nay, to confirm them by anecdotes 
of what he had himself witnessed. But he 
assured his hearers that he knew the pope, and 
had influence with him, and that Leo did not 
approve these things. He pronounced the 
most entire and distmct disapprobation of the 
scandalous proceedings of the vendors of in- 
dulgences ; and m short the reputation which 
preceded him was such that Tetzel did not dare 
to present himself before hLm,| 

On the other hand, the prince, towards 
whom he maintained the demeanour of a sub- 
ject and servant, and Luther himself, whom 
he treated very indulgently, conceived great 
confidence in him. Without much trouble, ho 
succeeded in bringing- about that degree of ap- 
proximation between himself and the anti- 
dominican party, which was absolutely neces- 
sary to the success of his negotiation. 

On the 3d January, 1519, he had an inter- 
view with Luther at Altenburg. The nuncio 
represented to the monk the evils which arose 
from his vehemence, and the great breach 
which he would thus make in the church : he 
implored him with tears to lay these thmgs to 
heart. Luther promised to remedy, by a pub- 
lic explanation of his doctrine, whatever mis- 
chief he might have done. On the other hand, 
the nuncio gave up the idea of bringing Lu- 
ther to a recantation. They came to an agree- 
ment that the matter should be referred to a 
German bishop, and that, mea],iwlnle, both par- 
ties should be bound to observe silence. ^ So, 
thought Luther, the controversy would die 
away. Tliey embraced and parted. 

The explanation which Luther soon afler 
published, in consequence of this conversation, 
is very remarkable. He touches on all the 
controverted points of the moment. Without 
abandoning the free attitude he had assumed, 
he shows that he considers himself as still 
within the pale of the Roman church ; for ex- 
ample, he maintains that the sahits ought to be 
invoked for spiritual, rather than for temporal 
gifts, but he does not deny that God works 
miracles at their graves ; he still admits the 
doctrine of purgatory, and of indulgences in a 
certain sense ; he wishes for some relaxation 
of the com.mandments of the church, but is of 
opinion that this could only be granted by an 
ecclesiastical council ; although he ascribes 
salvation to the fear of God and the state of the 
thoughts and intentions, he does not entirely 
reject good worte. It is evident that on every 
point he insists on inward, rather than outward 
influences and merits; but he does so with 
great moderation, and endeavours to maintain 
external observances. In the same spirit he 
speaks of the church. He sees her essence m 



IHis letter of apolojry, subscribed "Brotlier Tetzel, on 
the last day of Dec. 1519," {i. e. 1518,) in Walch. xv. p. 
860. The rest of Miltitz's Correspondence, first published 
by Cyprian, is also to be found in Walch. 

§ "In ir selbs vorgehn." — Xitf.^er to the Electors, in De 
Wette, i.213. 



132 



MELANCHTHON. 



Bpok II. 



" inward unity and love ;" but he does not re- 
ject her constitution; he acknowledges the 
supremacy of the church of Rome, " where 
St. Peter and St. Paul, forty-six popes, and 
liundreds of thousands of martyrs, poured out 
their blood, and overcame hell and the world :" 
no sin that can be committed m her can justify 
us m Separating- ourselves from her, or in re- 
sisting the commands of the pope.* 

With this explanation the ecclesiastical au- 
thority might for the moment be content — and 
indeed was forced to be content. For, if Elec- 
tor Frederic chose to accept it, there was no 
other powder that could be turned against Lu- 
ther : so great was the interest which the na- 
tion already took in his cause ; so strong the 
aversion which repelled all interference of the 
court of Rome. 

Li the early months of the year 1519, when 
the demands of the last diet in behoof of the 
Turkish war were made to the several States 
in all parts of Germany, the doubts expressed 
in that assembly as to the reality of the inten- 
tion Vv'hich served as pretext were now repeat- 
ed in various circles, and were more and more 
■widely diffused; all the well-founded com- 
plaints wdiich had there been more distmctly 
stated . than ever, were now the topic of dis- 
course through the whole- nation. 

Moreover, the interest which the papal legate 
had evinced in the views of Francis I. on the 
imperial crown, excited great disgust. It is a 
fact well worth notice, that the whole Austrian 
party thus naturally fell into a state of hostility 
to the Roman see. At the court of its leader, 
the Elector of Mainz, there appeared satires 
in which tlie pompous inanity of the legate, his 
personal peculiarities and the oppressive nature 
of his office, were ridiculed in tlie bitterest 
manner. In the spring of 1.519,f it was with 
difficulty tiiat he could find a boatman in Mainz 
w^ho would consent to take him down the river 
to Niederwesel, where the Rhenish electors 
held a meeting : he was once told that he must 
renounce all his French schemes if he wished 
to get home in a whole skin.t 

This universal unpopularity compelled the 
court of Rome to observe a discreet reserve, to 
which its interest in the election contributed ; 
and thus it happened that Rome once more 
tried by every means in its power to be upon a 
footing of amity with Elector Frederic. An- 
other plenipotentiary of the Curia besides Mil- 
titz appeared in Saxony. The legate, although 
with obvious ill will, was at length prevailed 
upon to deliver to the elector the golden rose 
v/hich had been entrusted to him, and which 
he had till now withheld. The prospect of 
putting an end to the controversy in Germany 
was desirable and commodious even to him. 
The Archbishop of Treves vv^as selected as 
judge. § 

* D. M. L. Unterricht auf etliche Artikel so ihm von 
seinen Abgönnern aufgeleght worden: Walch, xv. 8'22. 

t Hutten's Febris Prima (op. ill. 109,) belongs to this 
period. 

I Letter to Zürich in Anselm, Berne Chronik, v. 373. 

§ Miltitz to the Electors: Walch, xv. 879 : he had seen 
the legate at Coblentz. The instruction to Miltitz, 1. 1, 
must likewise be assigned to the month of May, as it re- 



ARRIVAL OF MELAjyCHTHON. 

The state of suspended controversy and pre- 
liminary calm that now arose was peculiarly 
advantageous to the university of Wittenberg. 
There wms a general sentiment of an under- 
taking successfully begun, increasmg in force 
of opposition, but yet not obnoxious to the con- 
demnation of the church. The members of the 
university had time to carry forward the proper 
studies of the place in the spirit that had from 
the first presided over them. The most emi- 
nent teachers still held the same opinions on 
the main question. Besides this, in the summer 
of 1518, they had acquired a youthful assistant, 
whose labours from the first moment gave new 
life to their whole proceedings. 

Philip Schwarzerd, surnamed Melanchthon, 
was, in the truest and most perfect sense, a 
disciple of Reuchlin. Reuchlin was one of his 
nearest relations, and had directed his educa- 
tion : the young man followed the precepts and 
example of his master with intelligent docility ; ^ 
the native powejs which well-conducted studies 
never fail to develop, the sympathy he received 
from his fellow-students, and, above all, a 
matchless capacity, certain, fi-om the first, of 
its vocation, led him rapidly forwards. In his 
17th or 18th year he had already begun to 
teach in Tübingen, and had published two or 
three little books on grammatical subjects.il 

But the mind of the pupil, like that of the 
master, was not satisfied with philological stu- 
dies. He attended lectures in all faculties ; for 
the sciences were not as yet cultivated in such 
detail, or in so special a manner, as to render 
tliat impossible ; tliey could still furnish nutri- 
ment to a large and liberal curiosity. Melanch- 
thon felt peculiarly attracted towards the study 
of philosophy, in comparison v\äth Avhich all his 
other pursuits appeared to him mere v.^aste of 
time. Bat the rigid, stationary spirit of the old 
universities still reigned in Tübingen; and 
while his whole intellectual powers were 
stretching forward to unlmown regions, his 
instructors sought to bind hmi down to a life- 
less routine. 

A circumstance, hovvever, occurred which 
decided both his outward destiny and the direc- 
tion of his mind. In the spring' of 1.518, Elector 
Frederic applied to Reuchlin to send huTi a 
teacher of the Greek language for his univer- 
sity. Without a moment's hesitation, Reuchlin 
recommended " his kinsman and friend," whom 
he himself had instructed. IT This might be 
regarded as mvolving Melanchthon's decision ; 
for between master and disciple there was that 
noble relation which exists between a youth 
who beholds the world in the imperfect light 
shed over distant objects, and the admitted su- 
periority of a matured judgment. " Whither 
thou wilt send me," writes Melanclithon to 
Reuchlin, " there will I go ; wdiat thou wilt 



fers to his journey into Saxon}-, which he mentions in 
his letter, dated Wednesday after Misericordia, May 11. 

II Schnurrer de Phil. Melanchthonis rebus Tubingensi- 
bus: Orationes Academ. ed. Paulus, p. 52. Prasfatio in 
primam editionem operum. Bretschneiders Corpus Re- 
formatorum, iv. 715. 

IF Correspondence in the Corp. Ref i. 28. 



Chav. III. 



DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG. 



1.33 



make of me, that I will become." " Get thee 
out," answered Reuchlin, " from th}^ country and 
from thy kindred." With the words once ad- 
dressed to Abraham, he blessed him and bade 
hhn depart. 

In August 151 8, Melanchthon came to Wit- 
tenberg. His first determmation was, as he 
says, to devote himself entirely to the univer- i 
sity, and to raise its fame in tlie classical stu- ' 
dies, which had as yet been cultivated with 
little success. With the high spirits of youth 
he reckoned up the labours he had before him, 
and hastened to enter upon them."*-' Before 
September was over, he dedicated to the elector 
the translation of one of Lucian's works ; in 
October he printed the Epistle to Titus and a 
little dictionary; in November he wrote the 
preface to a Hebrew Grammar. He imme- 
diately undertook a more elaborate work — his 
Rhetoric, which appeared in three books, in 
January 1519. In February followed another 
discourse ; in March and April, editions of se- 
veral of Plutarch's \\Titings, with a preface — 
all during an equally varied and laborious 
course of teaching ; for the youthful stranger 
undertook to give instructions in Hebrew as 
well as Greek, f 

Yet these immediate occupations led neither 
to the scope, nor to the results, of his laborious 
studies. 

It was an important circumstance that a 
perfect master of Greek arose at this moment 
at a university, where the development of 
the Latin theology already led to a return to 
the first genuine documents of primitive Chris- 
tianity. Luther now began to pursue this 
study with earnestness. His mhid was relieved, 
and his confidence strengthened, when the 
sense of a Greek phrase threw^ a sudden light 
on his theological ideas ; when, for example, | 
he learned that the idea of repentance (pceni- 
tentia), which, according to the languao-e of the 
Latin church, signified expiation or satisfaction, 
in the original conception of the Founder and 
the apostles of Christianity signified nothing 
but a change in the state of mind ;| it seemed 
as if a mist was suddenly withdravm from be- 
fore his eyes. 

It was also of inestimable value to Melanch- 
thon that he could here devote him.self to sub- 
jects which filled his whole soul, and that he 
nov/ found the substance of those forms to which 
his attention had hitherto been principally di- 
rected. He embraced v/ith enthusiasm the 
theological views of Luther, and, above all, his 
profound exposition of the doctrine of justifica- 
tion. But he was not form^ed to receive these 
opinions passively. He Vv-as one of those ex- 
traordinary spirits, appearing at rare intervals, 
who attam to the full possession and use of then- 
powers at an early period of life. He was now 
but just twenty-one. With the precision which 
solid philological studies seldom fail to impart, 
v/ith the nice instinct natural to the frame of 

* To Spalatin, Sept. 1518. Corp. Ref. i. 43. 

t Lather to Spalatin, Jan. 25, in de Wette, i. 214. Upon 
these two correspondences, as may be imagined, my 
whole narrative is founded. 

lliETavoia. 

M 



his mind, he seized the theological element 
which was offered to his grasp. 

The somewhat unfavourable impression 
which the youthful and unpretendmg appear- 
ance of the new-comer had at first rnade, was 
quickly effaced. The scholars caught the in- 
fection of their teacher's zeal. " They are as 
industrious as ants at the university," says 
Luther. Reforms m the method of instruction 
were proposed. With the approbation of the 
court, lectures were discontmued which had no 
value but for the scholastic system, and others 
Vv'ere instituted, founded on 'classical studies; 
the conditions upon which academical degrees 
were granted were rendered less severe. Tliese 
measures unquestionably tended to place Wit- 
tenberg in stronger contrast to the other uni- 
versities ; new views and ideas were introduced. 
Luther's letters show the ferment that was 
going on withhi him, but they equally show 
that neither he nor those associated with him 
were conscious of being mvolved in a general 
straggle with the church of Rome. We saw 
how- carefully Luther kept within the bounds 
prescribed by the church; and Melanchthon, 
in one of his prefaces, extols the services ren- 
dered by his sovereign to monasteries.^^ This, 
as well as the conduct pursued by Miltitz, and 
finally also by the legate, shows that every 
thing wcfre a peacefi.ü aspect. 

But at this very moment, when external 
peace at least was restored, and when, though 
vehement struggles were to be anticipated 
from differences of opLuion and of education, it 
vras possible they might be confined within the 
region of school learning, there arose a contest 
touching those important doctrines whereon the 
Church and the State are founded, and lighting 
up that war which has never smce been extin- 
guished. It must be admitted that Luther was 
not the person who caused its outbreak. 

DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG. 

Dühing the diet of 1518, Eck had appeared 
in Augsburg, dissatisfied that his polemical 
writings had as yet procured him neither emo- 
lument nor honour: II he had called on Luther, 
and had agreed with him, in a perfectly ami- 
cable manner, publicly to fight out an old con- 
troversy which he had with Dr. Carlstadt in 
'Wittenberg, concerning grace and free w'ül. 
Luther had readily offered his mediation, in 
order, as he says, to give the lie to the opinion 
that theologians cannot differ without hostility. 
Carlstadt consented to dispute v/ith Eck in 
Erfi.n-t or Leipzig; upon which Eck imme- 
diately published a prospectus of the disputa- 
tion, and made it Imown as widely as possible. 

Luther's astonisliment v/as extreme when he 
saw in this prospectus certain opinions an- 
nounced as the subject of the debate, of v/hich 
he was far more the champion than Carlstadt. 
He held this tor an act of faithlessness and 
duplicity which he was called upon openly to 
resist; the agTeement he had just concluded 

§ Dedication of Lucian in Caluraniam. C. R. i. 47. 

11 Bartholini Commentariiis de coraitiis Augustanis. p. 
645. 



134 



DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG. 



Book II. 



with Miltitz seemed to him broken; he was 
determined to take up the gauntlet.* 

It was of vast importance that Eck had an- 
nexed to the dogmatic controversy, a proposi- 
tion as to the origin of the prerogatives of the 
papacy. At a, moment vdien anti-papal opi- 
nions were so decidedly triumphant throughout 
ohe nation, he had the clumsy servility to stir 
a question, always of very difficult and dubious 
solution, yet from which the whole system of 
the Church and State depended, and, when 
once agitated, certain to occupy universal at- 
tention : he ventured to irritate an adversary 
v/ho knew no reservations, who was accustom- 
ed to defend his opinions to the utmost, and who 
had already the voice of the nation on his side. 
In reference to a former assertion of Luther's, 
which had attracted little attention. Eck pro- 
pounded the maxim, that the primacy of the 
Pope of Rome w^as derived from Christ him.self, 
and from the times of St. Peter ; not, as his 
opponent had hinted, from those of Constantine 
and Sylvester. The consequences of this gross 
imprudence were soon apparent. Luther, who 
now began to study the original documents of 
the papal law — the decretals, and had often in 
the course of this study felt his Christian con- 
victions wounded, answered v/ith a much bolder 
assertion, namely, tliat the primacy of Rome 
had been first established by the deci^etals of 
the later popes in the last four centuries (he 
meant, perhaps, since Gregory VIL), and that 
the primitive church knew nothing of it.f 

It is not surprising that the ecclesiastical 
8.uthorities in Saxony, (for example, the bishop 
of Merseburg) and even the theologians of the 
university, were not much pleased that a dis- 
putation of the kind at last agreed upon be- 
tween the parties, should be held in Leipzig. 
Even the elector hesitated for a moment 
whether he should allow Luther to go. But as 
lie had the firmest conviction that hidden truth 
would best be brought to light in this manner, 
he at length determined that it should take 
place, and endeavoured to obviate every objec- 
tion that stood in its way. It was settled that, 
together with various other important points 
of doctrine on the mysteries of faith, the ques- 
tion, whether the papacy was estalDlished by 
God, or whether it was instituted by man, and 
consequently might be abolished by man (for 
that is in fact the point at issue in the two doc- 
trines), was to be argued in a public disputa- 
tion, at a great university, in- the face of all 
Germany ; that this question, the very one in 
which all political and ecclesiastical mterests 
met as in a point, was to be thus discussed in a 
period of ferment and of ardent innovation. 

At the very moment when the electors as- 
sembled at Frankfurt to choose an emperor, 
(June, 1519,) the theologians met to perform 
an act of no less importance. 

Eck arrived first fi-om Ingolstadt. Johann 
Mayr von Eck was unquestionably one of the 
most eminent scholars of his time — a reputa- 



■■ Luther's letters to Sylvius, Feb. 3 ; Spalatin, Feb. 7; 
J^ang, April 13. 

t Contra novos et veteres errores defendet D. Martinas 
Lutherus has sequentes positiones in studio Lipsensi. 
It is the thirteenth proposition. Opp. lat. Jen. i. 221. 



tion which he had spared no pains to acquire. 
He had visited the most celebrated professors 
in various universities : the Thomist Süstern 
at Cologne, the Scotists Sum^nhard and Scrip- 
toris at Tübingen ; he had attended the law 
lectures of Zasius in Freiburg, those on Greek 
of Reuchlin, on Latin of Bebel, on cosmogra- 
phy of Reusch. In his twentieth year he began 
to write and to lecture at Ingolstadt upon 
Occam and BieFs canon law, on Aristotle's 
dialectics and physics, the most difiicult doc- 
trines of dogmatic theology, and the subtleties 
of nominalistic morality ; he then proceeded to 
the study of the mystics, whose most curious 
works had just fallen into his hands: he set 
himself, as he says, to establish the connexion 
between their doctrines and the Orphicoplatonic 
philosophy, the sources of which are to be 
sought in Egypt and Arabia, and to discuss the 
whole in five parts. J He was one of those 
learned men who held that the great questions 
which had occupied men's minds were essen- 
tially settled ; who worked exclusively with 
the analytical faculty and the memory ; who 
were always on the watch to appropriate to 
themselves a new subject with which to excite 
attention, to get advancement, and to secure a 
life of ease and enjoyment. His strongest 
taste was for disputation, in which he had made 
a brilliant figure in all the universities we have 
mentioned, as well as in Heidelberg, Mainz, 
and Basle : at Freiburg he had early presided 
over a class (the Bursa zum Pfauen) where 
the chief business was practice in disputation ; 
he then took long journeys, — for example, to 
Vienna and Bologna, — expressly to dispute 
there. It is most amusing to see in his letters 
the satisfaction with which he speaks of his 
Italian journey: how he was encouraged to 
undertake it by a papal nuncio ; how, before 
his departure, he was visited by the young 
Markgrave of Brandenburg; the very honour- 
able reception he experienced on his way, in 
Italy as well as in Germany, from both spiritual 
and temporal lords, who invited him to their 
tables ; how, when certain young men had 
ventured to contradict him at one of these din- 
ners, he had confuted them with the utmost 
ease, and left them filled Vv^ith astonishment 
and admiration ; and lastly, how, in spite of 
manifold opposition, he had at last brought the 
most learned of the learned in Bologna to sub- 
scribe to his maxims. ^ He regarded a dispu- 
tation with the eye of a practised fencer, as 
the arena of unfailing victory ; his only wish 
was to find new adversaries on whom to try 
his weapons. Pie therefore seized with avidity 
on an opportunity of extending his fame in 
North Germany. He was now seen in the 
midst of the Leipzig professors (who welcomed 
him as an ally against their neighbouring rival 
and enemy), taking part in the procession of 
the Corpus Christi, dressed in his priestly gar- 
ments and with an air of great devotion. In 
his letters we find that he did not neglect to 
institute a nice comparison between the Saxon 



X Eckii Epistola de ratione, studiorura suorum, in Stro- 
bel's Miscellaneen, iii. p. 97. 
§ Riederer, Nachrichten, «Sec, iii. 47. 



Chap. III. 



DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG. 



133 



beer and that of Bavaria ; and also that the | 
fah- sinners of Leipzig did not escape his no- 1 
tice.* i 

On the 24th of June the Wittenbergers 
arrived ; the professors in low open waggons 
on rollers or solid wooden wheels (Rollwagen), 
Carlstadt first, then Luther and IMelanchthon, 
and some young licentiates and bachelors ; 
with them was Duke Barnim of Pomerania,' 
who was then studying in Wittenberg and 
held the dignity of rector ; around them, on 
foot, some hundreds of zealous students armed 
with halberds, battle-axes, and spears. It v/as 
observed that the Leipzigers did not come out 
to meet tliem, as was the custom and the 
courtesy of those times, f 

With the m.ediation of Duke George, the 
terms of the combat v/ere next settled : Eck 
reluctantly acquiesced in the condition that the 
speeches and rejoinders should be written down 
by notaries ; while Luther was forced to con- 
cede that the decision was to be left to certain 
universities; he himself proposed Paris and 
Erfurt, The duke insisted, v\'ith peculiar earn- 
estness, on these things ; he treated the aftair 
like a trial at law, and wanted to send the 
documents, as it were to a court of appeal for 
its decision. Meanwhile he ordered a spacious 
hall in the castle to be got ready for the literary 
duel ; two pulpits were placed opposite to each 
other, covered with tapestry, on which were 
the figures of the vrarrior saints, St. George 
and St. Martin ; there was ample provision of 
tables for the notaries, and of benches for tlie 
audience. ' At length, on the 27th of June, the 
action was commenced with a mass and mvo- 
cation of the Holy Ghost. 

Carlstadt had insisted on? his right of opening 
the debate, but he acquired little glory from it. 
He brought books, out of which he read pas- 
sages, then hunted for others, then read again ; 
the objections which his opponent advanced 
one day, he answered the next.:j: How differ- 
-ent a disputator was Johann Eck ! His know- 
dedge was all at his comm.and, ready for use at 
the moment ; he required so little time for pre- 
paration, tliat immediately after his return from 
a ride he mounted the chair. He was tall, witli 
large muscular limbs, and loud penetrating- 
voice, and walked backwards and forwards 
Mobile speaking ; he had an exception ready to 
take against every argument ; his memory and 
address dazzled his hearers. In the njatter 
itself — the explanation of the doctrine of grace 
and free-will — no progress v/as, of course, 
made. Sometimes the combatants approxima- 
ted so nearly in opinion, that each boasted he 
had brought over the other to his side, but they 
soon diverged again. With the exception of a 
distinction made by Eck, nothing new was pro- 
duced ;5 the most important points were scarce- 
ly touched upon ; and the whole affair was 
sometimes so tedious that the hall was emptied. 

*Eck to Haven and^Burkavd, July 1,in Walcli, xv. p. 
1456. In this respect lie had the very worst reputation. 

fPfeiter's Beschreibung, ibid. p. 1425. 

JRubeus, in Walch, xv. 1491. 

§Rogatiis largireturne totum opus bonum esse a dec 
respondit ; tptuni quidem, non autem tofdhter.—Melanch- 
t'/an. 

M 



The interest was therefore the more intense^ 
when at length, on Monday the 4th of July, at 
seven m the morning, Luther arose ; the anta- 
gonist whom Eck most ardently desired to meet, 
and whose rising* fame he hoped to crush by a 
brilliant victory, Luther was of the middle 
size, at. that time so thin as to be mere skin and 
bone ; he possessed neither the thundering or- 
gan, nor the ready memory stored with various 
knowledge, nor the skill and dexterity acquired 
in the gladiatorial exercises of the schools, that 
distinguished his opponent. But he, too, stood 
in the prime of manhood, and in the fulness of 
his strength : he was in his thirty-sixth year ; 
his voice was melodious and clear ; he was per- 
fectly versed in the Bible, and its aptest sen- 
tences presented themselves unbidden to his 
mind ; above all, he inspired an irresistible con- 
, viction that he sought the truth. He was 
! always cheerful at home, and a joyous, jocose 
; companion at table ; he even, on this grave 
occasion, ascended the platform with a nosegay 
in his hand ; but, when there, he displayed the 
intrepid and self-forgetting earnestness arismg 
, fi-om the depths of a conviction till now unfa- 
thomed, even by himself He drew forth new 
thoughts, and placed them in the fire of the 
battle, with a determination that knew no fear 
and no personal regards. His features bore the 
traces of the storms that had passed over his 
soul, and of the courage with v.diich he was 
prepared to encounter those that yet awaited 
I him ; his whole aspect breathed profound 
' thought, joyousness of temper, and confidence 
m the future. The battle immediately com- 
menced on the question of the authority of the 
j papacy, which, at once intelligible and imports 
ant, riveted universal attention. Tvv'o sons of 
j German peasants (for Eck, too, was the son of 
a peasant — Michael Mayr, w^ho was for many 
i years Amnnann|| of Eck, as Luther's father was 
I Rathsherrll of Mansfeld) represented the two 
I gTeat tendencies of opinion wdiich divided the 
world then, and divide it now ; the future con- 
dition of the Church and the State mainly 
I hung on the issue of their conflict — on the 
j success of the one in attack, and of the otlier 
1 in defence. 

I It was immediately obvious that Luther could 

i not maintain his assertion that the pope's pri- 

I macy dated only from the last four centuries : 

i he soon found himself forced from this position 

I by ancient documents ; and the rather, that no 

I criticism had as yet shaken the authenticity of 

! the false decretals. But his attack on the doc- 

! trine that the primacy of the pope (whom he 

still persisted in regarding as the ecumenical 

bishop) was founded on Scripture and by divine 

right, was far more formidable. Christ's words, 

" Thou art Peter, feed my sheep," which have 

always been cited in this controversy, were 

brought forvv^ard :% Luther laboured to support 

the already well-known explanation of them. 



[(Titles of local magistrates.— Transl. 

TT In the exposition by Nicolaus von Lire (Lyranus) 
also, of which Luther znade the most use, there occurs 
this explanation, differing from that of the curia, of the 
passage in Matthew, chap, xvi, ; "Claia tu es Petrus, i. e. 
confessor vera; petrs qui est Christus factus ; — et super 
banc petram, quam confessus es, i. e. super Christum, 
sedificabo ecclesiam meam." 



136 



DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG. 



Book II. 



at variance with that of the curia, by other pas- 
sages which record similar commissions given 
to the apostles. Eck quoted passages from the 
Fathers in support of his opinions, to which j 
Luther opposed others from the same source, j 
As soon as they got into these more recondite ! 
regions, Luther's superiority became incontest- 
able. One of his main arguments was that the 
Greeks had never acknowledged the pope, and 
yet had not been pronounced heretics; the 
Greek church had stood, was standing, and 
would stand, without the pope ; it belonged to 
Christ as much as the Ronmn. Eck did not '. 
hesitate' at once to declare that the Christian \ 
and the Roman church were one ; that the \ 
churches of Greece and Asia had fallen away, I 
not only from the pope, but from the Christian 
faith — they were unquestionably heretics: in; 
the Vv^hole circuit of the Turkish empire, for 
instance, there was not one soul that could be 
saved, with the exception of the few who ad- 
hered to the pope of Rome. "How?" said 
Luther, " would you pronounce damnation on 
the whole Greek church, which has produced 
the most eminent fathers, and so many thou- 
sand saints, of whom not one had even heard 
of a Roman primate "? Would Gregory of Na- 
zianzen, would the great Basil, not be saved ] 
or would the pope and his satellites drive them 
out of heaven 1" These expressions prove how 
greatly the omnipotence and exclusive validity 
of the forms of the Latin church, and the iden- 
tity with Christianity wJiich she claimed, were 
shaken by the fact that, beyond her pale, the 
ancient Greek church, which she had herself 
acknowledged, stood in all the venerable au- 
thority of her great teacliers. It v/as now 
Eck's turn to be hard pressed : he repeated that 
there had been many heretics in the Greek 
church, and that he alluded to them, not to the 
Fathers — a miserable evasion, which did not in 
the least touch the assertion of his adversary. 
Eck fe]t this, and hastened back to the domain 
of the Latin church. He particularly insisted 
that Luther's opinion — that the primacy of 
Rome was of human instittition, and not of di- 
vine right — was an error of the poor brethren 
of Lyons, of Wickliffe and Huss ; but had been 
condemned by the popes, and- especially by the 
general councils wherein dwelt the spirit of 
God, and recently at that of Constance. This 
new fact v/as as indisputable as the former. 
Eck was not satisfied with Luther's declaration 
that he had nothing to do with the Bohemians, 
nay, that he condemned their scliism ; and that 
he would not be answered out of the Collecta- 
nea of inquisitors, but out of the Scriptures. 
The question had now arrived at its most criti- 
cal and important moment. Did Luther ac- 
knowledge the direct influence of the Divine 
Spirit over the Latin church, and the binding 
force of the decrees of her councils, or did he 
not 1 Did he invv^ardly adhere to her, or did he 
not 1 We must recollect that we are here not 
far from the frontier of Bohemia ; in a land 
which, in consequence of the anathema pro- 
nounced in Constance, had experienced all the 
horrors of a long and desolating war, and had 
placed its glory in the resistance it had offered 



to the Hussites : at a university founded in op- 
position to the spirit and doctrine of John Huss : 
in the face of princes, lords and commoners, 
whose fathers had fallen in this struggle; it 
v\'as said that delegates from the Bohemians, 
who had anticipated the turn which this con- 
flict must take, were also present : Luther saw 
the danger of his position. Should he really 
reject the prevailing notion of the exclusive 
power of the Roman church to secure salva- 
tion ] oppose a council by which John Huss had 
been condemned to the flames, and perhaps 
draw down a like flite upon himself? Or 
should he deny that higher and more compre- 
hensive idea of a Christian church which he 
had conceived, and in which his whole soul 
lived and moved 1 Luther did not waver for a 
moment. He had the boldness to affirm, that 
among the articles on which the council of 
Constance grounded its condemnation of John 
Huss, some were fundamentally Christian and 
evangelical. The assertion v^^as received with 
universal astonislnnent. Duke George, who 
was present, put his hands to his sides, and, 
shaking his head, uttered aloud his wonted 
curse, " A plague upon it !"* Eck nov/ gathered 
fresh courage. It was hardly possible, he said, 
that Luther could censure a council, since his 
Grace the Elector had expressly forbidden any 
attack upon councils. Luther reminded him 
tliat the council of Constance had not con- 
demned all the articles of Huss as heretical, 
and specified some which were likewise to be 
found in St. Augustine. Eck replied that all 
were rejected ; the sense in which these parti- 
cular articles were understood was to be deemed 
heretical ; for a council could not err. Luther 
answered that no Council could create a new 
I article of faith; how then could it be main- 
i tained that no council whatever was subject to 
i error ] " Reverend father," replied Eck, " if 
I you believe that a council regularly convoked 
can err, you are to me as a heathen and a pub- 
lican." 

Such were the results of this disputation. | 
It was continued for a time, and opinions more 
or less conflicting on purgatory, indulgences, 
and penance were uttered. Eck renewed the 
I interrupted contest with Carlstadt ; the reports 
I were sent, after the solemn conclusion, to both 
' universities ; but all these measures could lead 
j to nothing further. The main result of the 
meeting was, that Luther no longer acknow- 
ledged the authority of the Roman church in 
j matters of faith. A.t first, he had only attack- 
i ed the instructions given to the preachers of 
I indulgences, and the rules of the later school- 
I men, but had expressly retained the decretals 
of the popes : then he had rejebted these, but 
with appeal to the decision of a council ; he 
now emancipated himseh^ from this last re- 
maining human authority also ; he rdcognised 
none but that of the Scriptures. 



* " This I myself heard and saw." — Fr'uschsVs Report in 
Walch, XV. 1400. 

X " Dispiitatio Excellentissimorum Theologorum Johan- 
nis Eccii et D. Martini LuUieri Augustiniani quae Lip- 
si:s coepta fuit iv die Julii ao 1519. Opera Lutheri, Jen. 
i. 231. 



iJHAP. III. 



PROGRESS OF THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION. 



137 



PROGRESS OF THE THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION. 

At this period Luther conceived an idea of 
the Church different from any he had before 
entertained — deeper and more comprehensive. 
He recognised in the Oriental and Greek 
Christians true members of the universal 
church : he no longer admitted the necessity 
of a visible head; he acknowledged none but 
the Invisible, the ever-living Founder, whom 
be regarded as standing in a mystical relation 
to his faithful disciples of every nation and 
clime. This was not only a dogmatical inno- 
vation, but at the same time the recognition 
of an incontestable fact — the validity of Chris- 
tianity w^ithout the pale of the Latin church. 
In asserting this opinion, Luther nov/ took up a 
position which enabled him to appropriate all 
the various elements of opposition to the papacy 
that were afloat in the world. He m.ade him- 
self better acquainted with the doctrines of the 
Oreek church, and finding, for example, that 
't did not admit the doctrine of purgatory, of 
which he also found no mention in Scripture, 
he ceased to maintain it, as he had done even 
m Leipzig.* A far stronger impression was 
made on him by the works of John Huss, which 
now reached him from Bohemia ; he was per- 
fectly astonished at finding therein the doc- 
trines expounded by St. Augustine, and de- 
rived fi-om St. Paul, which he had adopted after 
such violent mental struggles. "I taught 
Huss's opinions," says he, in February, 1520, 
" without knowing them, and so did Staupitz : 
we are all Hussites, without knowing it. Paul 
and Augustine are Hussites: I do not know 
what to think for amazement." He denounces 
woe to the earth, and predicts the fearful judg- 
ments of God, because ' evangelical truth had 
been known for a century, and had been con- 
demned and burnt.f It is evident that he not 
only receded in opinion fi-om the church of 
Rome, but at the same time conceived a re- 
ligious disgust, nay hatred, of her. In the 
same month, the treatise of Laurentius Valla, 
on the donation of Constantine, first fell into 
his hands. It was a discovery to him that this 
donation was a -fiction : his German honesty 
w^as shocked and exasperated at finding that, 
as he says, " such shameless lies had been in- 
corporated into the decretals, and almost made 
articles of faith." " What darkness !" ex- 
clarnis he: "what wickedness!" All spirits 
and powers that had ever waged war against 
the papacy now gathered around him ; those 
which had never submitted from the begin- 
ning ; those which had emancipated themselves 
and never been reclaimed ; and all the tenden- 
cies of the opposition that existed in the bosom 
of Lathi Christendom, whether theological or 
literary. He had no sooner begjin to study 
4he papal^aws, than he thought he perceived 
^hat they were in contradiction to the Scrip- 
tures : he was now persuaded that the Scrip- 
tures and the papacy stood irreconcilably op- 
posed. It is quite in accordance with Luther's 
Character that, while seeking a solution of the 



* Letter to Spalatin, Nov. 7. 
t To Spalatin, in De Wette, nr. 
18 M* 



problem, how this could be permitted by Divine 
providence ; while struggling to recover the 
broken unity of his religious convictions, he 
fell, after violent contention and torture of 
mind, on the hypothesis that the pope was the 
antichrist whom the world was taught to ex- 
pect.:}: This mythical notion tended, no doubt, 
to obscure the historical view which might 
perhaps have been obtained of the subject ; but 
it had, in fact, no other meaning than that the 
doctrine of the clmrch was corrupted, and 
must be restored to its original purity. 

Melanchthon, meanwhile, who had taken the 
part of an ally and adviser in the Leipzig dis- 
putation, was occupied with a parallel, bwt 
peculiar tram of speculation, and now devoted 
himself to theological studies with the quiet 
ardour natural to him ; with the enthusiasm 
which a successful and steady progress in a 
new path always excites. 

The principles on Vv^hich protestant theology 
rest are to be traced, at least as much to him 
as to Luther. One of the first that he enounced, 
referred immediately to the controversy in 
Leipzig. 

Maxim.s of the Fathers of the church were 
appealed to by each side, and with equal jus- 
tice. To extricate the matter from this con- 
tradiction, Melanchthon laid it down in a little 
treatise, published August, 1519, that the 
Scripture was not to be expounded according 
to the Fathers, but that these were to be un- 
derstood to the sense of Scripture.^ He main- 
tained that the expositions of the great pillars 
of the Latin church, Ambrose, Jerome and 
even Augustine, were often erroneous. This 
principle- — that a Cliristian (or, as he expresses 
it, a Catholic) is not bound to receive any thing 
but whtit is contained in Scripture — he treated 
more at large in September, 1519. What he 
had said of the Fathers, he now repeated of 
councils — that their authority was of no ac- 
count when compared to that of Scripture, 
Having reached this point, doubt on doubt in- 
evitably presented itself to his mind, as to the 
entire system of authoritative dogmas. If Lu- 
ther was resolute in action, Melanchthon was 
no less so in speculation. Even in September, 
1519, he stated the polemical maxims in which 
he attacked the two most important funda- 



J To Spalatin, Feb. 23, (not 24,) 1.520, nr. 204. " Ego sic 
angor ut prope non diibitem papain esse proprie anti- 
christum." This notion sprang from the old chiliastic no- 
tions still maintained in the West (see the passage of 
Comniodian ; " venturi sunt sub antichristo qui viiicunt," 
in Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, i. 281), and was especially 
cherished in Germany. One of the oldest German works 
in print, the first mentioned by Panzer in the Annal ender 
älteren deutsdien Literatur, is, Das Buch vom Entkrist 
(The Book of Antichrist), or also, "Biichlin von des 
Endte Christs Leben und Regierung durch verhengniss 
Gottes, wie er die W^elt tuth verkeren mit seiner falschen 
Lere und Eat des Teufels, auch wie darnach die zween 
Propheten Euoch und Helyas die Christenheit wieder be- 
keren mit predigen den Christen Glauben." "Little Book 
concerning Antichrist's Life and Rule through God's Pro- 
vidence, how he doth pervert the World with his false 
Doctrine and Counsel of the Devil ; also how, thereafter, 
the two Prophets, Enoch and Elias, again convert Chris- 
tendom with preaching of Christ's faith." In 1516, this 
book was reprinted at Erfurt. We see bow it came 
about that Luther was occasionally called Elias by his 
followers. 

§ Defensio contra J. Eckium : C. R. i. p. 1813. " Patres 
judice Scriptura recipianlur." 



138 



HÜTTEN. 



Book IL 



mental doctrines of the whole system ; that of 
transubstantiation, and that of the sacerdotal 
character ; whereon the mystery of the visible 
church, as well as the sacramental ritual which 
governs the whole course of human life, rest.* 
The boldness of the attack, and the ing-enuity 
v/ith which it was carried on, filled every one 
with surprise. " He has now appeared to all," 
says Luther, " as wonderful as he really is. 
He is the most powerful enemy of Satan and 
of the schoolmen ; he knows their folly and 
the rock of Christ ; he has the power and the 
v/ill to do the deed. Ame7i." Melanchthon 
now applied himself with fresh fervour to t|ie 
study of the New Testament. He was en- 
chanted by its simplicity, and found in it true 
and pure philosophy : he refers the studious to 
it as the only refreshment to the soul, and the 
afiiicted, as pouring peace and joy into the 
heart. In his course of study, too, he thought 
he perceived that much was contained in the 
doctrines of former theologians, which not only 
could not be deduced from Scripture, but was 
at variance with it, and could never be brought 
into accordance with its spirit. In a discourse 
on the doctrines of Paul, pronounced on the 
18th of January, 1520, he first declared this 
v/ithout reserve. In the follov/ing month he 
remarked that his objections to transubstantia- 
tion and the sacerdotal character, were appli- 
cable to many other doctrines ; he finds traces 
of Jewish ceremonies in the seven sacraments, 
and esteems the doctrine of the pope's infalli- 
bility an arrogant pretension, repugnant to 
Holy Scripture and to common sense : — most 
pernicious opinions, he says, which we ought 
to combat with all our might ; more than one 
Hercules is needed for the work.f 

Thus we perceive that Ivlelanchthon arrives 
at the same point which Luther had already 
reached, though by a calmer and more philoso- 
phical path. It is remarkable how each ex- 
presses himself concerning the Scripture, in 
which both live. " It fills the soul," says Me- 
lanchthon ; " it is heavenly ambrosia. "| " The 
word of God," exclaims Luther, " is a sword, 
and war, and destruction : it meets the children 
of Ephraim like a lioness in the forest." The 
one views it in reference to the inward thoughts 
of man, with which it has so strong an affinity ; 
the other, in its relation to the corruptions of 
the world, against which it wars; but they 
come to the same conclusion. They quitted 
each other no more. " That little Greek 
( Griechlein)," says Luther, " outdoes me even 
in theolog}V' "He will make up to you," 
exclaims he, "for many Martins." All his 
solicitude is that any of those misfortunes 
should befall him v»diich are incident to s'reat 



* Unluckily these propositions, which play a chief part 
in the construction of the protestant system" of belief, are 
no longer to be met with. From a letter of Melanchthon 
to John Hess, Feb. .1520, (C. R. i. 138,) we get a know- 
ledge of three of them, which are moreover the most im- 
portant. According to Luther's letter to Staupitz, in de 
Wette, i. nr. 162, they must date from the month of Sep- 
tember. The propositions which appear in the C. R. p. 
126, are, as Forstemann there remarks, of later origin; 
seemingly of the date of July, 1520. 

t Dedication to Bronner, C. R. p. 138. Letter to Hess. 

I To Schwebel, Dec, 1519, 128. 



minds. On the other hand, Melanchthon was 
deeply impressed and penetrated with the tho- 
rough comprehension of St. Paul, peculiar to 
Luther ; he prefers the' latter to the fathers of 
tlie church ; he finds him more admirable every 
time he sees him ; even in ordinary intercourse, 
he will not admit the justice of the censures 
which his joyous and jocose humour brought 
upon him. It was truly a divine dispensation 
that these two men lived together and united 
at this crisis. They regarded each other as 
tw^o of God's creatures endowed with different 
gifts, each worthy of the other, joined in one 
object, and holding the same convictions; a 
perfect picture of true friendship. Melanch- 
thon is careful not to trouble Luther's mind. 5. 
Luther confesses that he abandons an opinion 
when Melanchthon does not approve it. 

So immeasurable was the influence which 
the literary spirit had obtained over the new 
and growing theology ; an influence which we 
shall now see it exercising- in another manner. 



The minds which took part in -the poetical 
and philological movement of Germany of 
wdrich we have treated, may be arranged under 
two distinct classes. Those of the one class, 
eager to acquire and apt to give instruction, 
sought by tranquil and laborious study to mas- 
ter the erudition they were afterwards to dif- 
fuse. The whole character of their labours, 
which fi-om the first were directed to the Holy 
Scriptures, was represented by Melanchthon, 
and had formed in his person the most intimate 
union with the deeper theological tendencies 
which were exhibited in that of Luther, and 
had gained an ascendency at the university of 
Wittenberg. We have seen what were the 
results of tliis union. The peaceful study of 
letters acquired solidity, depth, and mtensity 
of purpose ; theology, scientific form and an 
erudite basis. But literature exhibited another 
phase: by the side of the tranquil students 
were to be seen the combative poets ;~:well 
content with the ground they had gained, self- 
satisfied and arrogant ; incensed at the opposi- 
tion they had experienced, they filled the world 
with the noise of their war. At the beginning 
of the Lutheran controversy, which they re- 
garded as a mere dispute between two monastic 
orders, they had remained neutral. But now 
that this revealed a character of such vastness, 
and opened a vista so remote — now that it ap- 
pealed to all their sympathies, they too took 
part in it. Luther appeared to them in the 
light of a successor of Reuchlin; John Eck as 
another Ortwin Gratiul, a hired adherent of the 
Dominicans, and in that character they attacked 
him. In March 1520, a satire appeared with 
the title of "The Planed-off' Angle,'.* (Der ab- 
geliobelle Eck), which for fantastic invention, 
striking and crushing truth, and Aristophanic 
wit, far exceeded the " Liters Obscurorum 
Virorum," which it somewhat resembled. And 



§ To John Lange, Aug. 1520, " Spiritum Martini nolim 
temere in hac causa, ad quam destinatus {1770 -npovoiai 
videtur, interpeliare." (C. R. i. 221.) 



Chap. III. 



HÜTTEN. 



im 



at this moment a leader of the band entered 
the lists, not nameless like the others, but with 
his visor up. It was Ulrich von Hütten, the 
temper of whose weapons and his skill in wield- 
ing- them had long' been well known. 

The whole course of Hutten's life had, like 
that of Erasmus, been determined by his being- 
very early condemned to the cloister ; but to 
hmi this constraint was far more intolerable : 
he was the first-born of one of the most distin- 
guished equestrian families of the Buchen, 
which still laid claim to the freedom of the 
empire. On his friends earnestly pressing him 
to take the vows, he ran away, and sougiit his 
fortune, as Erasmus had done, in the newly 
opened career of literature.* He encountered 
every variety of sufferino-: plague and ship- 
wreck ; the banishment of a teacher whom he 
followed ; robbery, and disease ; the scorn with 
which indigence and a mean garb are com- 
monly regarded, especially in a strange land ; 
the utter neglect of his family, who acted as 
if he did not belong to them ; nay, his father 
even treated him with a sort of irony. But his 
courage remained buoyant, his mind free and 
unshackled ; he bid defiance Jo all his enemies, 
and a state of literary warfare became a second 
nature to him. Sometimes it was his ovv'n per- 
sonal quarrels which he fought out on the field 
of literature; for example, the ill-treatment he 
sustained from his hosts at Greif|wald, v:ho 
robbed him ; he called upon all his companions 
of the school of poets to take part against this 
act of injustice, which was, as it were, com- 
mitted against them all.f Another time he 
replied to the reproach which even in that age 
he had to encounter, tliat a man must he some- 
thing, i. e. must fill some ofiice, or hold some 
title ; or some deed of violence, like the unjus- 
tifiable conduct of the Duke of Würtemberg 
to one of his cousins, moved him to vehement 
accusation. But his warlike muse was still 
more excited by the aflairs of his countrv: 

The study of Roman literature, in vrhich the 
Germans have taken so eminent a part, has not 
unfrequently had the effect of awakening- the 
patriotism of their descendants. The ill-success 
of the emperor in the Venetian war did not 
deter Hütten from eulogizing him, or from 
treating the Venetians, in their contest with 
him, as upstart fishermen; he contrasts the 
treachery of the pope and the insolence of the 
French, v,\ith the achievements of the Lands- 
knechts and the fame of Jacob von Ems. He 
writes long poems to prove that the Germans 
have not degenerated, that they are still the 
ancient race. Just as he returned from Italy, 
the contest between the Reuchlinists and the 
Dominicans had broken out, and he rushed to 
the side of his natural ally, armed with all the 
weapons of mdignation and of ridicule ; he ce- 
lebrated the triumph of his master in <iiiis best 
hexameters, which were embellished with an 
ingenious wood-cut. Hütten is not a great 
scholar, nor is he a very profound thhiker ; his 



* Mohnike, Ulricli H-attens Jugendleben, p. 43. Hutteti 
was born in 1488; in 1499 he entered the convent, and in 
1504 deserted it. 

t Q-uerelarum, lib. ii. eleg..x. " nostros, communia vul- 
nera casus." 



excellence lies more in the exhaustlessness of 
his vein, which gushes forth with equal impe- 
tuosity, equal freshness, in the most various 
forms — in Latin and in German, in prose and 
in verse, in eloquent invective and in brilliant 
satirical dialogue. Nor is he without the spirit 
of acute observation ; here and there (for ex- 
ample in the Nemo) he soars to the bright and 
clear regions of genuine poetry : his hostilities 
have not that cold malignant character which 
disgusts the reader ; they are always connected 
v/ith a cordial devotion to the side he advocates : 
he leaves on tlie mind an impression of perfect 
veracity, of uncompromising franlmess and ho- 
nesty ; above all, he has always great and sin- 
gle purposes v/hich command universal sympa- 
thy ; he has earnestness of mind, and a passion 
(to use his own words) " for godlike truth, for 
common liberty." The victory of the Reuch- 
linists had turned to his advantage also : he 
had found an asylum at the court of the Elector 
Albert of Mainz, and formed an intimacy with 
the formidable Sickingen ; he was cured of his 
illness, and now tliought of m-anying and en- 
tering upon his paternal inheritance ; he thus 
hoped to enjoy the tranquillity of domestic life, 
while the brilliancy of the reputation he had 
already acquired secured to him an eminent 
station. Under these circumstances, the spirit 
vrhich Luther had awakened in the nation 
breathed upon him; a prospect opened, com- 
pared to which all previous results had been 
mere child's-play; it took possession of his 
whole convictions, of every impulse and energy 
of his mind. For a moment Flutten deliberated. 
The enemy to be attacked was the mightiest 
in existence, who had never been subdued, and 
who wielded power with a thousand hands; 
whoever engaged in a conflict with him must 
be avv-are that he would never more find peace 
so long as he lived. Hütten did not disguise 
this from himself; it was discussed in the 
family, who dreaded the losses and evils to 
Vv'hich it would expose them. " My pious mo- 
ther vrept," said he. But he tore himself away, 
renounced his paternal inheritance, and once 
more took up arms.t 

In the beginning of the year 1.5*20 he wrote 
some dialogues, for which he "could never hope 
to obtain pardon. In the one, called the Spec- 
tators {Anschaifenden), the jests on the papal 
legate are no longer, as before, confined to cer- 
tain externals; all his spiritual faculties, his 
anathema and excommunication which he hurls 
against the sun, are treated with the bitterest 
scorn and derision. In another — Vadiscus, or 
the Roman Trinity — the abuses and pretensions 
of the Curia are described in striking triplets : 
in confirmation of the Wittenberg opinion that 
the papacy was inconsistent with the Scriptures, 
Hütten drevv^ a picture of the actual state of the 
court of Rome, in which he represented it as 
an abyss of moral and religious corruption, 
which the duty of Germans to God and their 
country equally called upon them to shun.§ His 



J Apolo<j3' for Uh-ich von Hütten in Meiner's Lebens- 
beschreibungen berühmter Manner, &c.. iii. 749. 

§ Vadiscus, Dialogus qui et Trias Romana inscribitur. 
Inspicientes Dialogus Hutteni. Opera ed, Munch, iii. 
427, 511. 



14a 



BULL OF LEO X. 



Book IL 



ideas were profoundly national An old apolo- 
gy for Henry IV. having accidentally fallen 
into his hands, he published it in March, 1520, 
with a view of reviving the recollections of the 
great strug'gle with Gregory VIL, and the ex- 
tinct sympathy of the nation with the empire, 
and of the empire with the nation.* He sent 
it to the young Archduke Ferdinand, who had 
just arrived in the Netherlands from Spain, 
with a dedication, in which he calls upon him 
to lend his aid to the restoration of the ancient 
independence of Germany, Vv^hich had with- 
stood the warlike and victorious Romans of old, 
and was now become tributary to the effeminate 
Romans of modern times.f It appeared as if 
the nation might reasonably look with hope to 
the two brothers of tJie house of Austria, whose 
elevation to the throne had been so earnestly 
opposed by the papal court. Most of their 
friends v/ere indeed at this moment enemies of 
the papacy. We have already alluded to the 
disposition of the court of Mainz. In Switzer- 
land, all who had approved Luther's first book 
were adherents of Cardinal von Sitten, who 
liad so successfully conducted the affairs of the 
house of Austria at the diet, partly by their 
assistance. Sickingen, w^lio had contributed so 
much to the decision taken by Würt.emberg, 
was likewise a partisan of Reuchlin, and found 
means to compel the Cologne Dominicans, 
althougli the process was still pending in Rome, 
to obey the sentence of the Bishop of Spires, 
and to pay the costs to which they had there 
been condemned. No one had contributed more 
to the election of Charles V. than Frederic of 
Saxony : by the protection which he had af- 
forded to Luther and his university, he had 
rendered possible the national movement in that 
prince's favour. He now absolutely refused to 
allow Luther to be tried at Rome. On the day 
of tlie emperor's election the Archbishop of 
Treves had actually undertaken the office of 
umpire, and Elector Frederic declared that no 
steps should be taken against Lutlier till that 
prelate had pronounced his decision, by which 
he would abide.| There was a secret connec- 
tion between all these incidents, these various 
manifestations of opinion — people were resolved 
to get rid of the interference of Rome. Hütten 
preached in all parts, that Germany must aban- 
don Rome and return to her awn bishops and 
primates. " To your tents, O Israel !" exr 
claimed he ; and we perceive that sovereigns 
and cities responded to his appeal. § He deemed 
himself destined to accomplish this change, 
and hastened to the court of the archduke, in 
order, if possible, to gain him over by personal 
intercourse, and to inspire him with his own 
ardour. He felt the most confident assurance 
of success. In an essay written on the road, 



* Waltiainus de Unitate EccLesiee conservaiiria, etc., in 
Schardius, Sylloge, Part I. 

t Praefatio ad Ferdinandum. 0pp. iii. 55J. 

J Transactions, Walch, XV. 916, 919. The chief reason 
why this did not come to pass was, that Frederic wanted 
to bring Luther with him to the Imperial Diet, which was 
to be held in Nov. 1519, but which the Imperial Commis- 
sioners prevented. 

§ Agrippa a Nettesheim Johanni Rogerio Brennonio 
ex Colonia, 16 Junii, 1520. (Epp. Agrippse, lib. ii. p. 99.) 
"Relinquat Romanos Germania et revertatur ad pri- 
mates et episcopos sues." 



lie predicted that the tyranny of Rome would 
not long endure ; already the axe was laid to 
the root of the tree. He exhorted the Germans 
only to have confidence in their brave leaders, 
and not to faint in the midst of the fight ; for 
they must go on— on, in this propitious "state of 
things, with this good cause, with these noble 
energies. " Liberty for ever — .Tacta est alea," 
was his motto. The die is cast ; I have ven- 
tured all upon the throw. || 

Such was the turn which Luther's cause nov/ 
took — not without great faults on the side of 
the defenders of the See of Rome. The 
attack, which, tliough only levelled at one side 
of the great system, would unquestionably have 
been very troublesome to the head of the 
Church, was now directed against his entire 
position and functions, — against that idea of 
his authority and prerogative which he had so 
successfully laboured to establish. It was no 
longer confined to the domain of theology ; for 
tlie first time, the literary and political 
elements of opposition existing in the nation 
came into contact and mutual mtelligence, if 
not into close union, with the theological; 
thus allied, they turned their united strength 
against the prerogatives of the Pope of Rome. 

This led to a similar combination on the 
other side ; and the See of Rome, which had 
hitherto always maintained reserve, was nov/ 
induced to pronounce a definitive sentence. 

i BULL OF LEO X. 

We must bear in mind that the advocates of 
the old opinions were not satisfied with opposing 
Luther with all the authority they possessed 
(for example, the Dominican universities of 
Louvain and Cologne pronounced a solemn 
condemnation of his works), but sought to 
prove themselves the strictest and most faithful 
allies of the Roman See. The attacks of the 
Germans furnished them with an opportunity 
to exalt the omnipotency of the papacy more 
extravagantly than ever. Silvestro,Mazzolini, 
the Master, of the Sacred Palace, of whom we 
have spoken, published a pamphlet,^ in which, 
indignant that Luther had dared to appeal 
from his judgment to the pope, and in the last 
resort to a council, he tries to demonstrate that 
there can be no judge superior to the pope ; 
that tlie Roman pontiff is the infallible arbiter 
of all controversies and of all doubts ; and 
further sets forth that the papal sovereignty is 
the only true monarchy, the fifth monarchy 
mentioned by Daniel; that the pope is the 
prince of all spiritual, and the father of all 
temporal princes; the head of the whole 
world, nay, that he is, virtually, the whole 
world.** In his former work, he had only said 



|( Ad lib^os in Germania omnes. 0pp. iii. 563< 
IT De Jurldica et Jrrefragabibili Veritate Romanae Ec 
clesias Romanique Pontiticis : Roccaberti, Bibl. Max. torn, 
xix. p. 264. 

** C. iv. " Etsi ex jam dictis constat Romannm prce 
sulem esse caput orbis universi, quippe qui primus hier- 
archa et princeps sit omnium spiritualiüm ac pater om- 
nium temporalium principum, tarnen quia advensarius 
negat eum esse ecclesiam catholicam virtualiter aut etiam 
esse ecclesiffi caput, eapropter ostendendum est quod sit 
caput orbis et consequenter orbis totus in virtute." 



Chap. III. 



BULL OF LEO X. 



141- 



that the whole collective church was in the 
pope ; now he affected to prove that the pope 
was the world. In another place, too, he did 
not hesitate to declare that all the power of 
temporal sovereigns was a sub-delegation of 
the papal.* The pope, he says, is more supe- 
rior to the emperor than gold to lead : a pope 
can appoint or depose an emperor ; appoint or 
depose electors ; make or abolish positive laws : 
the emperor, he exclaims, together with all 
laws and all Christian peoples, could effect 
nothing contrary to his will.f The proofs that 
he adduces in support of his opinion are, indeed, 
strange enough, but it was not necessary to 
substantiate them ; it was enough that they 
w^ere adduced by a man of so eminent a station, 
and that they emanated from tlie papal palace. 
German obsequiousness hastened to furnish 
Roman arrcygance with a somewhat better 
groundwork for its pretensions. In February, 
1520, Eck also completed a treatise on the 
primacy, in which he promises triumphantly 
and clearly to confute LutJiers assertion, " that 
it is not of divine right," and also to '.set forth 
various other rare and notable things, collected 
with great labour, partly from manuscripts 
which he had most diligently collated, " Ob- 
serve, reader," says he, "and thou shalt see 
that I keep my word,"| Nor is his work by 
any means devoid of learning and talent ; it is 
an armoury of very various weapons; but it 
affords the most distinct evidence of the im.por- 
tance of this controversy to science, indepen- 
dent of all theological considerations, and of 
the profound 'darkness in which all true and 
critical history still lay buried. EcJc assumes, 
without the slightest hesitation, that Peter 
resided twenty-five years at Rome, and was a 
perfect prototype of all succeeding popes; 
whereas, historical criticism has shown that it is 
a matter of doubt whether the apostle ever was 
at Rome at all: he finds cardinals, and even 
under that title, as early as the year 770, and 
assigns the rank and functions of cardinal to 
St. Jeromg. In the second book, he adduces 
the testimony of the Fathers of the Church in 
support of the divine right of the pope, and 
places at their head Dionysius Areopagita, 
whose works are, unfortunately, spurious.-— 
Among his favourite documents are the decre- 
tals of the elder popes, from which nmch 
certainly is derived that we should not other- 
wise be inclined to believe ; the only misfortune 
is, that they are altogether forgeries. He re- 
proaches Luther with understandhig nothing 
v/hatever of tlie old councils ; the sixth canon 
of the council of Nice, from Vvdiich Luther 

*Ds Papa et ejus Potestate, ibid. p. 339. " Tenia po- 
testas (the first is ihat of the Pope, tlie second that of the 
prelates) est in ministerium dnta, lit ea qua) est impera- 
toris et etiam principiim terreiioruni, quse respectu I^apos 
est siibdelegata subordinata." 

f'Papa est imperatore major digiiitate, plus quam 
aurnin plumbo (371). —Potest eligere imperatoreiii per se 
jpsiiin immediate^— ex quo sequitur quod etiam possit elr- 
gere electores imperatoris et mutare ex causa : ejus etiam 
est electum confirmare,— et diguum depositione deponere 
(372). — Nee imperator cum oinuibus legibus et omnibus 
Christianis possent contra ejus voluntatem quicquam 
statuere." 

I De Primatu Petri. In Eckii 0pp. contra Lutherum, 
torn. i. f. iii. 



deduced the equality of the ancient patriarch- 
ate, he interprets in a totally different manner ; 
but here again he had the ill luck to rest his 
arguments on the spurious canon, which belongs 
not to the Nicene, but the Sardicene, synod. 
And so on. 

It is important to have a distinct idea of the 
actual state of things. With these claims of 
an absolute power, mcluding all other earthly 
powers, were connected, not only dogmatic 
theology as elaborated in the schools, but this 
gigantic fiction, this falsfication of history, rest- 
ing on mnumerable forged documents; which, 
if not overthrown, as it subsequently Vv^as (and 
Vv^e must add chiefiy by truly learned men of 
the Catholic church itself), would have made 
all authentic and well-founded history impossi- 
ble : the human mind would never have arrived 
at the true knowledge of ancient times, or at 
the consciousness of the stages itself had passed 
through. The newly-awakened spirit of the 
German nation seized at once upon this entire 
system, and laboured energetically to open new 
paths in every direction of human thought and 
action — politics, religion, science and letters. 
Equal zeal, was displayed ori the other side in 
iTiaintaining the old system entire. As soon as 
Eck had finished his book, he hastened to Rome 
to present it himself to the pope, and to invoke 
the severest exercise of the ecclesiastical au- 
thority against his opponents. 

It was asserted at the time that Eck was in 
fact sent to Rome by the house of Fugger, 
which was alarm.ed at the prospect of losing 
the profit arising from the money exchanges 
between Rome and Germany. It is at least 
certain that the doctor had some intimate con- 
nection with those eminent merchants. It was 
in their behalf that he defended usury in his 
disputation at Bologna. § 

But his chief aid was derived from the judg- 
ment pronounced against the new opinions by 
Cologne and Louvain. Cardinals Campeggi 
and Vio, wlio vrere well acquainted with Ger- 
many, gave him all the support in their power. 
His book was fully calculated to place the im- 
minence of the danger before their eyes. A 
commission of seven or eight zealous theolo- 
gians was appointed, of which Giovan Pietro 
Caraffa, Aleander, and probably also Silvestro 
]\Iazzolini and Eck himself, were members; 
their judgment could not be for one moment 
doubtful ; "already, in the beginning of May, the 
draft of the bull by which Luther was con- 
demned was prepared. 

In the trial of Reuchlin, it was matter of 
doubt how far the See of Rome made common 
cause with the Dominicans; nov/, however, 
that order ha.d completely succeeded in restor- 
ing the ancient alliance. In the present case 
the trial was hardly begun, when we hear that 
the monks at Cologne triumphed in a sentence 

§ Liters cuju^lam e Roma. From the Pirkheimer 
papers in Riederer, Nacln-ichfen zur Kirchen Gelehrten 
und Büchergeschichte, i. p. .178. As a letter, this docu- 
ment certainly inspires me with some suspicion; at all 
events, however, it is of the same date, and expresses the 
opinion of a well-informed contemporary. Weiser also 
saj's, (Augspurgische Chroniken, ander theil, p. 275,) that 
that disputation had been held " at the cost of Jacob Fug- 
ger and his partners." 



142 



BULL OF LEO X. 



Book H. 



which had been pronounced in their favour, 
and caused it to he affixed on their church- 
doors.* 

The Elector of Mainz was called to account 
for the protection he had afforded to Ulrich von 
Hütten, and exhorted to show^ severity against 
the author of so many libels. The main object, 
however, was the condemnation of Luther, 
The jurists of the Curia were of opinion that a 
citation and fresh hearing of the accused were 
necessary, adding that "God had summoned 
even Cam once and again before him ;" but the 
theologians would accede to no furtiier post- 
ponement. They at length came to a compro- 
mise, and determined that the propositions ex- 
tracted from Luther's w^ritings were to be 
judged without delay, but that an interval of 
sixty days Vv'as to be granted to him for recant- 
ation. The draft of the bull, framed by Car- 
dinal Accolti, underwent many alterations. A 
consistory was held four times, to consider of 
each separate proposition ; Cardinal Vio, though 
suffering under a severe attack of illness, would 
on no account stay away ; he was carried to 
the meeting every time. A smaller conference 
met in the presence of the pope himself, at his 
country-house at Malliano, and in this Eck took 
part. At length, on the 16th of June, the bull 
.was completed. Forty-one propositions from 
Luther's writings v/ere declared false, danger- 
ous, scandalous, or a,bsolute]y heretical ; and 
the damnatory decrees of the universities of 
Louvain and Cologne as learned, true, and even 
holy. Christ was invoked to protect his vine- 
yard, the management of which he had, at his 
ascension, entrusted to St. Peter. St. Peter 
was besought to take the cause of the Church 
of Rome, the mistress of the faith, under his 
care. Luth'er, if he did not recant within the 
sixty days allowed him, w^as to be considered a 
etubborn heretic, and to be hewn off, as a sere 
and withered branch, from Christendom. All 
Christian authorities were exhorted to seize his 
person and to deliver him into the hands of the 
pope.f 

It appears that no doubt of the complete suc- 
cess of this measure w^as entertained in Rome. 
Two vigorous champions who had a personal 
interest in the matter, Aleander and John Eck 
himself, w^ere entrusted with its execution. In 
Germany there was no need of a royal placet; 
the commissioners had their hands completely 
free. 



*Letter from Hedios to Zwingliiis in Meiners, passim, 
p. 236. This matter deserved closer examination. Tiiat 
it had been really agitated again in Rome at that very 
time, is clear from the letters of the Elector Palatine and 
the Dominicans, assembled at Frankfurt, (Friedlander, 
Beitrage zur Reformations-geschichle, pp. 113, 116), May 
10 and 20, 1520. But might not the letter of the Domini- 
cans have been merely a consequence of the extorted 
agreement with Sickingen ? If so, no weight could be at- 
tached to it by the court of Rome. Even at Leipzig, Eck 
had drawn attention to the necessity ofthat reunion; lie 
blamed the pope for his leaning to the grammarians 
(grammaticelli), adding that he was not proceeding in 
Ihe via regia : July 24, 1519 (not 1520) ; in Luther'» 0pp. 
Lat.ii. p. 469. 

t Frequently printed in Luther's and Hutten's works. 
The authentic copy is in Bull. Cocq. III. iii. p. 487. It 
surprises me that Rainaldus, who gives it, should have 
taken it from Cochlaus. On all these subjects he is very 
scanty. Pallavicini is somewhat better. A few notices 
are to be found in the Parnassus Boicus, iii. p. 205. 



How proud and elated was Eck on reappear- 
ing in Germany wäth the new title of papal 
protlionotary and nuncio ! He instantly hastened 
to the scene of the conflict, and in the month 
of September caused the bull to be fixed up in 
public places in Meissen, Merseburg and Bran- 
denburg. Meanwhile Aleander descended the 
Rhine for the same purpose. 

It is said, and with perfect truth, that they 
did not every wdiere meet wnth the best recep- 
tion ; but the arms they wielded were still ex- 
tremely terrible. Eck had received the unheard 
of permission to denounce any of the adherents 
of Luther at his pleasure, when he published 
the bull ; a permission which, it will readily be 
believed, he did not allow to pass unused. 
Amongst others, he had named Adelmann of 
Adelmannsfeld, his brother canon at Eichstädt, 
w^ith whom he had once nearly gone to blows 
at dinner concerning the questions of the day. 
In pursuance of the bull, the bishop of Augs- 
burg now set on foot proceedings against Adel- 
mann, who was compelled to purge himself of 
the Lutheran heresy by oath and vow. Eck 
had not scrupled also to denounce two eminent 
and respected members of the council or senate 
of Nürnberg — Spengler and Pirkheimer : the 
intercessions of the city, of the Bishop of Bam- 
berg, even of the Dukes of Bavaria, w^ere of no 
avail; they were forced to bow before Eck, 
who made them feel the whole weight of the 
authority of one commissioned by the See of 
Rome.ij: In October 1520, Luther's books were 
seized in all the bookseller's shops of Ingol- 
stadt, and sealed. § Moderate as w^as the Elector 
of Mainz, he w^as obliged to exclude from his 
court Ulrich von Hütten, wdio had been ill re- 
ceived in the Netherlands, and to throw the 
printer of his writings into prison. Luther's 
works were first burnt in JVIainz. Aleander's 
exultation at this was raised to a pitch of insane 
insolence. He let fall expressions like those 
of Mazzolini — that the pope could depose kmg 
and emperor ; that he could say to the emperor, 
" Thou art a tanner" (rDu bist ein Qerber) : he 
would soon, he said, settle the business of a few 
miserable grammarians; and even that Duke 
Frederic would be come at by some means or 
other. II 

But though this storm raged far and wdde, it 
passed harmless over the spot w^hich it w'as 
destined to destroy. Wittenberg was un- 
scathed ; Eck had mdeed mstructions, if Luther 
did not submit, to execute on him the menaces 
of the bull, with the aid of the surrounding- 
princes and bishops.op He had been authorized 
to punish as a heretic the literary adversary 
wliom he was unable to overcome ; a commis- 
sion against which the natural instinct of mo- 
rality so strongly revolted, that it more than 



jRiederer's little work, Beiträge, &c., is specially de- 
voted to these events. The privilege possessed by Eck 
appears from a paragraph of his Instructions, quoted by 
him word for word, p. 79. 

§ Letter of Baumgartner to the Council of Nürnberg, 
Oct. 17. 

IIErasmi Responsio ad Albertum Pium, in Hardt, Hist. 
Lit. Ref. i. 169, For the SnrXiüixarocpdpos is no other than 
Aleander. 

TT Extract from the Breve Apostol. 15 Kal. Aug. Win- 
ter, Geschichte der Evangel. Lehre, in Baiern, i. p. 53. 



Chap. III. 



CRISIS OF SECESSION. 



143 



l\ 



once endangered Eck's personal safety, and 
which, moreover, it was found impossible to 
execute. The Bishop of Brandenburg had not 
the power, even had he had the will, to exer- 
cise the rights of an ordinary in Wittenberg ; 
the university was protected by its exemptions, 
and, on receiving the bull from Eck, he resolved 
not to publish it. The authorities assigned as 
a reason that his Holiness either knew nothing 
about it, or had been misled by the violent m- 
stigations of Eck. That Eck had, on his ov\ti 
authority, specified by name tv/o other mem- 
bers of the university, Carlstadt and Johann 
Feldkirciien, as partisans of Luther, created 
universal indignation. Luther and' Carlstadt 
were allowed to be present at th^e sittings 
in which the resolutions as to the bull were 
passed.* Already the university had greater 
authority m this part of Germany than the 
pope. Its decision served as a rule to the elec- 
toral government, and even to the official of the 
bishopric of Naumburg-Zeiz. 

The only question novv^ was, what the Elector 
of Saxony, who Vv^as just gone to meet the 
emperor on his arriva.1 at the Rhine, would say. 
Aleander met him in Cologne and insumtly 
delivered the bull to him. But he received a 
very ungracious answer. The elector was 
indignant that the pope, notv/ithstanding his 
request that the affair m.ight be tried m Germa- 
ny, notwithstanding the com.mission sent to the 
Archbishop of Treves, had pronounced sentence 
in Rome, at the instigation of a declared and 
personally irritated enemy, who had then come 
himself to publish, in the sovereign's absence, 
a bull, which, if executed, would ruin the 
university, and must inevitably cause the great- 
est disorder in the excited country. But, 
besides this, he was convinced that injustice 
was done to Luther. Erasmus had already 
said to hrni at Cologne, that Luther's sole 
crime was that he attacked the pope's crown 
and the monks' bellies.f This was likewise 
the prince's opinion; it was easy to .read in 
his face how much these words pleased hhn. 
His personal dignity was insulted, his sense 
of justice outraged ; he determined not to 
yield to the pope. He reiterated his old demand, 
that Luther should be heard by his equals, 
learned and pious judges, in a place of safety ; 
he would hear nothing of the bull.i This, too, 
w^as the opinion of his court, his brother, and 
his nephew, — the fixture successor to the 
throne — nay, of the whole country.^ 

For it was in the nature of things that the 
partial and ill-considered proceedings of the 
See of Rome should awaken all antipathies. 
We may safely affirm, tliat it 'was the bull 



* Peter Burcard (Rector) to Spangler. Rieuerer, p. C9. 

jSpalatin, Life of Frederic, p. 132. The "Axiomata 
Erasmi Roterodami pro causa Lutheri Spalatiiiu tradita, 
5 Nov, 1500, in Lutheri 0pp. Lat. ii. p. Ö14," are very re- 
markable, as throwing light upon the notions of Erasmus. 

t Narrative of the proceedings at Cologne (W. xv. 
1919); the idea that this is by Heinrich von Ziitphen, is 
an error caused by the signature in the earlier edition, 
which, however, only refers to an annexed correspond- 
ence. 

§ Veit Warbeck ; Walch, xv. 1876. 



which first occasioned the v/hole m.ass of publie 
mdignation to burst forth. 



CRISIS OF SECESSIOX. 

Durmg the early m.onths of the year 1-520, 
Luther had remained comparatively passive, 
and had only declared himself against auricu- 
lar confession and against the administration 
of the Lord's Supper in one kind, or defended 
the propositions he had advanced at Leipzig ; 
but v;hen the tidings of Eck's success at Ronie, 
and of the impending excommunication, reach- 
ed liim, at fi.rst as a vague rumour, but daily 
acquiring consistency, and strength, his ardour 
for spiritual com/bat avvoke: the convictions 
wliich had meanwhile been ripening in him 
burst forth ; " at length," exclaimed he, " the 
mysteries of Antichrist must be unveiled :" in 
the course of June, just as the bull of excom- 
munication had been issued at Rome, he wrote 
his Book to the Christian Nobility of the 
German Nation, which was, as his fi-iends 
justly observed, the signal for a decisive attack. 
The tv.'o nnncios, with their bulls and instruc- 
t'ons, v.-ere met by tliis book, which was pub- 
lished in August at Wittenberg. i| It consists 
of a fevi sheets, th.e matter of which hovv^ever 
was destined to affect the history of the world, 
and the development of the human mind ; — • 
at once preparative and prophetic. Hov/ loud 
had been the complaints uttered in all coun- 
tries at this time of the abuses of the Curia, 
and the misco];iduct of the clergy ! Had Luther 
done nothing more, it would have signified 
little ; but he brought into application a great 
principle which had taken firm hold on hia 
mind since Melancthcn's disputation ; he denied 
the cliaracter indelehilis conferred by ordina- 
tion, and thus shook the whole ground vrork of 
the separation and privileges of the clergy. 
He came to the decision that in regard to 
spiritual capacity, all -Christians are equal; this 
is the meaning of his somewhat abrupt express 
sion that " all Cliristians are priests." Hence 
follovv^ed two ' consequences ; first, that the 
priesthood can be nothing but a fimction ; " no 
otherwise separate or superior in dignity,'* 
says he, " than that the clergy must handle 
the Word of God and the Sacraments ; that is 
their work and office;" but also that they 
)nust be subject to the sovereign power, which 
has another office to perform ; '■ which holds 
the svrord and the rod in its hand \^'herewith 
to punish the wicked and to protect the good."*r 
These few^ words run counter to the whole 
idea of the papacy as conceived Ihi the middle 
ages; on the other hand they furnish a, new 
basis to the secular pov/er, for which they 
vindicate the scriptural idea of sovereignty ; 
and they include in themselves the sum of a 
new and grand social movement Vvhich was 
destined by its character to be prolonged 



ll Probably, hovrever, in the beginning of August. On 
the third of August, Lutlier writes to his brother Augus- 
tine, Voigt, "jß?7i edo librura viilgarum contra Papam de 
statu ecciesiJE emendando." (De"V. i. 475.) 

IT An den christlichen Adel deutschen Nation ; von des 
christlichen Standes Besserung. Altenb. Ausg. Werke, 
i. 483. 



144 



CRISIS OF SECESSION. 



Book IJ. 



through centuries. Yet Luther was not of 
opinion that the pope should be overthrown. 
He would have him remain, neither, of course, 
as lord paramount of the emperor, nor as pos- 
sessor of all spiritual power; hut with w^ell- 
defined limited functions, the most important 
of which would be to settle the differences 
betv/een primates and archbishops and to urge 
them to the fulfilment of their duties. lie 
vvould retain cardinals also, but only as many 
as should be necessary — about twelve — and 
they should not monopolise the best livirigs 
throughout the world. The national churches 
should be as independent as possible ; in 
Germany, especially, there should be a primate 
with his own jurisdiction and his chanceries 
of grace and justice, before which the appeals 
of the German bishops should be brought ; for 
the bishops, too, should enjoy greater indepen- 
dence. Luther strongly censured the interfer- 
ence v/hich the See of Rome had recently been 
guilty of in the diocese of Strasburg. The 
bishops should be freed from the oppressive 
oaths with which they were bound to the pope : 
convents might still be suffered to exist, but in 
smaller number, and under certain strict limi- 
tations : the inferior clergy should be free to 
marry. It is not necessary to enumerate all 
the changes which were connected with these 
in his mind ; • his meaning and purpose are 
clear. It could not be said that he wished to 
break up the unity of Latin Christendom, or 
completely destroy the constitution of the 
church. Within the bounds of their vocation, 
he acknowledges the independence, nay, even 
the authority of the clergy;* but to this voca- 
tion he wishes to recall them, and at the same 
time to nationalise them and render them less 
dependent upon the daily interference of 
Rome. This wish, indeed, he shared with 
every class of the community. 

This v/as, however, only one point of his 
attack — the mere signal tor the battle, which 
soon after followed in all its violence. In Oc- 
tober, 1520, appeared the treatise on the Baby- 
lonish captivity of the church ;f for Luther re- 
garded the gradual establishment of the Latin 
dogmas and usages, which had been effected 
by the co-operation of the schools and the hie- 
rarchy, in the light of a power conferred on the 
church. He attacked them in the very centre 
of their existence — in the doctrine of the sacra- 
ments — and, in the first place, in the most im- 
portant of these, the Eucharist. We should do 
him injustice w^ere w^e to look for a thoroughly 
elaborated theory on this subject; he only 
points out the contradictions vv^hich subsisted 
between the original institution and the pre- 
vailing doctrine. He opposes the refusal of the 
cup, not because he did not believe that the 
bread contained the v^^hole sacrament, but be- 
cause nobody ought to attempt to make the 
smallest change in the original institutions of 
Christ. He does not, however, counsel the re- 



*" It does not beseem the pope to exalt himself above 
the temporal power, save only in spiritual otfices, such as 
preaching and absolving." (p. 494.) 

t De Captivitate Babj^lonica EcclesiaB Prfeludium M. L., 
ubi prsecipue de natura, numero et usu sacramentorum 
agitur. 0pp. ed. Jen. ii. 259. 



sumption of the cup by force ;| he only combats 
the arguments with which it had been attempted 
to justify the refusal of it from Scripture, and 
zealously traces out the vestiges of the pure 
and primitive practice. He then treats of the 
doctrine of transubstantiation. The reader will 
recollect that Peter Lombard had not ventured 
to maintain the transformation of the substance 
of the bread. Later theologians did not hesi- 
tate to do this ; they taught that the accidens 
alone remained ; a theory which they supported 
by a pretended Aristotelic definition of subject 
and accident. § This was the point taken up 
by Luther. The objections raised by Peter of 
Ailly to this hypothesis had, at a former period, 
made a great impression upon him ; but he now 
also thought it dishonest to introduce into Scrip- 
ture any thing v/hich v/as not found in it, and 
that its w^ords were to be taken in their plainest 
and most precise meaning; he no longer ac- 
knowledged the force of the argument, that the 
Church of Rome had sanctioned this hypothesis ; 
since she was that same Thomist Aristotelic 
church, with which he was engaged in a mor- 
tal struggle. Moreover, he believed himself 
able to prove that Aristotle had not even been 
understood on this point by St. Thomas. |1 But 
a yet more important doctrine, ?ts affecting the 
practical views of Luther, was, that the cele- 
bration of the sacrament was a meritorious 
work — a sacrifice. This dogma was connected 
Vv'itli the m^/sterious notion of the identity of 
Christ with the Church of Rome, which Luther 
now entirely rejected. He found nothing of it 
in the Scripture ; here he read only of the pro- 
mise of redemption connected with the visible 
sign or token, and v/ith the faith ; nor could he 
forgive the schoolmen for treating only of the 
sign, and passing over in silence the promise 
and the faith.^ How could any man maintain 
that it was a good work — a sacrifice — to re- 
member a promise ? That the performance of 
this act of remembrance could be profitable to 
another, and that other absent, was one of the 
most false and dangerous doctrines. In com- 
bating these dogmas, he does not conceal from 
himself the consequences : — that the authority 
of countless writings must be overthrown ; the 
whole system of ceremonies and external prac- 
tices altered : but he looks this necessity boldly 
in the face ; he regards himself as the advocate 
of the Scripture, which was of higher signifi- 
cance and deserved more careful reverence 
than all the thoughts of men or angels. He 
said he only proclaimed the Word in order to 
save his own soul ; the world might then look 



J "Contra tam patentes potentes scripluras; contra 
evidentes Dei scripturas," p. 262. 

§Oue principal passage is in the Summa Divi Thorns, 
pars iii. qu. 75, art. iv. c. 1™. v.'4. 

llOpiniones in rebus fidci non modo ex Aristotele, tra- 
dere, sed et super eum, quem non intellexit, conatus est 
stabilire: infeiicissimi fundanienti infelicissima slruc- 
tura. (p. 2Ü.3.) 

TT If at a later period, Bollarmin, as Mohler, p. 25.5,'re- 
lales, requires before all tilings " exparte suscipientis vo- 
hnnatem fidem et pcRuitentiam," still it was exactly con- 
clusions of this kind which Luther missed in the then 
prevailing thomistic writings; and before we blame him, 
it must be shown that these doctrines had been really 
taught and inculcated in his time. Their readniissioti 
into the Roman church is, as has been said, only the re- 
action of the spirit of reform. 



CflAl'. III. 



CRISIS OF SECESSION, 



145 



to it whetlier it would follow tliat Word or not. 
He would no longer adhere to the doctrine of 
the seven sacraments. Thomas Aquinas de- 
lights to show how their order corresponds with 
the incidents of the natural and social life of 
man — baptism with his birth ; confirmation 
with his growth ; the eucharist with the nutri- 
ment of his body ; penance with the medicine 
of his diseases ; extreme unction with his entire 
cure : — how ordination sanctified public busi- 
ness; marriage, natural procreation.* But 
these images were not calculated to make any 
impression on Luther ; he only inquired what 
was to be clearly read in the Scriptures ; what 
was the immediate relation between a rite, and 
faith and redemption : he rejected, almost with 
the same arguments as those to be found in the 
confession of the Moravian brethren, four of the 
sacraments, and adhered only to baptism, the 
Lord's Supper, and penance. The others could 
not even be derived from the See of Rome ; 
they were the product of the scliools, to v/hich, 
indeed, Rome was mdebted for all she possess- 
ed ;f and hence there was a great difference 
between the papacy of a thousand years ago 
and that of the present day. 

The hostile systems of opinion on the destiny 
and duties of man, and on the plan of the uni- 
verse, now stood confronted in all their might. 
Whilst the papal see proclaimed anew in every 
bull all the privileges which it had acquired 
during the gradual construction of its spirituo- 
temporal state in the middle ages, and the prin- 
ciples of faith connected with them, the idea 
of a new ecclesiastical constitution according 
to which the priesthood should be brought back 
to a merely -spiritual office, and of a system of 
faith emancipated from all the doctrines of the 
schools, and deduced from the original princi- 
ples of its first apostles — an idea conceived by 
one or two teachers in a- university, and ema- 
nating from a little town in Germany — arose 
and took up its station as antagonist of the 
time-hallowed authority. This the pope hoped 
to stifle in its birth. What if he could have 
- looked down that long vista of ages through 
which the conflict between them was destined 
to endure ! 

We have already observed that the pope's 
bull did not touch Wittenberg. Luther had 
even the audacity to denounce the pope as a 
suppresser of the divine word, for which he 
substituted his own opinions — nay, even as a 
stubborn heretic. Car'stadt also raised his voice 
against the fierce Florentine lion, who had 
never wished any good to Germany, and who 
now condemned the truest doctrines, contrary 
to laws divine and human, without even having 
granted the defenders of them a hearing. The 
whole university rallied more and more firmly 
round its hero, who had in fact given it exist- 
ence and importance. When the intelligence 
arrived that in some places the authorities had 
begun to execute the bull, and to burn Luther's 

* Tertia pars, qu. Ixv. conclnsio. 

tL'Neque enim staret tyrannis papistica tanta, nisi 
tantum accepissßt ab universiiatibus, cum vix fuerit in- 
ter celebres episcopatus alius quispiara qui minus liabuerit 
eruditionem pontificura." 

19 N 



books, the monk felt himself sufficiently strong 
to revenge this arbitrary act on the pope's writ- 
ings. On the 10th of December, 1520, the 
academic youth,;]; summoned by a formal pro- 
clamation posted on a black board, assembled 
in unwonted numbers before the Elster Gate of 
Wittenberg ; , a pile of wood was collected, to 
which a Master of Arts of the university set 
fire : in the full feeling of the orthodoxy of his 
secession, the mighty Augustine, clad in his 
cowl, advanced to the fire, holding in his hand 
the pope's bull and decretals : " Because thou 
hast vexed the Lord's saints," exclaimed he, 
" mayst thou be consumed in eternal fire !" and 
threw it into the flames. Never was rebellion 
more resolutely proclaimed. " Highly needful 
v.-ere it," said Luther another day, "that the 
pope (that is, the papacy) with all his doctrhies 
and abominations should be burnt." 

The attention of the whole nation was now 
necessarily drawn to this open resistance. 
What had fi.rst procured for Luther the general 
sympathy of the thinking and serious-minded 
among his contemporaries, was his theological 
writmgs. By the union of profound thought 
and sound common sense which distinguishes 
them, the lofty earnestness which they breathe, 
their consolatory and elevating spirit, they had 
produced an universal effect. " That know I,'^ 
says Lazarus Spengler in the letter which was 
imputed to him as a crime, " that all my life 
long no doctrine or sermon has taken so strong 
hold on my reason. Divers excellent and right 
leaimed persons of spiritual and temporal estate 
are thankful to God that they have lived to this 
hour, that they might hear Dr. Luther and his 
doctrine." § The celebrated jurist Ulrich Za- 
sius in the most explicit and animated terms 
proclaims his adoption of Luther's opinions as 
to absolution, confession and penance ; hiswTit- 
ings on the ten commandments, and on the 
EpistletotheGalatians.il The collections of 
letters ofthat time afford abundant proof of the 
interest which the religious publications — for 
example, the exposition of the Lord's Prayer,, 
or the new edition of the German Theology — ' 
excited ; societies of friends were formed for 
the purpose of communicating them to each 
other, of getting them reprinted and then dis- 
tributed by messengers sent about with these 
books and no others, in order that the attention 
of the buyers might not be diverted ; preachers 
recommended them from the pulpit. IT 

The boldness of this attack, so formidable 
and so immediately connected v.-itli the deepest 
feelings of religion, was another cause of popu- 
lar interest. Some, and among them Zasius 
whom we have just quoted, disapproved the 
turn it had taken, but its temerity only served 

t According to Sennert, Athenae et Inscriptiones Vite- 
bergenses, pp. 58 and 59,-tiie names in tlie university- 
books amounted in the year 15J2 to 208; in 1513 to 151 ; 
in 1514 to 213 ; in 1515 to 218 ; in 1516 to 162 ; in 1517 to 
232; in the year 1518 the number of the students entered 
already rose to 273 ; in 1519 to 458 ; in 1520 to 578. 

§ Speech in defence, Riederer, p. 202. 

II Zasii Epp. p. 394. I cannot possibly believe this letter 
to be spurious, as the same opinion reappears in so many 
others. 

ITBeatus Khenanus to Zwiaglius. Huldrici Zwinglii 
Opera, torn. vii. pp. 77, 81. 



146 



CRISIS OF SECESSION. 



Book II. 



to heig-liten the admiration and the sj^-mpathy 
of the majority; all the elements of opposition 
naturally cong-regated arouhd a doctrine which 
afibrded them'that of which they stood most in 
need — jastiiication in their resistance on reli- 
gious grounds. Even Aleander remarked that 
a great proportion of jurists declared themselves 
against the ecclesiastical law ; but how great 
w^as his error if he really thought what he as- 
serted — that they only Vväshed to be rid of their 
canonical studies : he little knew the scholars 
of Germany, who were actuated by a far differ- 
ent motive, — the vexatious collisions between 
the spiritual and temporal courts, complaints of j 
Vv^hich had been laid before so many diets and 
assemblies of the empire. The very latest 
proceedings of the court of Rome had drawn 
.down severe criticism from the lawyers of Ger- 
many. Jerome of Endorf, an imperial council- 
lor, declared that the mode taken by the pope 
of enforcing his bull by the threat of " attain- 
der for high treason, loss of inheritance and 
fief," was an encroachment of the spiritual 
power on the temporal, which he exhorted the 
emperor not to endure.* It was not, however, 
the jurists alone, but even the clergy, whom 
Aleander found wavering, especially the infe- 
rior clergy, who severely felt the pressure of 
the hierarchical power; he w^as of opinion that 
throughout Germany they approved Lather's 
doctrines.! Nor did it escape him that the re- 
ligious orders too were infected: among the 
Augustines this arose from the influence of the 
later vicars, and partiality for a brother of their 
own order; with others, from hatred of the 
tyranny of the Dominicans. It was also inevi- 
table that in the heart of many a reluctant in- 
mate of a cloister, the events nov/ passing would 
awaken the wish and the hope of sliaking off 
his fetters. The schools of the humanists be- 
longed of course to this party ; no dissension 
had as yet broken out among them, and the 
literary public regarded Luther's cause as their 
own. Already two attempts had been made to 
interest the unlearned in the movement. Hütten 
perfectly understood the advantage he possessed 
in writing German : " I wTote Latin," he says, 
" formerly, which not every one understands ; 
now I call upon my fatherland." The whole 
catalogue of the sins of the Roman Curia, 
which he had often insisted upon, he now ex- 
hibited to the nation in the new light thrown 
upon it by Luther, in German verses. | He 
indulged the hope that deliverance was at hand, 
nor did he conceal that if things came to the 
worst, it was to the swords and spears of brave 
men that he trusted ; by them would the ven- 
geance of God be executed. The most remark- 
able projects began to be broached ; some par- 
ticularly regarding the relation of the German 
church to Rome ; as tliat no man should for the 
future possess an ecclesiastical dignity, who 
could not preach to the people in the German 
tongue; that the prerogatives of the papal 

.*To the Landeshauptmann of Styria, Siegin. v. Die- 
trichstein. Walch, XV. 1902. 

t Extracts from the Report of Aleander in Pallavicini. 

t Klage und Vermanung gegen die ungeistlichen Geist- 
lichen. 



months, accesses, regresses, reservations, and, 
of course, annates, should be abolished ; that 
no sentence of excommunication issued by 
Rome should have any validity in Germany ; 
that no brief should have any force till a German 

' council had pronounced whether it were to be 

I obeyed or not ; the bishops of the country v/ere 
always to hold in check the papal power. § "Others 

I added proposals for a radical retbrm in details ; 

I tliat the number of holydays should be dimin- 
ished, the curates regularly paid, fit and deco- 
rous preachers appointed, fasts observed only 
on a few days in the year, and the peculiar 
habits of the several orders laid aside ; a ye^arly 
assembly of bishops should watch over the 
general aftairs of the German church. 'The 
idea even arose that a christian spirit and life 
would, by God's especial ordinance, spread from 
the German nation over the whole wprld, as 
once from out Judsea. Thereunto, it was said, 
the seeds of all good had sprung up unobserved 
— " a subtle sense, acute thought, masterly skill 
in all handicrafts, knowledge of all writings 
and tongues, the useful art of printing, desire 
for evangelical doctrine, delight in truth and 
honesty." To this end, too, had Germany re- 
mained obedient to the Roman emperor. || 

xA.ll hopes now rested on Charles V., v/ho was 
at this moment ascending the Rhine. Those 
who opposed the new opinions wished him the 
wisdom of Solomon and of Daniel, " who at as 
early an age v/ere enlightened by God ;" they 
even thought the state of things so desperate, 
that if not changed by a serious and thorough 
reformation, the last day must quickly come.""!! 
The partisans of innovation approached him 
with the boldest suggestions. ' He was aslsed 
to dis\niss the grey friar his confessor, who 
boasted that he ruled him and the empire ; to 
govern with the counsels of tem.poral electors 
and princes ; to entrust public business, not to 
clerks and financiers, but to the nobles, who 
now sent their sons to study ; to appoint Hütten 
and Erasmus members of his council, and to 
put an end to the abuses of Rome and to the 
mendicant orders in Germany. Then M^ould 
he have the voice of the nation for him ; he 



§" Etliche Artickel Gottes Lob und des heyligen Eo- 
mischen Reichs und der ganzen Deutschen Nation ere und 
fremeinen nutz belangend." "Divers articles touching 
God's praise, and the honour and the common profit of 
the holy Roman empire and of the whole German na- 
tion." At the end, printed at Hagenau, by Thomas An- 
shelm, in Feb. 15-21. 

|(" Ein Klagliche Klag an den Christlichen Rom. Kay- 
ser Caroluni von wegen Doctor Luthers und Ulrich von 
Hütten," <fcc. —" A Doleful Complaint to the Christian 
Roman Ernpcror Charles, relating to Dr. Luther and Ul- 
rich von Hütten," &c. ; the work known by the title of 
" 'I'he Fifteen Confederates." Panzer, Annals of the 
earlier German Literature, ii. p. 39, has shown that it is 
by Eberlin von Günzburg. In the Epistola Vdekmis Cym- 
bri Cusani de E.vustione Librorum Lutheri, 1^20, the con- 
trast between the Romans and the Germans is described 
in the following manner ; " Nos Christum, vos chrysum, 
nos publicum commodum, vos privatum luxuni colitis, vos 
vestrani avaritiam— et extremam libidinem, nostram nos 
innocentiam et libertatem tuentes pro suis qu^sque bonis 
animose pugnabimus." 

?r Verbatim, from Hieronymus Emser against the un- 
christian book of Martin Luther the Augustine, sheet iv 
He adds, all ranks are sinful, and "foremost the clergy, 
from the highest to the lowest." He also applies to them 
the saying,"" from the heel to the crown of the head there 
is no soundness." 



Chap. IV. 



INTERNAL AFFAIRS. 



147 



would no longer stand in need of pope or car- 
dinal, but, on the contrary, they would receive 
confirmation from him ; " then," said one, "will 
the strong Germans arise with body and goods, 
and go with thee to Rome, and make all Italy 
subject to thee ; then wilt thou be a mighty 
king. If thou wilt settle God's quarrel, he will 
settle thine."* 

" Day and night," exclaims Hütten to him, 
" will I serve thee without fee or reward ; 
many a proud hero will I stir to help thee ; 
thou shalt be^ the captain, the beginner, and 
the finisher ; thy command alone is wanting." 



CHAPTER IV. 

DIET OF AVORMS. A. D. 1521. 

The most important question for the intellec- 
tual and moral progress of the nation now un- 
questionably was, in what light Charles V. 
would regard exhortations of this kind ; what 
disposition he would evince towards the great 
movements of the national mind. 

We have seen that as yet every thing vras 
wavering and unsettled : no form had been 
found for the government ; no system of finance, 
no military organisation perfected ; there was 
no supreme court of justice ; the public peace 
was not maintained. All classes in the empire 
were at strife — princes and nobles, knights and 
citizens, priests and laymen ; above all, the 
higher classes and the peasa.nts. In addition 
to all these sources of confusion, arose the reli- 
gious movement, embracing every region of 
mind, originating in the depths of the national 
consciousness, and now bursting forth in open 
revolt against the head of the hierarchy. The 
existing generation was powerful, intelligent, 
inventive, earnest, thoughtfiil. It had a pre- 
sentiment that it contained the germ of a great 
moral and social revolution. 

The want of a sovereign and chief, fel,t by 
all mankmd, is in fact but the conscious neces- 
sity that their manifold purposes and endea- 
vours should be collected and balanced in an 
individual mind ; that one will should be the 
universal will; that the many-voiced debate 
should ripen into one resolve, admitting of no 
contradiction. This, too, is the secret of power ; 
when all the energies of a nation give volun- 
tary obedience to its commands, then, and then 
only, can it wield all its resources. 

This v/as the important result which now 
hung upon the question, whether Charles 
would understand the sentiments and the wants 
of his nation, and thence be able to secure its 
full obedience. 

In October, 1520, he proceeded from the | 
Netherlands to Aix-la-Chapelle, Vs'here he was I 
to be crowned. The newly elected emperor ! 
was a young man of twenty, still imperfectly | 
developed, who had just learned to sit his | 



* Ein Klagliche Klag, sheet ftlll. 



horse well and to break a lance ;_ but of feeble 
health, a pale and melancholy countenanöe, 
with a grave, though benevolent expression. 
He had as yet given few proofs of talent, and 
left the conduct of business to others ; it was 
principally in the hands of the high chamber- 
lain, William of Croi, Lord of Chievres, who 
possessed, as it was said, absolute authority 
over finances, court and government. The 
minister wsls as moderate as his master, who 
had formed himself upon his model ; his man- 
ner of listening and answering satisfied every 
body ; nothing was heard to fall from his lips 
but sentiments of peace and justice.f 

On the 23d October Charles was crowned ; 
he took the title of Roman Emperor Elect,| 
which his predecessor had borne in the latter 
years of his life. No later than December we 
find him in Worms, where he had convoked 
his first diet, and whither the sovereigns and 
states of Germany now flocked together. His 
whole soul was filled with the high significance 
of the imperial dignity. He opened the diet 
on the 28th January, 1521, the day sacred to 
I Charlemagne. The reigning idea of his open- 
! mg speech was, that no monarchy on earth 
I was to be compared with the Roman empire, 
! which the whole world had once obeyed, to 
which " God himself had paid honour and al- 
legiance, and had left behind him_." Unhappi- 
ly it was now but the shade of what it had 
been, but he hoped, with the help of the 
monarchies, the powerful countries and the 
alliances which God had granted him, to raise 
it again to its ancient glory. § 

This seemed- the echo of the common wish 
of Germany ; it remained to be seen how he 
would understand his work — how he would 
endeavour to perform it. 

SECULAR A?n) INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THE EMPIRE. 

Charles's first care at the diet was to strength- 
en the advantageous relation in which, from 
the circumstances attending his election, he 
stood to the several German sovereigns. The 
Elector of Mainz received an extension of his 
powers as arch-chancellor. Whenever he 
was present in person at court, the despatch 
of all the internal business of the empire was 
to rest with him ; but in his absence, to be in 

t"E.elatione di Francesco Corner venuto orator di la 
Cesaecatolica M'a 6 Zugno 1521. Chievres: zentilhuomo 
per esser il secondo genito non di inolta facolta, ma adesso 
piu non potria essere, per haver al governo suo non solum 
la persona del re, ma la caxa li stati li danari e tutto 
quello e sotto la S. M^a. E homo di bon ingegno, parla 
pocho, perho molto humanamente ascolta e benignainente 
risponde: non dimostra esser colerico, ma piu presto pa- 
cifico e quieto che desideroso di guerra, et e molto sobrio 
nel suo viver, il che si ritrova in pochi Fiaminghi." 

I A description of the place (in which the journey of 
Charlemagne to Jerusalem is still treated as an historical 
fact) and of the ceremonies, by an eye-witness, in Pas- 
sero, Giornale Napol. p. 284. 

§The Proposition, which is the first document in the 
Frankfurt and Berlin Archives relating to this Imperial 
Diet, was followed on the 14th of March, Monday after 
Oculi, bv a special statement, which explains it; this is 
given also by Olenschlager, Explanation of the Golden 
Bull. Records, nr. vii. p. 15. One of the best printed 
works of that time, but not, however, quite exact. As- 
to the rest, Charles's statement recalls strongly some pas- 
sages in Peter von Audio. 



148 



DIET OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



Book IL 



the charge of a secretary appointed by him- 
self, to act v/ith the grand chancellor.^' The 
Elector of Saxony obtained the sanction of his 
nephew's marriage with the infanta Catharine. 
As the Saxon government wished, on account 
of the expense, to avoid a marriage by proxy, 
the emperor pledged himself to see that the 
infanta should arrive in Germany six months 
after his own return to Spain. Markgrave 
Casimir of Brandenburg had the reversion of 
the next considerable fief of the empire which 
might fall vacant in Italy The Count Pala- 
tine Frederic, v/ho had been promised the dig- 
nity of Viceroy of Naples, received as compen' 



domains for himself, and to appoint a govern- 
ment for the joint administration of them ; but 
he did not carry this into execution ; with great 
magnanimity he left first the government and 
then the possession of thern to his brother, as 
his alter ego.'^ Many thought Ferdinand a 
man of greater talents than Charles; at all 
events he was evidently more animated, daring 
and v/arlike, and kept a vigilant eye on what 
occurred in every direction. 

It cannot be said that in these transactions 
Charles showed a constant regard to the na- 
tional feelings or interests. He suffered him- 
self to be persuaded to strip the Bishop of 



sation the post of imperial lieutenant in the j Lübeck of the inferior feudal dominion of Hol- 
Council of Regency; Calenberg, and Wolfen- | stein, to which he had a right, and to transfer 
biittel, the old and devoted friends of Austria, j it to the King of Denmark and his heirs : he 
were readily favoured m the matter of Hildes- forbade the duke, " under pain of his grievous 
heim, upon which the Lüneburgers quitted displeasure and that of the empire," to oppose, 
the diet in disgust ; they saw that they should any obstacle. He had certainly no other mo- 
have to pay severely for their inclination I tive for this measure than that the king v/as 
towards the French. Shortly after, a very \ his brother-in-law, and forgot that that monarch 
ungracious decree was issued against them.f v/ould never be reo-arded in any other light 
The proceedings of the Swabian league, on than as a foreign prince.** Nor was his con- 
the other hand, met with a no less cordial appro- duct towards Prussia untainted by similar con- 
bation. The exiled Duke of Würtemberg, siderations: the emperor negotiated a truce 
v/ho had neglected to repair to the Nether- between the Grand Master and the King of 
lands, as he had promised, now declared him- Poland for four years, within which time he 
self ready to appear at the diet. He received promised, with the aid of his brother and the 
for answer, that it was no longer convenient King of Hungary, to endeavour to . adjust the 
to his imperial majesty to give audience to the difterence. The Grand Master would acknow- 
duke ; nor would any mtercession induce ; ledge no other allegiance than that he ov/ed 
Charles to change this determination. ' Pro- j to the emperor and empire, and rejected every 
ceedings v/ere instituted against him, which ; other demand. The emperor took this occa- 
terminated as unfavourably as those of Lüne- sion to institute an inquiry w-hether his vassal 
burg : both were shortly after placed under ', could, or could not, render feudal service to a 
ban.| The aftair of Würtemberg was the ! foreign king. He appointed the King of Hun- 
more important, since that country belonged gary one of the umpires; that prince being now 
to the territory which it was proposed to related to the house of Austria through the Ja- 



incorporate into the newly constituted state of 
Austria. Archduke Ferdinand, the emperor's 
brother, who was educated in Spain, but had 
been fortunately removed from that country, ^ 
where he might have become dangerous, re- 
ceived the five Austrian duchies, which 



gellon alliance, which, as we have observed, 
was the main cause of the change in the late 
emperor's policy with regard to Prussia. 

It is evident that it was Charles's earnest 
purpose to maintain the position prepared by 
Maximilian, and occupied, even before his ar- 



Maxhnilian had once entertained the project rival, by his own commissioners. Kinsmen and 
of raising into a kingdom in his favour, as his ' old partisans were favoured, and, as far as pos- 
portion of _the hiheritance of the German : sible, promoted ; recently acquired friends, 

" ' more closely attached ; the decision of difficult 

disputes, for example, those between Cleves and 
Saxony, Brandenburg and Pomerania, Hessen 



domains. The day on which this contract 
was ratified (28th April, 1521),!! is one of the 
most memorable in German history. It witness- 
ed the foundation of the German line of the and Nassau, v/ere, if possible, postponed, and 
liouse of Burgundian Austria, which was des- 1 rendered dependent on future favour : the old 
tined to occupy so great and conspicuous a | opposition was, for the moment, broken up and 
station not only in Germany but in the whole I reduced to inactivity. 

of western Europe. Emperor Maximilian's I . Such were the auspices under which the de- 
former plans were adopted; and those recipro- 1 liberations on the institutions of the empire now 
cal engagements with the royal houses of | commenced. 

Bohemia and Hungary which were pregnant I We shall not examine what would have 
with such vast and immediate results, were | happened, or what course Charles's councillors 
contracted. The emperor at first intended to I v/ould have entered on, if their hands had been 
keep Würtemberg and the upper hereditary ' perfectly free. It is enough to 'say that this 

was not the case. 

In the third article of the election capitula- 
tions, the emperor had promised to establish a 
government, or Council of Regency, " such as 



- * Haberlin, Reicbsgeschichte, x. p. 375. 

t In Deliiis Stiftsfehde, p. 175. 

I Sattler, Herzöge, ii. p. 75. 

§ Corner; "Credo non si hanno fidato di lassarlo in 
Spagtia ne al governo di Spagnoli diibitando di qualche 
novita." 

I Bucholtz, Ferdinand, i. p. 155. 



IT Extracts from the Records, ib. 158. 

** Copies of the Records, printed in Christian!, i. 



541. 



Chap. IV. 



COUNCIL OF REGENCY. 



149 



had formerly' been devised and had been in 
course of formation, of pious, acceptable, brave, 
wise and honest persons of the German nation, 
together with certain electors and princes." 
The purpose of this stipulation was not doubt- 
ful. The nation wished now to establish, on a 
permanent basis, the representative form of 
government which had been under discussion 
in 1487, planned and proposed in 1495, and 
brought into operation in 1500, but abolished 
again by Maximilian. The opinions and de- 
signs of Archbishop Berthold were now revived. 

At Worms the electors renewed their an- 
cient union, and interchanged their word to 
press for the performance of the promises con- 
tained in the capitulations. In March a scheme 
of the Council of Regency was submitted to 
the emperor. This scheme was no other than 
a repetition of the ordinance for the establish- 
ment of the Regency of the year 1500. It was 
to be composed exactly in the same manner : — 
a lieutenant of the emperor as president, dele- 
gates from the electors and the six circles (for 
the division of the empire into ten circles was 
not yet carried into effect), and representatives 
of the difierent states in rotation: to remain in 
existence and in force when the emperor was 
present within the empire, as well as in his ab- 
sence ; to have power to carry on negotiations, 
in urgent cases to contract alliances and to de- 
cide feudal questions. In short, now, as at the 
former period, the greater part of the powers 
and functions of emperor were tobe transferred 
to tills representative body. 

It was not in the nature of things that the 
emperor should assent to such a project. He 
was surrounded by the same school of German 
councillors who had been about his predecessor : 
ihe ideas of Elector Berthold were once more 
encountered by the views of Maximilian. The 
emperor declared, that his predecessor on the 
throne had found that the Council of Regency 
tended to the diminution of his ovv'n power 
and to the prejudice of the empire, and there- 
fore had not established it ; that it could not be 
expected of him to attempt to repeat the expe- 
riment of an institution which could only iovv'er 
his dignity in the eyes of foreign nations. He 
sent the States a scheme of a totally different 
nature for their consideration; according to 
which the most important element of the 
Regency 'was six permanent imperial coun- 
cillors ; the fourteen councillors named hj 
the Estates, who were to be assessors to the 
former, were to be constantly changed. Al- 
though the interests of the emperor would 
thus be far more powerfully represented than 
before, yet the Council of Regency thus consti- 
tuted was neither to m.ake alliances, nor to de- 
cide important feudal questions ; nor to remain 
in existence, except during the emperor's resi- 
dence out of the limits of the empire. The 
oath was to be pronounced, not to the emperor 
and the empire, but to the emperor alone. The 
imperial hereditary dominions, which it was 
one of the main objects of the States to render 
subject to the common duties and burdens of the 
empire, Charles insisted on keeping under a 
perfectly independent administration; even 
2r* 



Würtemberg was not included within the boun- 
dary he had assigned to the circles. 

This led to a very animated encounter. The 
States considered the expressions about IMaxi- 
milian as "more than highly vexatious." Had 
not that prince, they said, suffered himself to 
be persuaded by false friends to recede from 
the original plan, it would have been honour- 
able, useful, and glorious for himself and the 
holy empire, and terrible to all adversaries. 
And this time they were hnmovably steadfast 
to their project. The emperor could obtain 
nothing but some mitigation of subordinate 
points. 

The most vexatious thing to him was the 
mention of an administration of the empire 
which should continue its functions during his 
presenee. He regarded this as a sort of tute- 
lage — a stain upon his honour. On this point 
they yielded to him, and acceded to the title 
he proposed, " His Imperial ]\Iajesty's Regency 
in the Empire;" also that it should at first be 
established only for the period of his absence. 
This was subject to the less difficulty, because 
its duration could not be fixed, and the emperor 
on his part promised to decide whether the 
existence of the institution should be prolonged 
or not, according to the situation of affairs at 
the time of his return. 

Concessions were made to the emperor on 
some other matters of detail. The com.position 
of the Council of Regency, which was the 
most important matter, was mdeed to be pre- 
cisely on the model of the former, but the 
number of assessors was increased from twenty 
to twenty-two, the two additional members to 
be nominated by the emperor. On the more 
important feudal questions, and in alliances 
with foreign powers, the approbation of the 
emperor was justly made a necessary condition ; 
but the initiative in affairs, and the negotiation 
of them, were to be left to the Regency. — 
Würtemberg was restored to the Swabian 
circle. Austria and the Netherlands v\'ere to 
send deputies as before. The oath was un- 
questionably to be taken in the first place to 
the emperor, but a distinct pledge was given 
that the honour and welfare of the Holy 
Empire were to be mentioned immediately 
after in the formula of the oath.* 

In a word, the emperor succeeded in mn.in- 
taining his honour and authority — a point on 
v/hich he showed great susceptibility ; but, at 
the same time, the States carried through 
their long-cherished idea, and obtained a share 
in the government of the empire, which Maxi- 
; milian, after the first experiment, would never 
' again grant them. The Electors of Saxony 
\ and of Treves were peculiarly satisfied with 
I the result. 

I The Imperial Chamber, which had fallen 
I into utter decay, was reconstituted upon the 
same principles. The original scheme was a 



* The documents exchanfred in this contest are toler- 
ably complete in Harpprecht. In the Frankfurt Archives 
there is, besides, an essay: " un^everlich Anzeyg, v.as in 
Keys. Mt. iibergebcnem Regiment zugesetzt und umbgan- 
gen ist" — " a tolerably exact Account of what has been 
determined and done in the Keg'ency appointed fur his 
Imperial Majesty." 



150 



DIET OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



Book IT. 



very extensive one. As there were about 
three thousand causes undecided, it was pro- 
posed to name so mariy assessors that they 
might be divided into two senates ; the one of 
which should be entirely occupied m disposmg 
of old causes. There was a project.for reform- 
ing the procedure on the model of the Rota 
Romana and the parliament of France. But 
it was soon evident how little could be done. 
"I have as yet seen no doctor," writes the 
Frankfurt delegate home, " who has proposed 
any good scheme of reform. People say the 
judges' hearings should be increased, the holy- 
days curtailed, and proceedings the only purpose 
of Vv'hich is delay, abolished : any peasant might 
have advised that." " They are deliberating," 
says he, another time, " on the reform of the 
Imperial Chamber; but that is like a wild 
beast, every body knovv's his strength, but 
nobody where to attack him ; one advises here, 
the other there." At last the States, with 
whom this proposal likewise originated, came 
to the conviction that nothing coutd be invented 
more expedient than the old ordinance of the 
year 1495, with the improvements it had after- 
wards undergone, and some new additions.* 
The chief alteration was, that the emperor 
should be allowed to appoint two new assessors 
to the court of justice as well as to the Regency. 
The constitution of the court was in other 
respects the same as that agreed to at Con- 
stance ; here, too the division of the six circles 
was retained. The three spiritual electors and 
the three first circles, Franconia, Svrabia and 
Bavaria, were to send assessors learned m the 
law ; the three temporal electors and the three 
last circles. Upper Rhine, Westphalia and 
Saxony, assessors of the knightly class. Charles 
V, promised to send from his hereditary domin- 
ions two of the former and two of the latter 
description. He Jiad also the joint nomination, 

* The ordinance of the Imperial Chamber of 1521 is 
almost word for word the same as this project of the 
states. The beginning only is different. " Dienstaj? nach 
Lätare,"' lautet er, "ist auf Römisch. Ks. Mt. unsres Al- 
lerg-nädigsten Herrn Beger von Churfürsten Fürsten 
Stennden des heil. Rom. Reychs beratschlagt, da hievor 
auf erstgehalltenem Reychstag allhie zu Wormbs im 
xcv. I. ain Ordnung desselben Kaiser). Cammergerichts 
aufgericht, welche nachmals zu vorgehalten Reychstagen 
zum Thail weiter declarirt und gebessert worden, das die- 
selbe als notturfdeglich und hochlich ermessen und be- 
dacht, im h. R. zu hallten und zu vollziehen auch nach- 
mals nit wol stattlicher zu machen oder zu ordnen seyn 
mocht dann wie hernach folgt; darum Ir der Stennde ge- 
treur Rate, das die kais. Mt. jetzo solich (Ordnung?) 
wider^ allhie gegen und mit den Stennden des heyl. 
Reychs und herwiderumb sambt hernachgemeldten En- 
derungen Ratschlag und Zusatz genädigklich annem, ap- 
probir'und wie bei S. K. Mt. Anherrn geschehen verp- 
fhcht und dieselben also zu halten und zu vollziehen als 
Römischer Keiser handhabe."—" On Thursday after Lag- 
tare," it proceeds, " at the desire of the Roman emperor, 
our most gracious lord, the electors, princes, and states 
of the Roman empire have debated on a new constitu- 
tion of the Kammergericht having been, on a former diet 
here at Worms, in 1495, decreed, which constitution after- 
wards, at other diets, has been farther interpreted and 
amended ; that the same, as requisite and highly fitting 
and well-considered, should be kept and executed in the 
empire, since the same could not well be made or consti- 
tuted more excellent than here follows. Therefore it is 
the loyal advice of the said states, that his imperial ma- 
jesty do now, in a common accord with the states of the 
empire, with the alterations, suggestions, and additions 
hereafter mentioned, graciously accept and approve of 
the said constitution, and, like his imperial majesty's 
predecessors, engage to keep and execute the same and 
uphold it as Roman emperor." 



I with the States, of the judge or president of 
j the court, and of the two assessors out of the 
i class of counts and lords. The character of 
the tribunal, as we perceive, remained essenti- 
I ally that of class representation {ständisch) ; 
I and this was the more unequivocal, since it 
I v.'as to hold its sittings in the same place as 
I the Council of Regency, which was so decided- 
I ly representative, and was to be subject to the 
supervision of that body. 

What likewise contributed to impress this 
character on it was, that the States took upon 
themselves (as indeed they had from the iirst 
ofiered to do) the maintenance of all these au- 
thorities. Many extensive plans were devised 
j for that end : e. g., the keeping back the an- 
nates and the revenues of spiritual fiefs, which 
i now went to Rome ; or a tax on the Jews ; or 
! the imposition of an import duty throughout the 
I empire, which had the most numerous and the 
j warmest advocates ; at last, however, they came 
j back to a matricula on the pattern of that pro- 
i posed at Constance, only that the rate was 
j much higher. The cost of the courts of justice 
! was estimated at 13,410 gulden; that of the 
j Council of Regency, the assessors of which 
[ must receive much higher salaries, at 28,508.1 
I But as it was foreseen that there would be 
j many deficits, it was determined to make the 
j estimates at 50,000 gulden. The assessment 
, of Constance was altered as follows : the prin- 
ciple was, to multiply the contributions then 
j required by five ; and this rule was generally 
1 adhered to, though not without many excep- 
tions. Many of the counts and lords, who were 
always very intractable, were left at the old 
assessment ; others were raised, but only three- 
: fold at the highest. On the other hand, some 
{ cities which had the reputation of being very 
! flourishing and wealthy, were competed to 
j submit to a contribution above fivefold higher 
I than the last. Nürnberg and Ulm were raised 
I from 100 to 600 gulden ; Danzig, from 70 to 
I 400. In this m^anner was the only permanent 
impost on the States of the empire, which, to- 
gether with the supreme tribunal, had begun 
tc» fall into oblivion, revived, 
i Larger demands, with a view to a military 
, organisation, and also more immediately to the 
emperor's coronation journey to Rome, neces- 
sarily came under discussion. 

It might have been thought that the projects 
of a general tax, and of a military trainmo- of 
the people in parishes, would have been revived 
in conjunction with that of the Council of Re- 
gency ; representative government and popular 
i arm^ament had always hitherto been kindred 
I notions. On this occasion, however, the latter 
was not suggested; either because it had al- 
ways been found to be impracticable, or be- 
cause, since it was last entertained, the power 
of the princes had so greatly increased. On 
the 21st of March, Charles V. appeared in per- 
i son in the assembly of the States, and, with 
j much circumlocution, dem.anded, through the 
mouth of Dr. Lamparter, succours for his ex- 

! t Harpprecht IV., iii. 35, has, it is true, only 27,508 gui- 
{ den, but this is an error. In the Frankfurt copy the sums 
j are given more correctly than in Harpprecht. 



Chap. IV. 



MATRICULA. 



151 



pedition to Rome, which he himself estimated 
at 400Ü horse and 20,000 foot, for a year. He 
then promised to contribute 16,000 foot soldiers, 
2000 heavy horse, and a considerable body of 
light horse,'at his own cost. Elector Joachim 
of Brandenburg answered in the name of the 
States, " his brothers, lords and good friends,"* 
and prayed time for consideration. To the 
demand itself, which was founded on the an- 
cient customs of the empire, or to the number 
of troops specified, which was not unreasona- 
ble, there was no objection to be urged. But 
agam the States would promise nothing, till 
they were certain of tlie establishment of the 
supreme court and of the Council of Regency, 
. which latter institution they more than ever 
felt bound in duty to insist on. At length they 
granted the required number of troops, but only 
for half a year ; it was also agreed that they 
should furnish the men, and not money for , 
raising them ; they would not give occasion a | 
second time to all the disorders that had pre- , 
vailed in this matter under Maximilian.f 
Lastly, care was taken that the German troops 
should not be left to the command of foreign- 
ers : they were all to march under their ov\m 
officers : the emperor was only to have the ap- 
pointment of the commafider-in-chief, who also 
must be a German. For every leader wished 
to see his own men m the field under his own 
banner. A matricula was drawn out on the 
prmciples of that of Constance of 1507. As to 
the cavalry, it was almost exactly the same ; 
in addition to the 3t91 men then registered, 
there were now 240 from Austria and Burgun- 
dy, so that all the electors, and many other of 
the states, had only to furnish their old contin- 
gent. For the infantry (to which Austria and ; 
Burgundy now contributed 600 men each), the 
former demand of 4722 was' generally quadru- 
pled, though with many exceptions. | Thus 
arose the matricula of 1521, which was the 
last, and formed the model for the military or- 
ganisation of the German empire for ages. 

Such were the most important measures pro- 
posed by the new emperor at this first diet. It 
could not be said that they were fully adequate 
to the wants of the nation. The resolutions 
adopted were chiefly to the advantage of the 
sovereign princes ; the preliminary ordhiances 
concerning the execution of the judgments of 
the Imperial Chamber — which was chiefly in- 
trusted to them — were, for example, manifestly 
in their favour: even m his capitulation, the 
emperor had proposed to forbid alliances or 
leagues between the nobles and vassals ; and 
this might have the effect of forming more com- 
pact local powers. On tjie other hand, nothing 
was done for tlie mass of the people, among 
vdiom such a ferment prevailed, though it had 
been so much and so often talked of. The no- 



* Letter from Fürstenburg to Frankfart, March 24. 
" S. Maj. sey audi willens gen Rom zu ziehen und dasje- 
nige so dem Reich entwandt, wieder zu orlancren." — 
" His majesty purposes to ijo to Rome, and to regain pos- 
session ofthat which has been wrested from the'empire." 

t Fürstenber?, May 13 : "Damit i<ein Finantz in den 
gesucht werde." — •' In order tliat it might not be turned 
into a matter of financial speculation." 

t Neueste Sammlung der Reichsabschiede, ii. p. 211. 



bility remained excluded from alJ share in the 
busmess of the empire ; counts, lords and no- 
bles were in a constant state of excitement 
concerning the legal decision of their disputes 
with princes and electors, which they Avanted 
to have more expeditious and equitable, and 
some ratlier acrimonious correspondences on 
this subject passed at the diet. The cities had 
vainly demanded a seat in the Imperial Cham- 
ber for their deputies ; the great subsidies of 
the empire were discussed and" voted without 
consultmg them; many of them were recently 
aggrieved by the new rate of contributions im- 
posed on them ; and, besides this, they were 
tlireatened with an import duty for the whole 
empire, from which they feared a universal dis- 
turbance to commerce. They made incessant 
complaints, and at last only agreed to the pro- 
ject because they would not, as they said, be 
the only members of the empire who resisted ; 
they would not have to bear the blame if peace 
and justice were not established. J 

Notwithstanding these defects, it was a great 
point gamed that the disorders of the last years 
of Maximilian's reign were checked ; and that 
the ideas of a representative government, which 
had never been realised under hhn, were.re^ 
vived with such considerable success. The 
constitution of 1521, like that of 1507, was 
founded on a combination of matricular jvith 
representative forms ; but the latter were now 
far more comprehensive, since they/ did not, as 
on the former occasion, regard the admmistra- 
tion of justice only, but, according to the pro- 
positions of 1495 and 1500, formed the basis of 
a Council of 'Regency, enjoying considerable 
independence of the emperor. The attempt to 
revive an admmistration adapted to the mo- 
mentary mterests of the policy of the house of 
Austria, such as that constantly carried on by 
Maximilian, was met by a national institution, 
which, if it could but acquire consistency and 
development, promised the most important 
future results. 

FOREIGN RELATIONS. LUTHER. 

\^Tiile these political arrangements were 
concluded, the spiritual interests of the empire 
were also frequently discussed : they opened 
another field to the emperor's policy. 

On all the other questions which came be- 
fore him, he had been able to keep, in view 
Germany, his relation to the interior of the 
empire, and the interests of his family; but 

§ Hans Bock and Dr. Peutinger, who had sat in the 
committee, got little credit. '• Etlich geben," schreibt 
Fürstenberg, am 20 sten Mai, " Hr. Hansen Bock etwa 
spitz Wort, als ob er sich und die rheinischen Städte er- 
halten und sie im Pfeffer habe stecken lassen. Dazu ver- 
driesst sie und uns alle, dass sie die Grafen fast gelächert 
(erleichtert) unddie Beschwerung auf uns getrieben haben, 
Dr. Peutinger der ist der aller onlustigst, er wolt gern 
dass man es beim alten Anschlag Hess, will nit ansehn 
dass Eine Stadt aufgellt die andre in Abfall kommt." — 
"Some give." writes Fürstenberg on the 20th of Maj', 
" Herr Hans Bock hard words, as if he had taken care of 
himself and the Rheni.sh cities, and left them (the others) 
in the lurch. Moreover, it vexes them and all of us that 
they have greatly relieved the counts, and forced the bur- 
den upon us. Dr. Peutinger is the most discontented of 
all: he would gladly have abided by the old assessment; 
he does not like to see that whilst one city rises, another 
falls into decline." 



152 



DIET OF WORMS, A. D. 1531. 



Book II. 



the Lutheran agitation extended so widely that 
it affected even the most important foreign 
relations, 

Charles V. was the child and nursling of that 
Burgundian court which had been mainly com- 
posed of French elements under Philip the 
Good and Charles the Bold, and had followed 
the peculiar line of policy dictated by the posi- 
tion of those princes. Even as opposed to Fer- 
dinand the Catholic and the Emperor Maximi- 
lian, this court had maintained and acted on 
its own independent views, often in direct hos- 
tility to the former. The prospects which had 
been contemplated under Charles the Bold, and 
opened under Philip I,, appeared to find a ne- 
cessary fulfilment in the position and the rights 
of Charles V. The court of Brussels, which 
was not properly a sovereign court and wielded 
no extraordinary powers, was suddenly called, 
by the hereditary rights of its prince, to play 
the greatest part in Europe. To take possession 
of this pre-eminent station was of course its 
first care. 

For the attainment of this end, the policy of 
the Netherlands was conducted with singular 
prudence and success by the Archduchess Mar- 
garet and the Lord of Chievres. Friesland 
had been annexed to the Netherlands, which 
had also been strengthened by the appointment 
of a khisman to the bishopric of "Utrecht, and 
by the closest alliance with Liege and Cleves, 
The crowns of Castile and Aragon, with all 
their dependencies, had been taken possession 
of Rebellious commotions had indeed been 
universal, even in Naples and Sicily, but they 
had all been put down : the national pride of 
the Castilians, offended by the dominion of a 
court composed of foreigners, burst forth in an 
insurrection of the communes ; but the mon- 
arch possessed natural allies there in the clergy 
and the grandees, and needed not to fear the 
people. 

The inheritance of Maximilian v,'as now add- 
ed to these vast territories. The Austrian he- 
reditary dominions, with all their rights or 
expectancies in the east of Europe, w^hich had 
been acquired by the late emperor, were now 
left to the younger scion of the house, who, 
however, was kept in constant dependence by 
his need of assistance : the empire Charles took 
into his own liands, and founded the ascendency 
of his house in Germany — with what care, we 
have just seen. 

All this was carried hito effect in the midst 
of continual irritations and collisions with 
France, originating in the disputes between 
former dukes and kings ; but matters were so 
skilfully conducted in Brussels, that peace was 
maintained under the most difficult circum- 
stances. The successors of Louis XL Vv'ere 
compelled, however reluctantly, to allow the 
posterity of Charles the Bold to consolidate a 
power which infinitely exceeded all that could 
have been anticipated in his time. 

Nothing now remained but for the Burgun- 
dian monarch to take possession of the imperial 
rights in Italy, which appeared the more practi- 
cable, since he already ruled Naples and Sicily, 
and since his expedition to Rome would be 



supported by the whole might of the Spanish 
monarchy; — a combination which had never 
existed before. The Proposition* with which 
he opened the diet sufficiently showed that the 
young emperor was determined to avail him- 
self of it. During the proceedings, frequent 
allusion was made to the recovery of the impe- 
rial dominions that had been lost, and grants 
for that purpose were made by the diet ; nego- 
tiations were entered into with the Swiss, even 
at WormiS. 

The maintenance of peace with France, the 
country the most nearly interested, was no 
longer possible. Francis L held the duchy of 
Milan without having received or even sought 
the investiture ; the emperor's first efforts must 
be directed to this point. Other plans, which 
gradually attained to maturity, lay in the back 
ground ; for example, that of recovering the 
duchy of Burgundy, taken by Louis XL, the 
loss of which the Netherlands had never learn- 
ed to brook. The consolidation of two great 
European powers completely opposed to each 
other, which had long been silently preparing, 
became at this moment fully manifest. France, 
— ^by her internal unity and her wide-spread 
connexions, both eaiiy in the 14th and (after 
the expulsion of the English) at the close of the 
15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, un- 
questionably the most powerful country in Eu- 
rope, — saw herself surrounded and overshadow- 
ed on all her frontiers by a vassal who had 
gradually arisen to pov/er, whom she thought 
she had crushed, but who, by a few easy and 
fortunate matrimonial alliances, had come into 
possession of a combination of crowns and do- 
minions si:ch as the world had never beheld. 
Here v.^e first perceive the hidden motives 
which rendered Francis so eager to obtain the 
imperial crown ; he could not endure that his 
ancient vassal should rise to a dignity superior 
to his own. That this nevertheless had come 
to pass, — ^that his rival could now set up legiti- 
mate claims to the very country the possession 
of which Vv^as peculiarly dear to the king as 
the conquest of his own sword, — inflamed him 
with bitter and restless irritation. Growing ill 
will was observable in all the negotiations, and 
it became evident that a breach was inevitable 
between these two powers.f 

This was the grand conjuncture destined to 
develope the political life of Europe ; the seve- 
ral states of which necessarily inclined to the 
one side or the other, according to their pecu- 
liar interests. Its more immediate consequence 
was, to determine the position of the empire 
and the application of its forces. 

For however highly Charles V. estimated the 
imperial dignity, it was natural that he should 
not look upon Germany as the central point of 
his policy. The sum of all his opinions and 
feelings was, of necessity, the result of the ag- 
gregate of his various dominions and relations. 



* The Proposition was the f'peech with which tlie em- 
peror opened the diet. It contained the topics proposed 
for discussion.— Transl. 

t What were the mutual reproaches appears in the 
French Apolojjiaj Madritae Conventionis Dissuasoria, and 
the Imperial Refutatio Apologise in Goldast, Politica Im- 
perialia, pp. 863, 864. 



Chap. IV. 



FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



153 



He ever felt himself the Burgiindian prmce 
who united the highest dignity of Christendom 
with the numerous crowns he had inherited 
.from his ancestors ; and he thus, like his grand- 
father, necessarily regarded the rights he en- 
joyed as emperor as only a part of his power ; 
indeed the extent and variety of the countries 
subject to his sway rendered it even more im- 
possible for him to devote himself completely 
to the internal ajEfairs of Germany, than it had 
oeen for Maximilian. 

Of the workings of the German mind, he 
had not the faintest idea ; he understood neither 
the language nor the thoughts of Germany. 

It was a singular destiny that the nation, in 
the moment of an internal agitation so mighty, 
so peculiar to itself, had called to its head a 
stranger to its character and spirit ; in whose 
policy, which embraced a much wider sphere, 
the wants and viäshes of the German people 
could appear but as a subordinate incident. 

Not that religious questions were indifferent 
to the emperor — they were very interesting to 
him ; but only in as far as they affected or 
threatened the pope, and afforded a new view 
of his own connexion with the court of Rome, 
or new weapons with which to encounter it. 

Amidst all the various political relations of 
the emperor, this, however, was unquestionably 
now the most important. 

For as a conflict with France was obviously 
inevitable — a conflict of which Italy must be 
the principal scene — the main question for the 
emperor was, whether he should have the pope 
with him or ' not. The two monarchs already 
rivalled each other in then* eflbrts to gain Leo's 
favour. Both were lavish in their promises ; 
the king, in case he should conquer Naples, 
which he was resolved to attack ; the emperor, 
in the event of an attempt upon Milan, which 
he was about to make in favour of the pretender 
and the house of Sforza, and for the purpose of 
restoring the rights of the empire over that 
province. 

This, however, was not the only close rela- 
tion of the emperor to the see of Rome ; others 
of an ecclesiastical nature, but involving not 
less important results, existed in his other do- 
minions, and especially in Spam. 

It is matter of notoriety that the main prop 
of the government of that country, as consti- 
tuted under Ferdinand the Catholic, was the 
inquisition. Bat this institution Vv'as now the 
object of a simultaneous attack in Castile, Ara- 
gon and Catalonia. That powerful body, the 
Cortes of Aragon, had applied to the pope, and 
had actually obtained li-om him some briefs, 
according to which the whole constitution of 
the inquisition was to be altered and approxi- 
mated to the forms of the common law.* In 
the spring of 1520, Cliarles sent an ambassador 
to Rome to effect a revocation of these briefs, 
which he foresaw must have important conse- 
quences m his other dominions, and endanger 
his whole government. 

The negotiations were pending when Charles 
arrived in the Netherlands, and a loud and al- 



* Llorente, Hist, de I'lnquisition, i. p. 395, nr. x. 
20 



most universal voice, expressing both a political 
and a religious opposition, called upon him to 
assume a bold attitude of resistance to the 
pope. 

Charles's acute and able envoy, who arrived 
in Rome while Eck was tliere, and Luther's 
controversy gave rise to so many deliberations 
of the theologians and sittings of the consistory, 
immediately perceived all the advantage which 
might accrue from it to his master. "Your 
Majesty," he writes to the emperor on the 12th 
of May, 1520, " must go to Germany, and there 
confer som.e favour upon a certain Martin Lu- 
ther, who is at the court of Saxony, and ex- 
cites great anxiety in the court of Rome by the 
things he preaches."f This view of the case 
was actually adopted at the imperial court. 
When the papal nuncio arrived there with the 
bull against Luther, the prime minister let fall 
the expression, that the emperor would do what 
was agreeable to the pope, if his holiness would 
oblige him, and not support his enemies. t On 
another occasion, Chievres said that if the pope 
embarrassed the affairs of the emperor (with 
France), other people would stir up embarrass- 
ments fbrhim, out of which he v.'ould not easily 
extricate himself 

This, therefore, was the real point on which 
the aflair, fi'om the first moment, turned; not 
the objective truth of the opinions, nor the great 
interests of the nation connected with them — 
of which the newly arrived sovereign was not 
conscious, and with which he coürd have no 
sympath}^ ; but the general situation of politics, 
the support which the pope was willing to grant 
the emperor, and the footing upon which the 
former intended to place himself with regard to 
to him. 

This was well known at Rome. Great pains 
were taken to gain over the emperor's confess- 
or, Glapio, a Franciscan, who was not well dis- 
posed towards Rome, " by civilities." It was 
determined, afler long hesitation, to nominate 
the Bishop of Liege, Eberhard of the Mark, 
who had gone over from the side of France to 
that of Austria, cardinal, offensive as this must 
be to the former power. § The same motives 
had dictated the mission of Aleander, who had 
been in the bishop's service before he came to 
Rome, and from the mfluence Vv^hich that pre- 
late enjoyed over the government of the Ne- 
therlands, appeared there as the natural medi- 
ator between Rome and the empire. This 
bishop, Aleander thought, too, would be an 
active mstrument in securing a favourable re- 
sult to the negotiations with the empire, though 
his language was generally frank and auda- 
cious. All the measures which the nuncio 
suggested or employed were conceived in this 
spirit. The Bishop of Tuy, who had followed 
the emperor fi-om Spain, and enjoyed great 
consideration with the prime minister, \yas to 



t Extract from Manuel's Despatches : Llorente, i. p. 
398. 

J From Aleander's letters: Pallavicini, i. c. 24, p. 136. 
To what does the emperor refer, when he afterwards re- 
proaches the court of Rome with having tried to delay 
the coronation at Aix? Caroli ßescr. Goldast, Const, p. 
992. 

§ Molini, Documenti di Storia Italiani, i. p. 84. 



154 



DIET OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



Book II. 



be coPxciliated by the gift of a benefxce which 
had been already promised to one who had 
every possible claim to it, Aleander paid one 
of the imperial secretaries fifty gulden, for 
which sum the latter engaged to render him 
"secret and good service;" and promised the 
same man a pension for some years, in consid- 
eration of his pledging himself to report to him 
all the deliberations of the Council of Regency 
hostile to the court of Rome. He expresses 
himself persuaded that most of these council- 
lors and secretaries, although they hate the 
papacy, will " dance to Rome's piping," if they 
do but see her gold* His bribes extended 
even to the door-keepers and beadles who were 
to seize Luther's works ; his sole andconthiual 
complaint is, that his employers send him too 
little money. By a similar course of " cunning 
pjid promptitude," as he boasts, he had carried 
into effect the mandate for the burning of Lu- 
ther's books in Flanders : " the emperor and his 
councillors saw the books burning, before they 
were fully aware that they had assented to the 
mandate." Aleander's letters present an odious 



was a general belief that the emperor was 
determined to destroy Luther, and if possible 
to exterminate his followers.]: A brief arrived, 
probably together with the last concessions, 
wherein the pope exhorted the emperor Id 
give the force of law to' his bull by an imperial 
edict, " He had now an opportunity of show- 
ing that the unity of the church was as dear 
to him as to the emperors of old. Vainly 
would he be girded with the sword, if he did 
not use it, not only against the infidels, but 
against heretics, who were far worse than 
infidels," 5 

One day in the month of February on which 
a tournament was to be held, the em.peror's 
banner was already displayed, when the 
princes were summoned, not to the lists, but 
to the imperial quarters, where this brief was 
read to them, and at the same time an edict 
commanding the rigorous execution of the bull 
was laid before them. 

Strange and unlocked for entanglement of 
events ! The Lutheran controversy led the pope 
to revoke that mitigation of the severities of the 



and disgusting spectacle ; a most immoral mix- inquisition in Spain which he had already deter 
ture of cunning, cowardice, arrogance, affected I mined on at the request of the cortes; while in 
devotion and mean ambition ; the vilest means Germany, on the other hand, the emperor prepar- 



employed in so great a cause. It is not prob; 
ble that these were without influence, though 
of course others were needed to produce a de- 
cisive effect. But what had not been put in 
practice "? In the matter of the inquisition, 
especially, the pope agreed to make the most 
important concessions. On the 21st of October, 
1520, he declared to the grand inquisitor of 
Spain, that he would give no further encour- 
agement to the demands of the cortes of Ara- 
gon ; that he v/ould not confirm the briefs he 
had issued, and that he would introduce no in- 
novation in the affairs of the inquisition without 
the approbation of the emperor. Even this did 
not satisfy Charles; he demanded the entire 
revocation of the briefs. On the 12th of De- 
cember, the pope ofl?ered to declare all steps 
that had been taken against the inquisition null 
and void. On the 16th of January, 1521, he 
at length actually permitted the emperor to 
suppress the briefs, and expressed the wish that 
they might be sent back to Rome in order that 
he might annul them,f 

It is obvious that this state of things was 
little calculated to meet the wishes of the 
people of Germany, Charles's position and 
connexions required of him an alliance with 
the pope, instead of that opposition which the 
spirit of the nation would have dictated. How 
grievously were the hopes which such men as 
Hütten and Sickingen had placed on the young 
emperor disappointed! The papal bull was 
executed without hesitation in the Low German 
hereditary dominions, where the higher clergy 
and confessors seemed to engross all the con- 
sideration of the court: in January, 1521, there 

* He asks on one occasion for " denari si ppr mio vivere 
come per donar a spgretarii et a sbirri, U quali ancorche 
siino infensissimi alia corte di Roma, tiitta volta qualclie 
danaro li farebbe saltar a nostra niodo : quia aliter nihil 
fit et vix faciemus aViquid." — Extracts from oleander's 
Letters in Münster, Beitrüge zur Kirchengeschichte, p. 78. 

t Extracts iu Llorente, i. pp. 396 and 405, 



ed to crush the monk who so audaciously incited 
the people to rebel against the authority of Rome. 
The resistance to the power of Dominican inqui- 
sitors was in both countries a national one, — 
This fully explains the fact that, among the 
Spaniards who accompanied the court, those 
at least of the middle classes took the liveliest 
interest in Luther and his writings. 

In Germany however the emperor could ac- 
complish nothing without the approbation of 
the empire ; and in submitting the draft of the 
mandate before alluded to to the States, he 
had added, " that if they knew of any thing 
better, he was ready to hear it." This gave 
rise to a very warm discussion in the imperial 
council, " The monk," says the Frankfurt 
deputy, " makes plenty of work. Some would 
gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly 
escape them ; only they must take care that he 
does not rise again on the third day." The 
same doubt and fear, that condemnation by a 
party would produce no permanent effect, pre- 
vailed in the States. The emperor had intend- 
ed to publish the edict without fiarther trial, |j 



X Spenffler to Pirkheimer, Dec. 29. Jan. 10, in Riederer, 
pp.113, 131. 

§ " Deus accinxit te terrente potestatis supremo gladio, 
quern fiiistraprofectogereres juxta Pauli apostoJi senten- 
tiam, nisi eo uterere cum contra infideles turn contra in- 
fidclibus miilto deterioies liaBreticos." — Fr. Arch. 

II In the draft it is said : " Und (weil) dann der gedacht 
Martin Luther alles das, so muglichen gewesen ist, öffent- 
lichen gebredigt, geschrieben und ausgebraitet, und yetzt 
am jüngsten etlich Articui, so inn viel Orten in Behem 
gehalten werden und die von den hailigen Concilien für 
kätzerisch erkannt und erklärt seyn, angenommen, und 
ine darum die papstlich Heyligkeit für einen offenbaren 
Ketzer wie obstet erklärt und verdammt hat und deshal- 
lien inen weiter zu hören nit rat noch geburlich ist."— 
" Anrl (since) then the said Martin Luther lias openly 
preached, written, and sju-ead all this as much as possi- 
ble, and lias now lately accepted certain articles Avliicli 
are maintained in many places in Bohemia, and which 
are recognised and declared by the holy councils to be 
heretical, and his papal holiness has, therefore, as before- 
said, declared and condemned him as an avowed heretic, 
and therefore it is neither advisable nor fitting to hear 
him further." 



Chap. IV. 



GRAVAMINA. 



155 



according to the advice of Aleander, who de- 
clared that the sentence of condemnation al- 
ready pronounced was sufficient ; Doctor Eck, 
too, sent in a little memorial, full of flatteries 
and admonitions, to the same effect.* It was 
the same question which had been discussed 
in the curia, but the Estates of Germany were 
not so obsequious as the jurists of Rome. They 
begged the emperor to reflect what an impres- 
sion would be made on the common people, in 
whose minds Luther's preaching had awaken- 
ed various thoughts, fantasies, and wishes, if 
he were sentenced by so severe a mandate, 
without being even called to take his trial. 
They urged the necessity of granting him a 
safe-conduct, and summoning him to appear 
and defend himself But a new question 
arose. On what basis was this trial to be con- 
ducted ? The states distinguished between 
two branches of Luther's opinions; the one 
relating to church government and discipline, 
which they were for handling indulgently, 
even if he refused to recant (and they seized 
this occasion of once more strongly impressing 
on the emperor the complaints of the nation 
against the See of Rome) ; the other, agamst 
the doctrine and the faith " which they, their 
fathers, and fathers' fathers, had always held." 
Should he also persist in these, and refuse to 
recant, they declared themselves ready to 
assent to the imperial mandate, and to main- 
tain the established faith without further dis- 
putation,! 

Such were the views with which Luther 
was summoned to Worms. " We have deter- 
mined," says the imperial citation, " we and 
tlie States of the Holy Roman empire, to re- 
ceive information from thee concerning the 
doctrine and the books that have been uttered 
by thee." An imperial herald was sent to con- 
duct him. 

With regard to the opposition to tlie tempo- 
ral interference of Rome, the States were es- 
sentially of the same opinion with Luther. As 
the emperor was bound even by his capitulation 
to restore and maintain the Concordat and the 
ecclesiastical liberties of the nation, which had 
been continually violated to an insuflerable ex- 
tent, the lesser committee was now employed in 
drawing up a complete statement of the griev- 
ances of the nation against the See of Rome. 
Their manner of proceeding was this; ea,ch 
prmce delivered in a list of the grievances of 
which he had more particularly to complain, and 
every charge alleged by more than one was re- 
ceived and recorded. Already it was feared that 



* " Ad Carolum V. de Ludderi causa : Ineoldstadt, 18 
Feb. Saxones sub Caiolo magno colla fidei et imperio 
dedere : absit ut sub Carolo maximo Ludder Saxo alios 
fidem veram et unicam deponere faciat." 

t " Der Stennd Antwurt auf keyserlicher Mt. Beger des 
Mandats."—" The answer of tlie States to the desire of 
his imperial majesty to the mandate." Without a date. 
Unfortunately, also", Fiirstenbergr has not dated his letters 
precisely. The one, for instance, which refers to this 
resolution, he has inscribed Saturday after Marthee. 
Saturday after Matthije, March 2, is certainly meant. In 
which case this resolution of the States is of that date. 
For that their answer should have referred to a command 
of the emperor of the 7th of March, is impossible, since 
the letter of summons to Luther is dated the 6th of 
March. 



the spiritual princes would drav/ back ; but the 
councillors of the temporal were determined in 
that case to carry the matter on to the end 
alone. A statement of grievances was pro- 
duced which reminds us of the writings of 
Hütten and the Book to the German_Nobles ; 
so strong was the censure of the papal See ge- 
nerally, and above all, of the government of 
Pope Leo X.| It is filled with the cunning 
and malignant devices, the roguery and cheat- 
ing, which prevailed at the "court of Rome. 
The curia was also directly accused, in prac- 
tice, of simony. If Luther had done nothing 
more than attack the abuses of the curia, he 
could never have been deserted by the States ; 
the opinion he had expressed on this subject 
was the general one, and was indeed their own. 
Probably the emperor himself would not have 
been able to withstand it ; his father confessor 
had threatened him with the chastisements of 
Heaven if he did not reform the church. 

We feel almost tempted to wish that Luther 
had remained for the present satisfied with this. 
The nation, engaged under his conduct in a 
common struggle against the temporal sway of 
the church of Rome, would have become for 
the first time strongly united and completely 
conscious of its own unity. But the answer to 
this is, that the strength of a mind like his 
would have been broken, had it been fettered 
by any consideration not purely religious. Lu- 
ther had been incited not by the wants of the 
nation, but by his own religious convictions, 
without which he would never have done any 
thing, and which had indeed led him further 
than would have been either necessary or ex- 
pedient in a political struggle. 

Some still hoped, however, that he would 
recall one step ; that he would at least not per- 
sist in his last most oftensive expressions which 
occurred in the Book of the Babylonish Cap- 
tivity. This was in particular the opinion of 
the emperor's confessor. He did not regard 
the papal anathema as an insuperable obstacle 
to an amicable adjustment. Luther had not 
yet had a hearing ; a door remained open to the 
pope for restoring him to the bosom of the 
church, if he would but consent to retract this 
last book, which was full of the most untenable 
assertions and not comparable to his other writ- 
ino-s. But by maintaining these passages he 
laid a stumbling block in his own path ; he 
would cause that the precious Vv^ares which he 
might otherwise bring safely to port would be 
shipwrecked. § At first he proposed to the 
Elector of Saxony to nominate two or three 
councillors with whom he could consult as to 
the means of arranging the affair. The elector 
replied that he had not learned councillors suf- 

l This document is republished from the old printed 
edition, in VFalch. xv. 2058. The copy in the Frankfurt 
Archives, which agrees with the printed one, shows more 
fjlainly that the work consists of three parts; the first 
reaching to E iiii, upon which follows an episode; the 
second, with a fresh superscription, touching especially 
the usurpations of the spiritual courts of justice, reaching 
to Giii; finally, a third, containing chiefly the complaints 
of the clergy themselves, and of the ordinaries, against 
the court of Rome, which was presented on the Monday 
after Jubilate, April 22, Luther himself being by. 

5 Seckendorf, Comra. de Lutheranisrao, i. 142. 



156 



DIET OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



Book IL 



ficient. Glapio hereupon asked whether the 
parties would sabmit the matter to chosen arbi- 
trators, by whose decision the pope himself 
would abide. The elector did not believe it 
possible to induce the pope to consent to this, 
especially since the emperor intended so soon 
to leave Germany. On hearmg- this, Glapio 
sighed. The silent, reserved prince, who re- 
pelled all attempts at intimacy or sympathy 
from others, and who was in fact the only 
human being- that had any influence over Lu- 
ther, was absolutely unapproachable : it was 
impossible to obtain from him even a private 
audience. The confessor, therefore, addressed 
himself to other friends of Luther. He went to 
the Ebernburg to visit Sickingen, who had just 
then re-entered the emperor's service and was 
esteemed one of Luther's most disthiguished : 
patrons, in the hope of obtaining his mediation. 
Here, too, Glapio expressed himself in such a ' 
manner on some points, that he might have 
been supposed to be an adherent of Luther. I 
am not of opinion that this was a stratagem, as 
so many have assumed ; Aleander, at least, was 
very uneasy about it, and neglected no means 
of interrupting the course of the negotiations. 
It is obvious that Luther's opposition to the pope 
promised to be a doubly powerful instrument of 
the imperial policy, if the government did not 
find itself compelled absolutely to condemn him 
on account of his open schism, and could keep 
the matter pending before a court of arbitration. 
Sickingen sent an invitation to Luther to visit 
him in passing by.* 

For Luther was already on his way from 
Wittenberg to Worms. He preached once on 
the road, and in the evening when he arrived 
at his inn, amused himself with playing the 
lute ; he took no interest whatever in politics, 
and his mind was elevated far above all subjects 
of mere personal interest, whether regarding 
himself or others. At various places on the 
road he had to pass through, might be seen 
posted up the decretal condemning his books, 
so that when they arrived at Weimar the herald 
asked him whether he would go on. He re- 
plied that he would rely on the emperor's safe- 
conduct. Then came Sickingen's invitation. 
He replied, if the emperor's confessor had any 
thing to say to him, he could say it in Worms. 
Even at the last station, a councillor of his so- 
vereign sent him word that he had better not 
come, for that he might share the fate of Huss. 
" Huss," replied Luther, " was burnt, but not 
the truth with him : I will go, though as many 
devils took aim at me as there are tiles on the 
roofs of the houses."! Thus he reached Worms, 
on the 18th of April, 1521, one Tuesday, about 
noon, just as people sat at dinner. When the 
v/atchman on the church tower blew his trum- 



* See Luther's Narrative. Works, Altenb. Ed. t. i. p. 
733. 

t Müller, Staatscabinet, viii. 296. I retain the expres- 
sion, which he himself makes use of in a subsequent let- 
ter: "Wenn ich hätte gewusst, dass so viel Teufel auf 
mich gehalten hätten, als Ziegel auf den Dachern sind, 
ware ich dennoch mitten unter sie gesprungen mit Freu- 
den." — "If I had known that as many devils would have 
s^et upon me as there are tiles on the roofs, T should still 
have sprung into the midst of them with ioy"— Letters, 
ii. 139. 



pet, every body crowded into the streets to see 
the monk. He sat in the open waggon (Boll- 
wagen) which the council of Wittenberg had 
lent him for the journey, in the cowl of his 
order; before him rode the herald, with his 
tabard, embroidered with the imperial eagle, 
hung over his arm. Thus they passed through 
the wondering, gaping crowd, regarded by some 
with sympathy, by all with various and unquiet 
emotions. Luther looked down upon the as- 
sembled multitude, and his daring courage rose 
to the height of firm confidence : he said, " God 
will be with me." In this state of mind he 
alighted. 

The very next day towards evening he was 
conducted into the assembly of the empire. 
The young emperor, the six electors (among 
whom was his own master), a body of spiritual 
and temporal princes before whom their sub- 
jects bowed the knee, numerous chiefs cele- 
brated for deeds in war and peace, worshipful 
delegates of cities, friends and foes, were there, 
awaiting the entrance of the monk. The sight 
of this majestic and splendid assemblage seemed 
for a moment to dazzle him. He spoke in a 
feeble, and almost inaudible voice. Many 
thought he was frightened. Being asked whe- 
ther he would defend his books (the titles of 
which were read aloud) collectively, or consent 
to recant, he replied that he begged for time to 
consider : he, claimed, as we have seen, the 
benefit of the forms and customs of the empire. 

The following day he appeared again before 
the diet. It was late before he was admitted ; 
torches were already lighted ; the assembly 
was perhaps more numerous than the day be- 
fore; the press of people so great, that the 
princes hardly found seats ; the interest in the 
decisive moment, more intense. Luther now 
exhibited not a trace of embarrassment. The 
same question as before being repeated to him, 
he answered with a firm, distinct voice, and 
with an air of joyful serenity. He divided his 
works into books of Christian doctrine, writings 
against the abuses of the See of Rome, and 
controversial writings. To be compelled to 
retract the first, he said, would be unheard of, 
since even the papal bull acknowledged that 
they contained much that was good ; the second, 
would afford the Romanists a pretext for the 
entire subjugation of Germany; the third, would 
only give his adversaries new courage to resist 
the truth : — an answer which was more direct- 
ed against the erroneous form in which the 
questions had been arranged, than agamst the 
views with which the States had entered on 
the trial. The official of Treves put the mat- 
ter in a more tangible shape, by advising Lu- 
ther not to give a total and unqualified refusal 
to the proposal to retract. Had Arius, he said, 
retracted some points, his good books would not 
have been destroyed together with the bad. In 
his (Luther's) case, too, means would be found 
to rescue some of his books from the flames, if 
he would recant what had been condemned by 
the Council of Constance, and what he had re- 
peated in defiance of that condemnation. The 
official insisted more on the infallibility of coun- 
cils than on that of the pope. 



Chap. IV. 



LUTHER AT WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



157 



But Luther now believed as little in the one 
as in the other; he replied, that even a council 
might err. This the official denied, Luther _ 
repeated that he would prove that this might i 
happen, and that it had happened. The official 
could not of course go into the inquiry in that 
assembly. He asked again definitively whether 
Luther meant to defend all his works as ortho- 
dox, or to retract any part. He announced to 
him that, if he utterly refused to recant, the 
empire would knov/ how to deal with a heretic. 
Luther had expected that a disputation or con- \ 
futation, or some attempt at demonstrating his : 
errors, awaited him in Vv'orms ; when, there- \ 
fore, he found himself at once treated as a false j 
teacher, there arose in his mind during the con- ! 
versation the full consciousness of a conviction | 
dependent on no act of the will, founded on j 
God's word, regardless of and untroubled by 
pope or council : threats alarmed him not ; the 
universal sympathy, the Vv-arm breathings of ; 
which he felt around him, had first given him 
strength and courage : his feeling- was, as he 
said at^oing out, that had he a thousand heads 
he would ]et them all be struck oil sooner than 
recant. He repeated now, as he had done be- 
fore, that, unless it were demonstrated to hhn 
by texts from the Holy Scripture that he was 
in error, he could not and Vvould not recant, ', 
since his conscience was captive to God"s vrord. | 
" Here I stand," exclaimed he : " I can do no 
otherwise ; God help me ! Amen."* 

It is remarkable hov/ difierent was the im- 
pression which Luther made upon those pre- 
sent. The Spaniards of high rank, who had 
always spoken of him with aversion and con- 
tempt, who had been seen to take a book of 
Luther's or Hutten's from a book-stall, tear it 
in pieces and trample it in the mire,f thought 
the monk imbecile. A Venetian, who w^as 
otherwise perfectly impartial, rema.rks, that 
Luther showed himself neither very learned 
nor remarkably wise, nor even irreproachable 
in hi5 life, and that he had not answered to the 
expectations conceived of hhn.| It is easy to 
imagine what was Aleander's judgment of him. 
But even the emperor had received a similar 
impression. " That man," said he, " will never 
make a heretic of me." The next day (19th 
of April) he announced to the states of the em- 
pire, in a declaration written in French and 
with his own hand, his determination to main- 
tain the faith which had been held by his pre- 
decessors, orthodox emperors and catholic 
kings. Li that word he nicluded all that had 
been established by councils, and especially 
that of Constance. To this he would devote 
his whole power, body and soul. After the ex- 
pressions of obstinacy which they had yester- 
day heard from Luther, he felt remorse that he 
had spared him so long, and would now proceed 

* Acta, Revdi Patris Matini Lutheri coram Cssa jMa- 
jestate, etc. Opp. Latiieri, lat. ii. p. 413. The account 
which Pallavicini drew from the letters of Aleander con- 
tains somewhat more : a good deal of the detail which he 
gives, as well as ditTerent pieces of news, I found in the 
letters of the Frankfurt delegates, Fürstenberg and Holz- 
liausen. 

t Buschius ad Hutteniim. 0pp. Hutt. iv, p. 237. 

t Contarenus ad MattliE im Dandulum Vormatice, 26oio 
d. April, 1521, in the Clironicle of Sanuto, torn. xxx. 
o 



against him as against an avowed heretic. He 
called upon the princes to act hi the same spi- 
rit, according to their duty and their promises. 

Luther ha^, on the contrary, completely sa- 
tisfied his own countrymen. 5 The hardy v/ar- 
riors were delighted with his undaunted cour- 
age ; the veteran George of Frundsperg clapped 
him on the shoulder encouragingly, as he went 
in ; the brave Erich of Brunswick sent him a 
silver tankard of Limbeck beer through all the 
press of the assembly. At going out a voice 
was heard to exclaim, •' Blessed is the mother 
of such a man !" Even the cautious and 
thoughtful Frederic was satisfied v/ith his pro- 
missor : " Oh," said he to Spalatin'm the even- 
ing, in his own chamber, "hov7 well did Doctor 
Martinus speak before the emperor and states !" 
He was particularly delighted at the ease and 
ability with which Luther had repeated his 
German declaration in Latin. From this time, 
the princes rivalled each other in the frequency 
of their visits to him. " If you be right, Sn- 
Doctor," said Landgrave Philip of Hessen, after 
a few jocose words, Vv'hich Luther gently re- 
buked with a smile, "may God help you." 
Luther had already been told, that if his ene- 
mies burned him, they must burn all the Ger- 
man princes with him. Their latent sympathy 
was aroused and set in motion by the emperor's 
peremptory manifesto, so foreign to all the 
forms of the empire. A paper vras found in his 
apartments on which were written the words, 
" Wo to the land vrhose king is a child !" A 
declaration of open hostility v\'as fixed on the 
town-hall, on the part of four hundred allied 
knights agamst the Romanists, and especially 
against the Archbishop of Mainz, for trampling 
under foot honour and divine justice. They 
had sv7orn not to abandon the upright Luther. 
" I am ill at wTitmg," said the author of this 
proclamation ; " but I mean a great mischief, 
vdth 8000 foot soldiers at my back. Bund- 
schuh, Bundschuh, Bimdschuh !"ji This seemed 
to announce a combination between the knights 
and the peasants to protect Luther against his 
enemies. In fact, the courtiers did not feel 
perfectly at ease, when they saw themselves 
thus unarmed and defenceless, hi the midst of 
a warlike nation in a state of violent excitement 
amd agitated by conflicting passions. 

For the moment, however, there was notbnng 
to fear, since Sickingen and many other knights 
; and captains had entered Charles's service, in 
I the hope of soon reaping an ample harvest of 
I glory and gain under his banners. 
I Before the States entered on the discussion 
; of the emperor's proclamation, they proposed 
j that an attempt should be made to induce Lu- 
j ther to renounce his most ofiensive opinions ; 
they inthnated that there was danger of a re- 
bellion, if the proceedings ag-ainst him were of 

§ -'Contarenus ad Tiepoliim, Söfn" d. Apr. Habet in- 

teiitissinios inimicos et maximos fa uteres ; res agitur 

I tanta contentione quantam nemo crederet." — Letter of 

1 Tonstall from the Diet of Worms, in Fidde's Life of Wol- 

se2j, p. 242. The Germans everywhere are so addicted Co 

Luther, that rather thaa he shall be oppressed by the 

pope's authority, a hundred thousand of the people will 

I sacrifice theix lives. 

I li The war-crv of the league of the peasants of the Upper 
1 Rhine in 1501-2. (See note, p. 82).— Transl. 



158 



EDICT OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



Book II. 



so hasty and violent a kind : for this purpose the | 
emperor granted a delay of some days. i 

But it was easy to foresee that little could be 
accomplished by such means. Representations 
were made to Luther concerning his opinions 
on the councils ; — he persisted in affirming that 
Huss was unjustly condemned at Constance. 
He was again asked to acknowledge the em- 
peror and statesas judges of his doctrines; — he ' 
declared that he would not allow men to be the 
judges of God's word. , 

Aleander maintains that Luther had really, 
at one moment, been advised to abandon some 
of the opinions he had last proclaimed, and to 
defend only those immediately directed against 
Rome, No trace of this is to be found in Ger- 
man authorities. It does not even appear that 
the question contained in the memorial of the 
States wa» very precisely put ; but all his de- 
clarations were so clear and explicit, so pro- 
foundly religious, that no personal considera- 
tions were to be expected from him : he had 
emancipated himself for ever from the forms of 
the church of Rome ; in rejecting the decision 
of one council, he rejected the whole idea on 
which it rested : a compromise was now impos- 
sible. 

But as he quitted Worms without having 
consented to tlie smallest limitation of his opin- 
ions, the former resolution of the States, which 
had given occasion to his being summoned be- 
fore them, was now put in force as an instru- 
ment of his condemnation. The emperor, at 
least, could not have contemplated a revision of 
this decree or a fresh debate upon it, since he 
had just formed the most intimate relations 
with the See of Rome. 

The ill-concealed hostile disposition in which 
Don Juan Manuel had found the court of Rome 
in the spring of 1520, had been converted into 
the strictest union by his eübrts, within the 
space of a year. On the 8th of May, 1521, an 
alliance was concluded betv/een Charles and 
Leo, in which they mutually promised " to have 
the same friends and the same enemies, with- 
out exception; the same vrill in consent and 
denial, in attack and defence." They began 
by making common cause against France ; the 
pope having at length determined completely 
to take the side of the em.peror, and to exert all 
his povrers to drive the French out of Milan and 
Genoa. The immediate object, however, was 
the spiritual affairs of Germany. 

In the 16th article of the treaty, the emperor 
promised that, " inasmuch as certain men had 
arisen, who fall off from the Catholic faith and 
vac kedly slander- the apostolic see, he would 
em.ploy all his powers in pimishing them and 
avenging the wrong they had committed ao-ainst 
the apostolic see, In like manner as if it had 
been done against himself" * 

It cannot be affirmed that the conduct of 
Charles V. in the affair of Luther was dictated 
exclusively by political motives; it is very pro- 
bable that a denial of the infallibility of coun- 

* TabuloB Foederis, &c. in Duraont, t. iv. part iii. p. 98. 
" Q,iioniain sanctissimo domino nostro cura est aliquanto 
etiam major rerum spiritualium etpastoralis officii quam 
temporalium " 



cils and an attack on the sacraments, was as 
offensive as it was unintelligible to him ; but it 
is perfectly clear that he was mainl}^ deter- 
mined by politics. To what purposes might 
not Luther have been turned, if he had mode- 
rated his tone so as to render it unnecessary to 
condemn him ] But as this was not to be avoid- 
ed, it was made a condition of the great war 
which was about to be declared. 

There was, however, still a certain difficulty 
in adopting decisive measures, arising from the 
universal sympathy which Luther had excited 
during his presence. The resolution passed 
by the States Vv'as now repugnant to a considera- 
ble number of them. The question was, wheth- 
er they would acquiesce without contest in an 
edict founded upon this resolution. 

In order to obtain this result, the following 
course was adopted. 

Nothing was said for some time ; meanwhile 
many quitted Worms, as all the other business 
was ended. 

On the 25th of May, Avhen the emperor ap- 
peared at the town-hall to go through'the for- 
malities of receiving the resolutions concerning 
the Council of Regency, the courts of justice, 
and the matricula, in person, he requested the 
States to adjourn their departure for three 
days, in order to terminate some matters which 
were still imdecided.f According to ancient 
usage, the members of the diet escorted him 
back to the bishop's palace, where he resided ; 
the electors of Saxony and the Palatinate had 
left Worms, but the four others were present. 
On their arrival at the palace, they found the 
papal nuncios awaiting them. In consequence 
of Aleander's urgent representations of the 
necessity of sending this mark of honour, briefs 
had arrived from the pope to the electors, and 
were presented to the nuncios. A brief had 
also arrived addressed to the emperor, the publi- 
cation of which had been designedly delayed till 
this moment. Under the impressions made by 
these flattering communications, the emperor 
now declared that he had caused an edict on 
the Lutheran affair to be drawn up, en the 
basis of the former resolution of the States. 
This document had even been composed — such 
was the confidence now prevailing between em- 
peror and pope — by one of the nuncios ; the pre- 
sent was esteemed the favourable moment for 
communicating it to these members of the diet. 
There was now no legitimate or efficient line 
of opposition open to them, even had they been 
disposed to pursue it; and the Elector of 
Brandenburg, Joachim L, replied that the opin- 
ion of the States v/as certainly conformable to 
the measure in question. Aleander hastened 
to place this instantly on official record.J 

We perceive that the edict was not laid be- 
fore the States in Assembly ; it was not sub- 
mitted to any new deliberation; it was an- 

t Letter of Fürstenberg, May 2o. Frankf. Arch. 

i \ J Pallavicini, lib. i. c. 28, from Aleander's Letters. It 

; is eA'ident ^vliat pleasure tlie narrator takes in the success 

of so dexterous a proceeding: "Era ignoto il misterio 

air istesso Grancancelliere — crucciava forte i ministri 

di papa, veggendo nel discioglimento della dieta rimanerse 

con le mani vacue ; nia i principi se vogliono adoperare 

1 prudentemente, conviene," &;c. &c. 



CflAP. IV. 



EDICT OF WORMS, A. D. 1521. 



159 



nounced to them unexpectedly, in the emperor's 
apartments, and after every artifice had been 
employed to incline them to listen favourably 
to any proposal : their assent, which cannot 
even -be called a formal one, was extorted by a 
sort of surprise.* 

It was, however, as severe and peremptory 
as possible. Sentence of ban and re-ban was 
declared against Luther as a member lopped 
ofi:' from the church of God ; together witJi all 
his adherents, patrons and friends. His writ- 
ings and those of his followers were prohibited 
and sentenced to be burnt. And that no similar 
works might appear in future, a censorship was 
appointed to control the press.f 

Aleander had thus attained the long-desired 
object of all his negotiations. In the course 
of the day he had two fair copies made, the one 
in German, the other in Latin : the next morn- 
ing — Sunday — he hastened Vv^ith them to the 
emperor ; he found him with the States and the 



courtin the church, but even this did not prevent 
him from laying the paper before Charles on 
the spot ; in the cliurch it received the impe- 
rial signature. This was on the 26th of May ; 
but Aleander had thought it expedient to date 
it the 8th, at which time the assembly was still 
tolerably hill. 

By this act the temporal power, as Vv^ell as 
the spiritual, declared open resistance to the 
spirit of religious innovation which v.^as awak- 
ened in the nation. The opposition had not 
succeeded, as they had hoped, in inspiring the 
emperor with their own hostility to the papacy ; 
on the contrary, he had drawn closer all the 
ties which bound him to the pope. The two 
representatives of the secular and ecclesiasti- 
cal powers had united, in order to uphold the 
established constitution of the church. 

Whether they would succeed was, indeed, 
another question. 



BOOK III. 

ENDEAVOURS TO RENDER THE REFORMATION NATIONAL AND 

COMPLETE. 

1521— 1525, 



INTRODUCTION. 

The peculiar character and form which the 
Latin church had gradually assumed gave rise, 
as we have already seen, to the necessit}'' for 
its reform ; — a reform demanded by the state 
of the v/orld, and prepared by the national ten- 
dencies of the German mind, the advancement 
of learning, and the divergencies of theological 
opinion. We have likewise remarked how the 
abuse of the traffic in indulgences, and the dis- 
putes to which it gave birth, led, without de- 
sign or premeditation on the part of any con- 
cerned, to a violent outbreak of opposition. 

While we regard this as inevitable, we can- 
not proceed further without pausing to make 
some observations on its extreme danger. 

For every member and every interest of so- 
ciety is eniinked with the whole established 
order of thino-g which forms at once its base 



t Dr. Caspar Riffel, in his Ciiristl. Kirchengesch. der 
T'fi^uesteu Zeit, vol. i. p. 214, cannot, in fact, avoid admit- 
Tiii'j this. But he rejoices, that "the emperor, by means 
of this ' surprise,' removed all opportunity for even one 
of them (the princes) to break his word at the decisive 
moment." It could not well be said more plainly that a 
serious difference prevailed between the emperor and the 
princes. 

X Edict of Worms in Walch, xv. 2204. It is remarkable 
that in all other departments the censorship is conferred 
on the bishop alone ; but in that of theology, only in con- 
junction with " the faculty of the Holy Scriptures of the 
uearest situated university."— § 30. 



{ and its shelter; if once the vital powers which 
] animate this mass are thrown into conflict, who 
1 can say where the victorious assailants will 
; find a check, or whether every thing will not 
j be overwhelmed in common ruinT 
j No institution could be more exposed to this 
I danger than the papacy, which had for centu- 
! ries exercised so mighty an influence over the 
I whole existence of the European nations. 
: The established order of things in Europe 
was, in fact, the same military-sacerdotal state 
I which had arisen in the eighth and ninth cen- 
I turies, and, notwithstanding all the changes 
! that had been introduced, had always remained 
j essentially the same — compounded of the same 
I fundamental elements. Nay, even those very 
changes had generali}'' been favourable to the 
i sacerdotal element, whose commanding posi- 
I tion had enabled it to pervade every form of 
I public and private life, every vein of intellec- 
I tual culture. How then would it have been 
! possible to assail it without producing an uni« 
versal shock; to question it, without endanger- 
ing the whole fabric of civilisation 1 

It must not be supposed that so resistless a 
power of persuasion resided in a merely dog- 
-matic faith, wrought out by the hierarchy and 
the schools. The establishment of this would, 
on the contrary, have exciteci incessant contro- 
versy, which, though generally confined within 



160 



INTRODUCTION. 



Book III. 



the region of received ideas, would sometimes 
have been carried beyond that limit. But the 
intimate connexion which the papacy maintain- 
ed with all established authorities had defeated 
every attempt at opposition. How, for exam- 
ple, could an emperor have ventured to take 
under his protection religious opinions opposed 
to the dominant system of faith, not on particu- 
lar and unimportant points, but profoundly and 
essentially 1 Even as against a pope on whom 
he was making war, he could noi have daied 
to do it; he must have feared to undermine the 
spiritual basis on which his own rank and 
power were founded ; to be the first to break 
through the circle of ideas and associations by 
which the minds of men were bounded. The 
civil authorities felt, at every moment, the in- 
dissoluble nature of their connexion with the 
hierarchy, and generally made themselves the 
instruments of the persecution of" all who dis- 
sented from the faith prescribed by the church. 

It was now also to be considered that pro- 
jects and attempts of the most dangerous kind 
had been conaected with the more recent at- 
tacks on the doctrine and discipline of the 
church of Rome. 

A century and a half had elapsed since John 
Wicliffe had engaged in a similar contest with 
the papacy in England (with nearly the same 
weapons, and supported by the same national 
impulses) to that which Luther now entered 
upon in Germany ; this was instantly accom- 
panied by a tum.ultuous rising of the lowest 
classes of the people, who, not content with 
reforms in the creed, or an emancipation from 
the see of Rome, aimed at the abolition of the 
whole beneficed clergy,* and even at the equal- 
isation of the nobleman and the peasant ; i. e. 
at a complete overthrow of Church and State. 
It is uncertain whether Wicliffe had any share 
in these proceedings or not. At all events, the 
resentment they excited fell upon him, and he 
was removed fi'om Oxford, the scene of his 
labours, whence he might have exercised a sin- 
gular influence over England and the world, to 
the narrow and obscure sphere of a country 
parish. 

The disorders in Bohemia, which broke out 
in consequence of the teaching and the condem- 
nation of Huss, at first related exclusively to 
the spiritual matters vviience they arose ;f but 
the severity with wliich they were repressed 
soon excited an extremely dangerous fanati- 
cism. The Taborites not alone rejected the 
doctrines of the Fathers of the church equally 
with those of later times, but they demanded 
the destruction of all the books in which those 
doctrines were contained. They declared it 

* See -Prions et Capituli Cantuareiisis Alandatnm, 
Sept. 16, 1381, in VVilkins's Concilia Magnce Britannice, 
iii. p. 133. 

t One chief cause of this movement which is commonly 
overlooked, is mentioned by the well-informed Hemmer- 
lin in his tract De Libertate Ecclesiaslica. I will give 
this in his own words. " In regno BohemiiB quasi omnes 
possessiones et terrarura portiones et portiones porlionum 
quasi per singulos passus fuerunt occupatse, intricatce, et 
aggravatae per census, reditus et proveritus clero debitos. 
Unde populeres nimis exasperati — insultarunt in cleriun 
et religiosos— et terram prius occupatam penitus libera- 
rant." 



vain and unevangelical, nay, sinful, to prose- 
cute studies and to take degrees at the univer- 
sities :|: ; they preached that God would destroy 
the world, and would only save the righteous 
men of five cities § ; their preachers deemed 
themselves the avenging angels of the Lord, 
sent to execute his sentence of annihilation. 
Had their power corresponded with their will, 
they would have transformed the earth into a 
desert in the name of the Lord. 

For a thirst for destruction is inevitably ex- 
cited by successful opposition, and is the more 
violent, the more powerful the enemy with 
whom it has to contend. 

Was not then, we must now inquire, a simi- 
lar storm to be feared in Germany, where the 
pope had hitherto wielded a portion of the im- 
perial power 1 

Tlie nation was in a state of .universal fer- 
ment; a menacing revolt against the constitu- 
ted authorities was already stirring in the 
depths of societ)^; would not this be called into 
action by an attack on the highest of all ac- 
knowledged earthly authorities? Would not 
the destructive forces which every society har- 
bours in its bosom, and which this sacerdotal- 
military state had certainly not been able to 
neutralise or destroy, now rear their heads ? 

The whole future destiny of the Germ.an na- 
tion was involved in the question whether it 
could withstand this danger or not; whether it 
would succeed in severing itself from the papa- 
; C5% without imperilling the state and the slow- 
i ly won trcfisures of civilisation in the process ; 
I and what form of constitution — for without po- 
litical changes the separation was impossible — 
the nation would then assume. On the answer 
; to these questions rested, at the same time, the 
possible influence of Germany on the rest of 
, the world. 

The immediate course of events assumed a 
most menacinsf and dangerous character. 



CHAPTER 1. 

DISTURBAKCES AT WITTENBERG — OCTOBER, 
1521, TO MARCH, 1523. 

Once more had the supreme temporal power 
in Germany allied itself vAth the papacy, and 
this at first could not fail to make a deep, im- 
pression. The edict of Worms was published 
in all parts of the empire; and in some places 
the confessors were instructed by the bishops 
to refuse absolution to every one who should be 
guilty of avowing Lutheran tenets. Luther's 
own sovereign could only save him by seizing 
him on his wa}'' through the Thuringian forest, 
and carrying him, in feigned captivity, to the 
safe asylum of the AVartburg. A report was 

J Formula fidei Taboritarnm apud Laur. ByzyniuBi 
(Brzezina :) Ludewig Reliquiae MSS., torn. vi. p. 191. 
§ Byzynii Diarium belli Hussitici, ib. p. 155. sq. 



CffAP. I. 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



161 



spread that an enemy of the elector had im- 
prisoned and perhaps killed him. 

It soon however, became manifest how little 
had been effected by these severities. 

In the towns of the Netherlands in which 
Charles happened to be residing-, Luther's 
writings w^ere collected and publicly burned ; 
but the emperor might be seen to smile ironi- 
cally as he passed these bonfires in the market- 
place, nor do we find any trace of such execu- 
tions in the interior of Germany. On the con- 
trary, the events of the diet and the new edict 
only gained fresh partisans for Luther's cause. 
It appeared a powerful argument for the truth 
of his doctrines, that when he publicly avowed 
his books at Worms, and declared that he was 
ready to retract them if any one could confute 
him, no one had ventured to accept the chal- 
lenge.* " The more Luther's doctrine is pent 
up," says Zasius, "the more it spreads. "| If 
this was the experience of the university of 
Freiburg, where the orthodox party was so 
strong, what must it have been elsewhere] 
The Elector of Mainz did not think it expe- 
dient to grant the JMinorites the permission 
begged by their provincial, to preach against 
Luther in his diocese, fearing that it would but 
increase the agitation of the public mind.± In 
despite of the new regulations for the censor- 
ship contained in the edict, pamphlet after pam- 
phlet appeared in favour of the new doctrines. 
These were mostl}'- anonymous, but Hütten 
ventured to put his name to a direct attack on 
the pope's nuncio, Aleander, the author of the 
edict. In this he asks him whether he ima- 
gines that he can crush religion and freedom 
by means of a single little edict, artfully 
wrung from a youthful prince ; or that an im- 
perial command had any power against the 
immutable word of God. Were not rather the 
opinions of a prince subject to change] The 
emperor, he believed, "would learn to think 
very differently in time."^ The agents of 
Rome themselves were astonished to find of 
how little avail w^as the edict they had obtain- 
ed with so much difiicult3^ The ink, they 
said, w^as scarcely dry with which the empe- 
ror had signed it, when already it was violated 
on every side. They are said, however, to 
have consoled themselves with the reflection, 
that if it had no other results, it must lay the 
foundation for inevitable dissension among the 
Germans themselves. 

It was a most significant circumstance that 
the university of Wittenberg was as little af- 
fected by the imperial edict as it had been by 



* " Ein schöner dialogus und jresprech zwischen eini 
Pfarrer und eim Schulthayss, betreffend allen übelstand 
der Geystlichen," ifcr, " A line dialogue and conversation 
between a parish priest and a sheriff touching the ill con- 
dition of the clergy," &c., doubtless written immediately 
after the meeting^of the diet ; in which are these words: 
"Warum hand ir dan nit Doctor Luther mit disputiren 
yez zu TVorms überwunden." "Why did you not then 
overcome Doctor Luther in the disputation now held at 
Worms ?" This is the arsrumenl with which the sheriff 
brings over the parish priest to his views. 

t Epp. i. 50. 

; Capito ad Zwinglium Hallis, iv. Aug. 152L (Epp. 
Zw., i. 78.) He required sermons, " citra perturbationem 
vulgi, absque tam atrocibus affectibus." 

§ Invectiva in Aleandrum. Opera, iv. p. 240. 

21 0* 



the papal bull. There the new doctrines had 
already taken root and flourished independently 
of* Luther's personal influence, and thither the 
flower of the German youth flocked to receive 
and adopt them. It made indeed but little dif- 
ference whether Luther was present or not; 
the lecture rooms w^ere always crov/ded, and 
his doctrines j] were defended with the same 
enthusiasm, both orally and in writing. In 
short, this infant university now took the boldest 
ground. When the Sorbonne at last broke si- 
lence, and declared itself against Luther, Me- 
lanchthon thought himself not only bound to 
undertake the defence of his absent friend, but 
he even dared to fling back the accusation upon 
the university of Paris, the source of all theo- 
logical learning, the parent stem of which the 
German universities were branches, the Alm"a 
Plater to whose decision the w^hole world had 
ever bowed, and to charge her herself with 
falling off from true Christianity. He did not 
hesitate to- declare the whole of the doctrines 
purrent at the universities, especially the the- 
ology of the schools, false and heretical when 
tried by the standard of Scripture.^ The 
highest powers in Christendom had spoken, 
the pope had issued an anathema, and his sen- 
tence had been confirmed by that of the great 
mother university, and, finally, the emperor 
had ordered it to be executed ; and yet, in the 
small town of AYittenberg, which a few years 
before was hardly known, a professor little 
more than twenty years of age, in wiiose slight 
figure and modest bearing no one could have 
detected any promise of heroism or boldness, 
dared to oppose all these mighty powers, to 
defend the condemned doctrines, nay, to claim 
for them the exclusive glory ,of Christianity. 

One cause of this singular phenomenon was, 
that it was well knovrn that the appearance 
was more formidable than the reality : — the 
motives which had determined the course taken 
by the court of Rome (chiefly dominican in- 
fluence), and the means by which the edict had 
been extorted from the emperor, and the man- 
ner of its publication, were no secret. The 
three men from whom the condemnation in 
Paris originated were pointed out, and called 
by the most opprobrious names..** The re- 
formers, on the other hand, were conscious of 
pure motives, and a firm and impregnable foun- 
dation for their opinions. The influence of 
their prince, who afforded them undoubted 
though unacknowledged protection, was a safe- 
guard against actual violence. 

But those who ventured to take up so inde- 
pendent and imposing a position, at variance 



\l Spalatini Annales, 152L October. " Scholastici, quo- 
rum supra millia ibi turn fuerunt." Nevertheless, in the 
course of the winter, the electors of Brunswick and Bran- 
denburg forbade their subjects to attend this University. 
Mencken, Script, ii. 611. The number of matriculations 
fell off considerably during the winter term. Seunert, 
p. 59. 

IT Adversus furiosura Parisiensium theologastrorum 
decretum Phil. Melanchthonis pro Luthero Apologia. 
Corp. Reformatorum i. 398. 

** Glareanus ad Zwinglium Lutetiee 4non. Julii,152l. 
Beda, Quercus, Christophorus : Bellua, Stercus, Christoto- 
mus. Epp. Zw. p. 176. The work of Glareanus, p. 156., 
in which the death of Leo X. is mentioned, does not be 
long to the year 1520, but to the following year. 



163 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



Book III. 



with all established authorities, and supported 
only by opinions which had not yet attained 
their full development nor acquired a precise 
form, obviously incurred an enormous weight 
of responsibility/ In carrying out the princi- 
ples professed, it was necessary to be the pio- 
neers of a numerous, susceptible and expecting 
crowd of sympathising spirits. Here, where 
all the elements of a state at once military and 
sacerdotal were to be found as abundantly as 
elsewhere, the experiment was tobe tried, how 
far the authority of the priesthood might be de- 
stroyed without endangering the safet}^ of the 
state. 

It was, however, become impossible to re- 
main stationarjr. Men's minds were too much 
excited to be content with doctrines alone. 
On the faith which was now so profoundl}/" 
shaken, were founded practices that influenced 
every day and hour of common life; and it 
was not to be expected that an energetic gene- 
ration, conscious of its own power, and im- 
pelled by new and mighty ideas, should do 
violence to its own convictions and submit to 
ordinances it had bepun to condemn. 

The first remarkable incident that occurred 
was of a' purely personal nature. Two prie-sts 
in the neighbourhood, Jacob Seidler and Bar- 
tholomew Bernhardi, both professing the doc- 
trines of Wittenberg, solemnly renounced 
their vows of celibacy. Of all the institutions 
of the hierarchy, this, indeed, was the one 
which, from the strong taste for domestic life 
inherent in the nation, had always been most 
repugnant to the German clergy, and, in its 
consequences, most profoundly oflensive-to the 
moral sense of the people. The two priests 
declared their conviction that neither pope nor 
synod were entitled to burden the church with 
an ordinance which endangered both the body 
and the soul. * Hereupon they were both 
claimed for trial by the spiritual authorities; 
Seidler alone, who resided in the territory of 
Duke George of Saxony, was given up to 
them, and perished in prison; the Elector Fre- 
deric refused to lend his authority to the Bishop 
of Magdeburg against Bernhardi ; he refused, 
as Spalatin expresses it, to let himself be em- 
ployed as a constable. Carlstadt now took 
courage to attack the institution of celibacy in 
a work of considerable length. 

As the vow of celibacy was originally con- 
fined to the monastic orders, and had subse- 
quently been extended to the whole priesthood, 
its dissolution necessarily affected the w^hole 
idea of the monastic system. In the little Au- 
gustine church which had been the scene of 
Luther's first appearance, Gabriel Zwilling, 
one of his most able fellow-labourers, preached 
a series of fervent discourses, in which he at- 
tacked the very essence of monachism, declar- 
ing that it was not only lawful but necessary 
to renounce it ; for that " under the cowl there 
was no salvation." Thirteen Augustine monks 
left the convent at once, and took up their 
abode, part among the students and part among 

* "Cluid statuerint Pontificii canones, nihil refert 
CimstianoYumy— Epistle from the Theologians of Witten- 
berg to the Bishop of Meissen, Corp. Ref. i. 418. 



the townspeople. One of them who understood 
the trade of a cabinet-maker, applied for the 
right of citizenship and proclaimed his inten- 
tion of marrying. f This was followed by a 
general disturbance : the Augustines who had 
stayed in the convent thought themselves no 
longer safe ; and the Carmelite convent in Wit- 
tenberg had to be protected every night by a 
strong guard. 

Meanwhile Brother Gabriel made another 
still more formidable attack upon the Catholic 
church. He carried Luther's doctrines about 
the sacrament so far as to declare the adoration 
of it, and even the celebration of the mass with- 
out communicants, simply as a sacrifice (the 
so-called private mass), an abuse and a sin.^: 
In a short time the prior of the convent was 
compelled by the general agitation to discon- 
tinue the celebration of private masses in his 
church, in order, as he said, to avoid still 
greater scandal. This of course produced a 
great sensation both in the towm and university. 
On the 3d of December, 1521, when mass was 
going to be sung in the parish church, several 
of the students and younger burghers came 
with knives under their coats, snatched away 
the mass books and drove the priests from the 
altar. The town council summoned the oflfend- 
ers subject to its jurisdiction, and shov/ed an 
intention of punishing them ; upon which the 
townspeople rose tumultuously and proposed 
terms to the council, in which they demanded 
the liberation of the prisoners in a tone almost 
amounting to open rebe]lion.§ 

All these were attempts made without plan 
or deliberation to overthrow the existing form 
of divine worship. The Elector, to whose 
decision such affairs were always referred, 
wished, as was usual with him, to take the 
opinion of some constituted authority. 

His first step was to summon to Wittenberg 
a council of Augustines from the provinces of 
Meissen and Thuringia. These monks all 
more or less shared Luther's opinions and re- 
garded his cause as their own. Their judg- 
ment, as he afterwards declared, coincided with 
his own, even during his absence ; they did not 
go so far as brother Gabriel, who denounced 
the monastic vows as* sinful, but they no longer 
acknowledged them to be binding. Their de- 
cision was as follows : " Every creature is sub- 
ject to the word of God, and needs not allow 



t Report of Gregorius Brück to the Elector, Oct. 11. 
Corp. Ref. i. 459. 

J Report from Helt the prior of the Augustines to the 
Elector, Nov. 12. Corp. Ref. p. 483. 

§ The Council of Wittenberg to the Elector. Dec. 3. 
arul 5. Corp. Ref. p. 487. The impression made by these 
innovations in distant countries is remarkably displayed 
by a passage in vol. xxxii. of the Venetian Chronicle of 
Sanuto, in'the Archives of Vienna. " Novitä di uno or- 
dine over uso de la fede Christiana comenzada in Vinti- 
bergia. Li frati heremitani di S. Angustino hanno tro- 
vato e provato per le St. Scripture che le messe secondo 
che se usano adesso si e gran peccato a dirle o a odirle 
(thus i.t appears that the whole innovation was looked 
upon as an inventiort of the Augustine order) e dapoi el 
zorno di S. Michiel,-1521, in qua ogni zorno questo hanno 
predicliadoe ditto, e stanno saldi in questa soa oppinione, 
e questo etiam con le opre observano e da poi la domerii- 
ga di S. Michiel non hanno ditto piu messe nella chiesia 
del suo monasterio, e per questo e seguito gran scandalo 
tra el popolo 11 cantori e acnonici spiritual! e temporali 



Chap. I. 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



163 



himself to be oppressed by burdensome human 
institutions ; every man is at liberty to leave 
the convent or to remain in it;* but he who 
leaves it must not abuse his freedom according 
to the lusts of the flesh ; he who prefers to stay, 
Avill do well to wear the cowl and render obe- 
dience to his superiors from choice and affec- 
tion." They determined at the same time to 
desist from the practice of begging, and to 
abolish votive masses. 

Meanwhile the prince had called upon the 
university to pronounce an opinion on the mass 
in general. A commission was accordingly 
chosen, of which Melanchthon was a member, 
and which decided for the entire abolition of 
the mass, not only in V>'ittenberg but through- 
out the countr}^ be the consequences what they 
might."!" When, however* the moment arrived 
for the whole corporation to confirm this sen- 
tence, they absolutely refused to do so; several 
• of the most influential members stayed awaj- 
from the meeting, declaring that they were 
too insignificant to undertake to reform the 
church.:!: 

Thus as neither the Augustine order nor the 
urfiversity declared themselves distinctly in 
favour of the innovators, the Elector refused to 
move any further in the matter, saying that if 
even in Wittenberg they could not agree, it 
was not probable that the rest of the world 
would think alike on the proposed change: 
they might go on readingf, disputing and 
preaching about it, but in the mean while they 
must adhere to established usages. § 

The excitement was, however, already too 
great to be restrained by the command of a 
princ6 whose leniency was so well known; 
and accordingly Dr. Carlstadt announced, in 
spite of it, that on the feast of the circumcision 
he should celebrate the mass according to a 
new rite, and administered the Lord's Supper 
in the words of the Founder. He had already 
attempted something of the kind in the month 
of October, but with only twelve communi- 
cants, in exact imitation of the example of 
Christ. As it seemed probable that difflculties 
would be thrown in his way, he determined 
not to wait till the day appointed, and on 
Christmas Day, 1521, he preached in the pa- 
rish church on the necessity of abandoning the 
ancient rite and receiving the sacrament in both 
kinds. After the sermon he went up to the 
altar and said the mass, omittinfj the words 
which convey the idea of a sacrifice, and the 
ceremony of the elevation of the host, and then 
distributed first the bread and next the wine, 
with the words, "This is the cup of my blood 
of the new and everlasting covenant." This 
act was so entirel)' in harmony with the feel- 
ings of the congregation that no one ventured 

* Decreta Augastiniar.orum. Corp. Ref. i. 456. This 
aneeting is not to be placed in the month of October, but 
rather in December or in the beginning of January, as is 
remarked by Seckendorf (Historia Luther, i. s. 54. § 129.) 
on the auUioriiv of a contemporarv letter. See Spa'latini 
Ann. 610. 

t Ernstlich Handlung der Universität, t.c. Corp. Eef. i. 
-465. 

X Report of Christian Beiers, Dec. 13. ib. 500. 

§ Instruction of the Elector, Lochau, Dec. 19. ib. 507. 



to oppose it. On New Year's Day he repeat- 
ed this ritual, and continued to do so every ' 
succeeding Sunday ; he also preached every 
Friday, li 

Carlstadt belonged to a class of men not un- 
common in Germany, who combine with a 
natural turn for deep speculation the boldness 
to reject all" that has been established, or to 
maintain all. that has been condemned; yet 
without feeling the necessity of first arriving 
at any clear and precise ideas, or of resting 
those ideas upon arguments fitted to carry ger 
neral conviction. Caristadt had at first adcrpt- 
ed the doctrines of the schoolm.en ; he was af- 
j tervvards urged by Luther to the study of the 
' sacred wrhings, though he had not, like him, 
patience to acquire their original languages ; nor 
did he hesitate at the strangest and most arbi- 
trary interpretations, in wbich he followed only 
the impulse of his own mind. This led him 
into strange aberrations ; even at the time he 
was preparing for the disputation of Leipzig, 
he used the most singular expressions with re- 
gard to the Holy Scriptures, applying to them 
as a whole that Vv-hich has generally been un- 
derstood of the lavw only; viz. that they lead 
to transgression, sin, and death, and do not af- 
ford the true consolation the soul requires. In 
the year 15'20 he entertained doubts whether 
Moses was really the author of the books 
which bear his name, and whether the Gospels 
have come down to us in their genuine form ; 
speculations which have since given so much 
occupation to learning and criticism, presented 
themselves at this early period to his mind.'lf 
At that time he was overawed by the presence y 
and authorit)'- of Luther ; now, however, he 
was restrained by no one ; a wide arena for the 
display of his am^bition lay before him, and he 
was surroimded by an enthusiastic public. 
Under these circumstances he was himself no 
longer the same; the little swarthy sun-burnt 
man, who formerly expressed himself in indis- 
tinct and ambiguous language, now" poured 
forth with the most vehement eloquence a tor- 
rent of mystical extravagant ideas, relating to 
a totally nev/ order of things, which carried 
away all imaginations. 

Towards the end of the year 15-21 he was 
joined by allies who had entered on a similar 
career from another direction, and who pursued 
it with still greater audacity. 

It is well known that at the beginning of 
the LIussite troubles, two strangers, Nicolas 
and Peter of Dresden, who had been banished 
by the Bishop of Meissen and found an asylum 
in Prague, were the persons who, during the 
absence of Huss and Jerome, instigated the 
populace to demand a change of the ritual, es- 
pecially in the administration of the sacrament ; 
and that various other fanatical opinions were 
quickly combined with these.** 

I Zeitung aus Wittenberg account of what took place 
in 1Ö-21, &€. ; in Strobel's Miscellanien, v. 121. 

TT See extracts from his works in Löscher's Historia 
Motuum, i. 15. 

** The notice of this is very remarkable in Pelzel's 
Wenceslas, ii. (Urkunden, nr. 238. ex MS. coaevo capituli.J 
They declared at the very beginning " quod papa sit anti 
Christus cum clero sibi subjecto." 



164 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



Book III. 



Whether it was that these opinions re-acted 
on the country in which they originated — or 
whether they had from the first taken deeper 
and more lasting root there, — the same; spirit 
which had formerly directed the movement at 
Prague, now revived at Zwickau (a town in 
the Erzgebirge, where Peter of Dresden had 
for some time resided), and appeared likely to 
guide the agitation now prevailing at Witten- 
berg. _ 

This spirit was remarkably displayed in a 
sect which congregated round a fanatical 
weaver of the name of Claus Storch, of Zwic- 
kau, and professed the most extravagant doc- 
trines. Luther did not go nearly far enough 
for these people. Very different men, they 
said, of a much more elevated spirit, were re- 
quired ; for what could such servile observance 
of the Bible avail 1 That book was insufficient 
for man's instruction ; he could only be taught 
by the immediate inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost.* Their fanaticism soon rose to such a 
pitch as to convince them that this was actu- 
ally granted to them ; that God spoke to them 
in person, and dictated to them how to act and 
what to preach. f On the strength of this im- 
mediate inspiration from Heaven, they pressed 
for various alterations in the services of the 
church. Above all, they maintained that a 
sacrament had no meaning without faith, and 
therefore entirely rejected the baptism of in- 
fants, who are incapable of faith. But their 
imaginations took a inuch wilder flight. They 
asserted that the world was threatened with a 
general devastation, of which the Turks v/ere 
perhaps to be the instruments ; no priest was 
to remain alive, not even those who were now 
contracting marriage, nor any ungodly man; 
but after this bloody purification the kingdom 
of God would commence, and there would be 
one faith and one baptism. :|: They seemed 
well inclined to begin this work of violent con- 
vulsion themselves. Finding resistance from 
the moderate portion of the citizens and town 
council of Zwickau, they collected arms in the 
house of one of their party, with the design of 
falling suddenly on their opponents and put- 
ting them all to death. Fortunately they were 
anticipated by Wolf of Weissenbach, the chief 
magistrate of the place; he arrested a number 
of the misguided men, kept the peace and com- 
pelled the ring-leaders to quit the tovvn.§ The 
fanatics hoped to accomplish abroad what they 
had failed in at home. Some of them went to 
Prague with a view to reviving the old Tabor- 
ite sect there, — an attempt which proved abor- 



* A report sent from Zwickau to the elector, of which 
he informs the university, gives this account of their 
opinions. Acta Einsiedefii cum Melanthonio, C. R. p. 
536. The statements in Enoch Widemann Chronicon 
Curife, in Mencken, Scriptt. R. G., iii. 744., show a some- 
what later developement of the fantasies of Storch. To- 
bias Schmidt's Cronica Cygnea, 1656, is not without its 
value for the events of the thirty years' war, but is insuf- 
ficient for the times of the Reforniation. 

t Official Report of Melanchthon, Jan. 1. 1522. C. R., i. 
533., from which it is evident that half a year before, 
these people had not begun to boast of this communion 
-with God. 

J Zeitung ana Wittenberg, p. ^27. 

§ According to G. Fabricius, Vita Ricii, in Melchior 
Adam, Vitfe Piiilosophorum, p, 72. 



tive. The others, of whom it is more especially 
our business to speak, came to Wiitenoerg, 
where they found the ground admirably pre- 
pared for the seed they had to sow, by the uni- 
versal restlessness of minds craving for some 
unknown novelty, not only among the excita- 
ble class of students, but even among the 
townspeople. We accordingly find that after 
their arrival in Wittenberg the agitation as- 
sumed a bolder character. 

Car] Stadt, with whom they immediately al- 
lied themselves, introduced more striking inno- 
vations every day. The priestly garments 
were abolished and auricular confession dis- 
used. People went to receive the sacram.ent 
without preparation, and imagined that they 
had gained an important point, when they took 
the host with their own hands instead of re- 
ceiving it from those of the priest. It was 
held to be the mark of a purer Christianity to 
eat eggs and meat on fast da3^s especially. 
The pictures in the churches Avere now es- 
teemed an abomination in the holy place. 
Carlstadt disregarded the distinction which 
had always been made between reverence and 
adoration, and applied all the texts in the Bible 
directed against idolatry to the worship of 
images. He insisted upon the fact that people 
bowed and knelt before them, and lighted ta- 
pers, and brought offerings ; that, for example, 
they contemplated the image oF St. Christo- 
pher, in order that they might be preserved 
against sudden death ; he therefore exhorted 
his followers to attack and destroy " these 
painted gods, these idol logs." He would not 
even tolerate the crucifix, because he said men 
called it their God, whereas it could only re- 
mind them of the bodily sufferings of Christ. 
It had been determined that the images should 
be removed from the churches, but as this was 
not immediately executed, his zeal became 
more fiery|| ; at his instigation an iconoclast 
riot now commenced, similar to those which 
half a century afterwards broke out in so many 
other countries. The images were torn from 
the altars, chopped in pieces and burnt. It is 
obvious that these acts of violence gave a most 



II Von Abtuhung der Bylder. Und das keyn Betdler 
untherden Christen seyn Soil. Carolstatt in der christ- 
lichen Statt Wittenberg. Bog. D. (Concerning the Abo- 
lition of Images. And thatthere should be no worship- 
per among Christians. Carlstadt in the Christian Town 
of Wittenberg, Sheet D.) The decree was made on 
Friday after St. Sebastian. Jan. 24. 1522. The dedication 
to the paper on the first sheet, which also was first print- 
ed, is dated Monday after the conversion of St. Paul, 27th 
Jan. Carlstadt then liad the greatest hopes. The date 
shows how zealous he was. When he came to the fourth 
sheet, he plainly saw that matters would not proceed so 
rapidly. " Ich hette auch gehofft, der lebendig got soll 
seine eingegeben werk das ist guten willen tzu abtuhang 
der bilder volzogen und yns eusserlich w^erk gefurt haben. 
Aber ess ist noch kein execution geschehen, vileicht der- 
halben, das got seinen tzorn vber vns lest treuffen yn 
meynung seynen gantzen tzorn ausszuschüden, wu wir 
alsso blind bleiben vnd fürchten vns vor dem dass vns 
nicht kaa thun. Das weiss ich das die Obirsten deshalb 
gestrafft werden. Dan die schrifil leugt ye nit." — " I had 
also hoped that the living God would have carried into 
execution and openly brought to bear his appointed work, 
that is, good will towards the abolition of images. But 
no execution has yet taken place, perhaps because God 
lets his anger drip upon us, intending Jo pour out all his 
wrath, if we remain thus blind, andfear not that which 
he is able to do. Thus much I know, that they in high 
places will be punished therefor. For the Scripture 
IJeth not." 



Chap. I. 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



165 



dangerous and menacing character to the whole 
controversy. Carlstadt not only quoted the 
Old Testament to show that the secular autho- 
rities had power to remove from the churches 
whatever could give scandal to the faithful, 
but added, that if the magistrates neglected this 
duty, the communit)^ was justified in carrying 
out the necessary changes. Accordingly the 
citizens of Wittenberg laid a petition before 
the council, in which they demanded the for- 
mal abolition of all unbiblical ceremonies, 
masses, vigils, and processions, and unlimited 
libert}'' for their preachers. The council vv^as 
forced to concede these points one after the 
other;* nor did even these concessions satisfy 
the innovators. Their project was to realise 
without delay their ovv'n conception of a strictly 
Christian community. The council was called 
upon to close all places of public amusement, 
not only those which the law prohibited, but 
those which it had sanctioned ; to abolish the 
mendicant orders who, they said, ought not to 
exist in Christendom, and to divide the funds 
of the religious communities, which were pro- 
nounced to be altogether mischievous and cor- 
rupt, among the poor. To these suggestions 
of a bigoted fanaticism, blind to the real nature 
and interests of society, were added the most 
pernicious doctrines of the Taborites. An old 
professor like Carlstadt suffered himself to be 
carried away by the contagion to such a degree 
as to maintain that there was no need of learn- 
ed men, or of a course of academic study, and 
still less of academic honours. In his lectures 
he advised his hearers to return home and till 
the ground, for that man ought to eat his bread 
by the sweat of his brovv^ One of his most 
zealous adherents was George Mohr, the rector 
of the grammar school, who addressed the as- 
sembled citizens from the window of the school- 
house, exhorting them to take away their chil- 
dren. Of what use, said he Avould learning be 
henceforth 1 They had now among them the 
•divine prophets of Zwickau, Storch, Thomä, 
and Stübner, who conversed with God, and 
were filled with grace and knowledge without 
any study whatsoever. The common people 
w^ere of course easily convinced that a layman 
or an artisan was perfectly qualified for the of- 
fice of a priest and teacher. 

Carlstadt himself went into the houses of 
the citizens and asked them for an explanation 
of obscure passages in Scripture ; acting on the 
text that God reveals to b^bes what he hides 
from wise men. Students left the university 
and went home to learn a handicraft, saying 
that there w^as no longer any need of stutly.| 

The conservative ideas to which Luther had 
still clung were thus abandoned ; the idea of 
temporal sovereignty, on which he had tagten 
his stand to oppose the encroachments of the 
priesthood, w^as now rejected with no less hos- 
tility than the spiritual domination. Luther 
had combated the reigning faith with the wea- 
pons of profound learning ; one of the rudest 



* Strobel, v. 128. 

t Froschel: Tractat vom Priesterthum (Appendix,) 
1505. Reprinted in the Unschuldigen Nachrichten, 1731, 
p. 698. 



theories of inspiration, that has ever been 
broached now threatened to take its place. It 
is evident, however, that its success was im- 
possible. All the powers of the civilized world 
w-ould have arisen against such a wild, de- 
structive attempt, and would either have utterl}'- 
crushed it, or at all events have driven it back 
within the narrov\'est limits. Had such anar- 
chical dreams ever become predominant, they 
must have destroyed every hope of improve- 
ment which the world could attach to the re- 
forminpr party. 

In Wittenberg there was no one capable of 
resisting the general frenzy. Melanchthon was 
then too young and inexperienced, even had he 
possessed sufficient firmness of character. He 
held some conferences w^ith the prophets of 
Zwickau ; and finding not only that they were 
men of talent, but well grounded in the main 
articles of a faith v/hich was likewise his own ; 
being also unable to refute their arguments con- 
cerning infant baptism, he did not feel himself 
competent to enter the lists against them. We 
find disciples and friends of Melanchthon 
among their adherents.^ 

The elector was equally incapable of offer- 
ing any efficient resistance. We are already 
acquainted with the character of this prince, — 
his temporising policy, his reluctance to inter- 
fere in person, his habit of letting things take 
their own course. His was the most peaceful 
nature produced by this troubled and warlike 
age ; he never had recourse to arms ; when ad- 
vised to seize Erfurt, on the plea that he might 
accomplish it with the loss of only five men, 
he replied, " One were too m.any."§ Yet his 
quiet, observant, prudent. and enlightened poli- 
cy had ever been crowned with ultimate suc- 
cess. His pleasure was to adorn his own ter- 
ritories, which he thought as beautiful as any 
on earth, with castles, like those of Lochau, 
Altenburg, Weim.er and Coburg ; to decorate 
his churches with pictures from the admirable 
pencil of Lucas Kranach, whom he invited to 
his court; to keep up the high renown of his 
chapel and quire, which was one of the best in 
the empire, and to improve the university he 
had founded. 

Although not remarkable for popular and ac- 
cessible manners, he had q, sincere affection for 
the people. He once paid back the poll-tax 
Vv jiich had been levied, when the purpose to 
which it was to be applied was abandoned. 
'• Truly," said he of .somebody, "he is a bad 
man, for he is unkind to the poor folk." Once, 
vAien on a journey, he gave money to the 
children who were playing by the road-side : 
" one day, " said he," they will tell how a duke 
of Saxony rode by and gave each of them 
something." We read of his sending rare 
fruits to a sick professor. || The elector was 
now in jb^lys ; most of the older German princes 
v/ith whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, 

J e. g. Martin Borrhaus (Cellarius) olf Stuttgard had set 
on foot a private school for Melanchthon. Adam, Vitas 
Theolog. p. 191. 

§ Luther to John Frederic and Moritz, 1542. 

11 Epistola Carlstadii ad Spalatinum in Gerdes Scri- 
nium, vii. ii. 345. 



166 



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Book III. 



" his good comrades and friends," as he called 
them, were dead, and he had many annoyances 
and vexations to bear. He was in doubt and 
perplexity as to the real inclinations of the 
young emperor. " Happy is the man," he ex- 
claimed, " who has nothing to do with courts !" 
The disagreement between himself and his 
nearest neighbour and cousin, the turbulent 
Duke George, became more and more serious 
and evident. " Ah, my cousin George !" said 
he, — "truly I have no friend left but my bro- 
ther;" — and to him he gradually confided the 
greater share of the government. The protec- 
tion he afforded to Luther had arisen naturally 
out of the course of events ; at first, partly from 
political motives, then from a feeling of duty 
and justice.* Nor was this all; he conscien- 
tiously shared the profound, unquestioning ve- 
neration for the Scriptures inculcated by Luther. 
He thought that every thing else, however in- 
genious and plausible, might be confuted ; the 
word of God alone was holy, majestic, and 
truth itself: he said that this word should be 
" pure as an eye." He had a deep reverential 
fear of opposing or disobeying it. The basis 
of all religion is this sense of what is sacred — 
of the moral mystery of the universe ; this awe 
of offending against it under the momentary 
influence of im.purer motives. Such was emi- 
nently the religion of Frederic the Wise, and 
it had withheld him from interfering decidedly 
and arbitrarily in Luther's behalf; but it also 
hindered him from exerting his power to put 
downthese new sectarians in Wittenberg, dis- 
pleasing as they were to him. He did not ven- 
ture, any more than Melanchthon, to pronounce 
an absolute condemnation of them. After lis- 
tening to the doubts and scruples of his coun- 
sellors and learned men at Prettin on this sub- 
ject, he appeared perplexed and overpowered 
at the idea that these people might possibl)'' be 
in the right. He said that as a layman he 
could not understand the question; but that, 
rather than resist the will of God, he would 
take his stalT in his hand and leave his coun- 
try.j 

It certainly might have come to this. The 
movement that had begun could lead to nothing 
short of open rebellion, — to the overthrow of 
civil government in order to make room for a 
new Christian republic ; violence would then 
certainly have called forth violence, and good 
and evil would have perished together. 

How much now depended on Luther ! Even 
these disturbances w^ere the offspring or the 
consequence of ideas that he had set afloat, or 
were closely connected with them : if he sanc- 
tioned them, who w^ould be able to stem the 
torrent? if he opposed them, it seemed doubt- 
ful whether his opposition would have any ef- 



* His counsellors in Wittenberor declared, on the 2d 
Jan. 15-2-2, " S. Ch. G. hatt sich Doctor Martinus Sachen 
bisher nicht anders— angenommen, denn allein weil er 
sich zu Recht erboten, dass er nicht bewältigt würde."— 
"His Christian grace, the elector, had as yet taken up 
D»", Maioinus's cause in no other way beyond offering to 
isee that he had justice, and was not overpowered by 
force."— Corp. Ref. p. 537. 

t Spalatin, Leben Friedrichs des Weisen. Vermischte 
Abhaodlungen zur sächsischen Gesch. B. v. 



fect, or whether he himself would not be over- 
whelmed in the common ruin. 

During ihe whole of this time he was in the 
Wartburg, at first keeping closely within the 
walls, then venturing out timidly to gather 
strawberries on the castle hill, and afterwards, 
grown bolder, riding about as Junker George, 
accompanied by a groom. He once even ven- 
tured into Wittenberg, trusting to the disguise 
of his long hair and beard, and completely 
cased in armour. But though his mode of life 
and his accoutrements were those of a Reiter, 
his soul was ever in the heat of ecclesiastical 
warfare. " When hunting," says he, "I the- 
ologized :" the dogs and nets of the hunters re- 
presented to him the bishops and stewards of 
antichrist seeking to entrap and devour unhap- 
py souls. :|: In the solitude of the castle he 
was again visited by some of the struggles and 
temptations which had assailed him in the con- 
vent. His chief occupation was a translation 
of the New Testament, and he likewise formed 
the project of giving to the German nation a 
more correct translation of the Bible than the 
Latin church possesses in the Vulgate. § Whilst 
endeavouring to fortify his resolution (or the ac- 
complishment of this work, and only wishing 
to be in W' ittenberg that he might have the as- 
sistance of his friends, he heard of the excite- 
ment and disorder prevailing there. He was 
not for a moment in doubt as to their nature. 
He said that nothing in the whole course of 
his life had given him greater pain; all that 
had been done to injure himself v/as nothing 
in the comparison. The pretensions of these 
men to tliß character of divinely inspired pro- 
phets and to immediate communion with God, 
did not impose on him ; for he too had fathomed 
the mysterious depths of the spiritual world, 
and had gained a far deeper insight into it, and 
a far too exalted conception of the divine na- 
ture, to allow himself to be persuaded that God 
would appear visibly to his creatures, converse 
Y/ith them, or throw them into ecstacies. " If 
you want to know the time and place and na- 
ture of -the divine communications," writes he 
to Melanchthon,|| " hear ; ' Like as a lion he 
hath crushed my bones;' and 'I am cast out 
from before thy countenance, my soul is filled 
with heaviness, and the fear of hell is upon 
me.' God spake by the mouths of his prophets, 
because if he spoke himself we could not en- 
dure it." He wishes his prince joy of the 
cross which God has laid upon him, and says 
that the Gospel was not only persecuted by 
Annas and Caiaphas, but that there must be a 
Juda^ even among the apostles; he also an- 
nounces his intention of going to Wittenberg 
himself. The elector entreated him not to 
leave his retreat so soon, saying that as yet he 
could do no good, that he had better prepare 
his defence for the next diet, at which it was 
to be hoped he would obtain a regular hearing.^ 
But Luther was no longer to be restrained by 

t To Spalatin, 15th Aug. D. W., ii. 43. 

§ To Amsdorf, 13th Jan. p. 123. 

|( 13 Jan. 1522, to Amsdorf, p. 125. 

IT Instructions to Oswald, Corp. Kef. i. 561. 



Chap. I. 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



167 



these arguments : never had he been more firm- 
ly convinced that he was the interpreter of the 
divine word and that his faith woukl be a suf- 
ficient protection ; the occurrences in Witten- 
berg seemed to him a disgrace to himself and 
to the Gospel.* / He accordingly set out on his 
way, regardless of the pope's excommunication 
or the emperor's ban, bidding his prince have 
no care about him. He was in a truly heroic 
state of mind. 

A party of young Swiss who were on their 
way to the University of Wittenberg stopped 
to dine at the sign of the Black Bear at Jena. 
On entering they savv- a horseman who sat at 
the table resting his right hand on the hilt of 
his sword, with a Hebrew psalter before him ; 
this horseman, as they afterwards discovered, 
\Xas Luther, and we read in the notes of one 
of them, how he invited them to dine with hie;, 
and hovv-^gentle and dignified was his deport- 
ment.| On Friday 7th of March he arrived at 
W'ittenberg; on the Saturday the same Swiss 
found him surrounded by his friends, inquiring 
minutely into all that had occurred during his 
absence. On Sunday he began to preach, in 
ofder immediately to ascertain whether his pop- 
ularity and influence were still sufScient to ena- 
ble him to allay the disturbance. Small and 
obscure as was the scene to which he returned. 
his success or failure was an event pregnant 
with important results to the whole world ; for 
it involved the question, whether the doctrine 
which had forced itself on his conviction from 
its own inherent weight, and which vv'as des- 
tined to give such an impulse to the progress 
of mankind, had also power to subdue the ele- 
liients of destruction fermenting in the public 
mind, that had already undermined the foun- 
dations of society and now threatened it with 
total ruin. It had now to be tried whether it 
were possible to reform without destroying ; to 
open a fresh career to mental activity, without 
annihilating the results of the labours of former 
generations. Luther's view of the question 
was that of a preacher and pastor of souls; he 
did not denounce the changes that had been 
made as utterly pernicious, nor tlie doctrines 
from which the}^ had spruno- as fundamentaily 
bad, and he carefully refrained from any per- 
sonal 'attacks on the leaders of the nev\- sect. 
He merely said that they had acted v/ith pre- 
cipitation, and had thus laid a stumbling-block 
in the way of the weak and transgressed the 
commandment of charity. -He allowed that 
there were practices which undoubtedly ought 
to be abolished ; such, for instance, as private 
masses ; but that these reforms ought to be ef- 
fected v/ithout violence or scandal. As to a 
number of other usages, he thought'it indiffer- 
ent whether a Christian observed them or not. 
That it was a matter of very small importance 
whether a man received the Lord's Supper in 
one kind or in both, or whether he preferred a 
private confession to the general one, or chose 
rather to remain in his convent or to leave it, 
to have pictures in the churches, and to keep 

* To the elector, 5th March, ii. 137. 

t From the Ciironicle of Kessler, in Bernet, Leben Kess- 
)ers, p. 22 



fasts or not^, but that to lay down strict rules 
concerning these things, to raise violent dis- 
putes, and to give offence to weaker brethren, 
did more harm than good, and was a transgres- 
sion of the commandment of charity. 

The danger of the anarchical doctrines now 
broached, lay in the assumption that they were 
an indispensable part of true Christianity; an 
assumption maintained v>-ith the same vehe- 
mence and confidence on the side of the ana- 
baptists, as the divine and thence infallible ori- 
gin of every decree of the church was on that 
of the papists. 

These doctrines, therefore, like those of the 
papacy, were intimatel}^ bound up with the 
whole system of morals, and the wiiole fabric 
of civil life. It was therefore most important 
to show that religion recognised a neutral and 
independent province, over v.liich she vras not 
required to exercise a direct sv/ay, and where 
she needed*not to interfere in the guidance of 
every individual thought. This Luther did 
with the mildness and forbearance of a father 
and a guide, and with the authority of a pro- 
found avid comprehensive mind. These ser- 
mons are certainly among tlie most remarkable 
that he ever preached; they are, like those of 
Savonarola, popular harangues, not spoken to 
excite and carry away his hearers, but to ar- 
rest them in a destructive course, and to as- 
suage and calna their passions.^ Hov/ could 
his flock resist the vrell-known voice, the elo- 
quence which carried the conviction it express- 
ed, and which had first led them into the w^ay 
of inquiry ? The (jonstruction commonly put 
upon moderate counsels, namely, that they 
arise from fear of consequences, could have no 
place here. Never had Luther appeared in a 
more heroic light; he bid defiance to the ex- 
communication of the pope and the ban of the 
emperor, in order to return to his flock; not 
only had his sovereign warned him that he was 
unab'.e to protect him, but he had himself ex- 
pressly renounced his claim to that protection ; 
he exposed himself to the greatest personal 
danger, and that not (as man}"" others have 
done) to place himself at the head of a move- 
ment, biu to check it; not to destroy, but to 
preserve. At his presence the tumult was 
hushed, the revolt quelled, and order restored ; 
a few even of the most violent party leaders 
were converted to his opinions and joined hirh. 
j Carlstadt, wlio could not be brought to confess 
I his error, was condemned to silence. He was 
I reprotiched with having intruded himself un- 
j called into the ministry, and was forbidden to 
enter the pulpit again. Some approximation 
took place between the moderated opinions 
now maintained by Luther, and those of the 
civil authorities, who vrere delivered from the 
danger that had threatened the state. A trea- 
tise of Carlstadt's, written in the same spirit 
as heretofore, part of w-hicli was already print- 
ed, was suppressed by the universit3^ and a 

t " Sieben Predigten D. M. L. so er von dem Sontage 
Invocavit bis auf den andern Sontag gethan, als er ans 
seiner Pathmus zu Wittenberg weider ankommen." 
(" Seven sermons Of Doctor Martin Luther, delivered by 
him during the week between the Sunday Invocavit and 
the following Sundav, when he Returned from his Patmos 
to Wittenberg."— ./i/i. i^ 99. 



DISTURBANCES AT WITTENBERG. 



Book III. 



report of it sent to the elector. The Zwiekau- 
ers once more sought an interview with Lu- 
ther; he exhorted them not to suffer themselves 
to be deceived by the illusions of the devil; 
they answered, that as a proof of their divine 
mission, they vfould tell him what were his 
thoughts at that instant^ to this he agreed, 
upon which they said that he felt a secret in- 
clination towards themselves. " God rebuke 
thee, Satan !" exclaimed Luther. He after- 
wards acknowledged that he had, indeed, been 
conscious of such a leaning; but their guess- 
ing it, he held to be a sign of powers derived 
from Satan rather than from God ;* he accord- 
ingly dismissed them with a sort of challenge 
to their demon to resist his God. If we soften 
the coarseness of his language, this struggle 
between two antagonist spirits, the one destruc- 
tive, the other tutelary, is- the expression of a 
mighty and profound truth. 

Wittenberg was now once mor^ quiet ; the 
mass Avas as far as possible restored, preceded 
by confession, and the host was received as be- 
fore with the lips. It was celebrated in hal- 
lowed garments, with music and all the cus- 
tomary ceremonies, and even in Latin ; nothing 
was omitted but the wprds of the canon which 
expressly denote the idea of a sacrifice. f In 
every other respect there was perfect freedom 
of opinion on these points, and latitude as to 
forms. Luther himself remained in the con- 
vent and wove the Augustine dress, but he of- 
fered no opposition to others who chose to re- 
turn to the w^orld. The Lord's Supper was 
administered in one kind or in both ; those who 
vvere not satisfied with the general absolution, 
v/ere at full liberty to require a special one. 
Questions were continually raised as to the 
precise limits of what was absolutely forbid- 
den, and what might still be permitted. The 
maxim of Luther and Melanchthon was, to 
condemn nothing that had not some authentic 
passage in the Bible, — " clear and undoubted 
Scripture," as the phrase was, — against it. 
This was not the result of indifference; reli- 
gion withdrew within the bounds of her own 
proper province, and the sanctuary of her pure 
and genuine influences. It thus become pos- 
sible to develope and extend the new systern 
of faith, without waging open warfare with 
that already, established, or, by the sudden sub- 
version of existing authorities, rousing those 
destructive tendencies, the slightest agitation 
of v.'hich had just threatened such danger to 
society. Even in the theological exposition 
of these doctrines, it was necessary to keep in 
view the perils arising from opinions subver- 
sive of all sound moralit3^ Luther already be- 
gan to perceive the danger of insisting on the 
saving power of faith alone; already he taught 
that faith should show itself in good conduct, 
brotherly love, soberness and quiet.:^ 

* Camerarius, vita Molanchthonis, cap. sv. 
t " Luther voa beider Gestalt des Sacraments zu neh- 
men.'''— j^ltenb. ii. p. 12G. 

X Eberlin of Günzberg quotes a remarkable passage 
from one of his sermons: "Vermanun? an alle frumen 
Christen zu Aujrsburg am Lech :"—•' Ich- hab gehört," 
says he, " von D. Martin Luther in aincr Predig ain gross 



The new religious opinions, in assuming the 
character of a distinct creed, threw off from 
themselves all that was incongruous, and as- 
sumed a more individual, and at the same time 
a more universal character, — the character in- 
separable from its origin and tendency. As 
early as December 1521, in the heat of the 
disturbances, appeared the first elementary 
work on theology, founded on the new princi- 
ples of faith — Melanchthon's 'Loci Com- 
munes.' This was far from being a complete 
vv'ork ; indeed it was originally a mere collec- 
tion of the opinions of the apostle Paul con- 
cerning sin, the law, and grace, made strictl}'- 
in accordance with those severe viev\'S to which 
Luther had owed his conversion, but remarka- 
ble on account of its entire deviation from all 
existing scholastic theology, and from being 
the first book a\ liich had appeared for several 
centuries in the Latin church containing a S)' s- 
tem constructed out of the Bible only. Sanc- 
tioned by Luther's approbation, it had great 
success, and in the course of repeated editions 
it was recast and perfected. § The translation 
of the New Testament by Luther, which he 
corrected with Melanchthon's assistance on his 
return to Wittenberg, and published in Sep- 
tember 1522, had a still more extensive effect, 
and acted immediately on the people. Whilst 
with one hand he emancipated them from the 
forms imposed on religion by the schools and 
the hierarchy, with the other he gave to the 
nation a faithful, intelligent and intelligible 
translation of the earliest records of Christi- 
anity. The national mind had just acquired 
sufijcient ripeness to enable it tcT apprehend the 
meaning and value of the gift : in the most mo- 
mentous stage of its development it was touch- 
ed and penetrated to its very depths by the 
genuine expression of unveiled and unadulte- 
rated religion. From such influences every- 
thing was to be expected. Luther cherished 
the noble and confident hope that the doctrine 
alone would accomplish the desired end; that ^ 
wherever it made its way, a change in the out- 
ward condition of society must necessarily fol- 
low. 

The course pursued by the authorities of the 
empire, in the altered form the}' had mean- 
war wort, da? er sagt : wie man die sach anfacht, so felt 
unrat darauf: predict man den glauben allein, als man 
thon sol, so unterlesst man alle zucht und ordnun?, 
predict man zucht und Ordnung so felt man so gantz 
daraufi' das man alle selickait ■ darein setzt und ver- 
gisst des glauben ; das mittel aber were gut, das man 
also den glauben yebte das er ausbreche in zucht und 
ordnnnjr, und also übte sich in guten ^iten und iu 
briederiicher liebe das man doch selickait allein durch 
dan glauben ge wertig were." — " An Exhortation to all 
pious Christians at Augsburg on the Lech." — "I have 
heard in one of Luther's sermons a great and true saying: 
that as you stir up the matter, some mischief arises; if a 
man preach faith alone, as he should do, 'he omits all so- 
berness and order, he insists upon them alone, and places 
all salvation therein, forgetting faith ; the middle course, 
liowever, would be the best, that man should so use faith 
that it should break out in soberness and order, and that 
they should so exercise themselves in good habits and in 
brotherly love, as to look for salvation only through 
faith." 

§ The original composition of this book is to be seen by 
a comparison of the first sketch of it in I.'jSO (which ap- - 
pears written by manv different iiands, in Strobel's I\ipiien 
Beiträgen, v. 323.) with the first edition of 1521, printed 
in V. D. Hardt's Hist. Lit. Kef., iv. 



Chap. II. 



COUNCIL OF REGENCY. 



169 



while acquired, not onl^ justified this hope, but 
led to results calculated to give it still greater 
assurance. 



CHAPTER II. 

TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
COUNCIL OF REGENCY. 

1521—1523. 

It is a remarkable and striking coincidence, 
that the mighty national movement we have 
just been considering was exactly coeval with 
the institution of that representative {siändiscli) 
form of government which had been the object 
of such various and persevering exertions. 

The emperor, powerful as he was, had been 
forced to grant it as the condition of his elec- 
tion ; the plan was agreed upon at Worms, and 
was carried into execution in the autumn of 
1521. The electors and the circles severally 
elected deputies, who, as we find, were freed 
from their feudal obligatWis, and exhorted to 
attend only to thegener* welfare of the em- 
pire. The old acts of the Imperial Cham.ber, 
weighing many hundred weight, and contain- 
ing the pleadings in about 3500 long pending 
and yet undecided suits, and a vast number of 
fresh plaints on v/hich no proceedings had yet 
been taken, were transported to Nürnberg.* 
One by one the deputies arrived ; those from 
the emperor, the last of all. During the course 
of the month of November they got so far as 
to open first the Council of Regency, and then 
the Imperial Chamber. 

At first they had to endure a great deal from. 
ihe interference of the imperial councillors ;j 
the same, for the most part, with whom the 
States had had such frequent disputes under 
Maximilian, and who were still umvilling to 
give up any of their lucrative privileges, and 
still, as formerly, accused of taking bribes. 
Very strange things occurred ; among others, 



* Hansv. d. Planitz to Friedericli v. Sacksen, 18 Oct. 
1521, according to communication made by Adam v. 
Beichüngen. The correspondence of Planitz, in two 
volumes, and a smaller pamphlet in the Archives of Wei- 
mar, are the authorities for the following. Ilarpprecht 
and Müller (Statts Cabinett, i.) give very'superficial in- 
formation. 

t Planitz sa^-s, as early as the 16th October, " Churfiii;- 
Pten Fürsten und Andre so itzund ailhie vorhanden haben 
Beisor^re, es v^^erde bei etzlichen Kaiserischen jrefleissij^t, 
ol» siilch Vornenieri des Regiments in Verhinderung oder 
Aenderung gestellt \^'erden mecht." — "The electors, 
princes, and others, at this present here assembled, have 
a fear that some of the imperial court are busied in en- 
deavours to hinder, or M least to alter, this project of the 
Council of Regency." On the 14lh of May he mentions a 
certain Rem, who after Ions imprisonment succeeded in 
obtaining an imperial absolution. " 1st vermutlich, weil 
das Regiment die Sach zu sich forderet und die Sach den 
Hofretten nicht gestatten wollte, hierin zu handeln, das 
sie die Absolution gefürdert, damit das Regiment auch 
nichts daran haben solt."— " [t is probable, since the Re- 
gency brought the matter within its own jurisdiction, and 
did not allow the imperial councillors to act in it at all, 
that the latter furthered the absolution, in order to take 
it out of the hands of the Regency." The letters are full 
of similar expressions. 



the Bishop of Würzburg had seized the person 
of a certain Raminger, who was furnished with 
a safe conduct from the emperor, and kept him 
prisoner. The Council of Regency very pro- 
perly took the injured man under their protec- 
tion. Their surprise may be conceived when 
a declaration arrived from the emperor, that he- 
had given the safe conduct without reflection, 
and that it could not be supposed that the 
Bishop of Würzburg had violated a real im- 
perial safe conduct. It made no difference 
whether the States supported the Regency or, 
not. The States met in .March 1522, and both 
bodies jointly interceded for the Bishop of Hil- 
desheim, vrho complained of the ban which 
had been pronounced against him and his 
friends, without any previous summons and 
trial. But the emperor would not endure any 
interference with "his affairs," and rejected 
the intercession with some short unmeaning 
answer. 

Towards the end of IM ay the emperor quitted' 
the Netherlands. His presence was required 
in Spain to quiet the disturbances of tha Comu- 
nidades, and his mind fully occupied with the 
perplexities of the war he had begun in Italy, 
and with the extraordinär}'' conquests and dis- 
coveries made on a distant continent by a hand- 
ful of fortunate and intelligent Castilian adven- 
turers serving under his banner. Even the 
German councillors who accompanied him 
could not possibly influence the details of the 
administration of Germany from so distant a 
country as Spain. At tiiis time^ therefore, the 
Council of Ilßgency first acquired complete in- 
dependence. The young emperor's presence 
had been needed to confer upon it the authori- 
ty vrhich his- absence now left it at libert}^ to 
exercise. 

Let us first consider the temporal part of its 
administration. 

Several very important matters had come 
under consideration ; above all, the executive 
ordinance, on the plan proposed in the year 
1512, and then so violently resisted by Maxi- 
milian, was determined upon ; namely, that 
the circles should elect their own captains or 
governors. The affairs of Turkey and Hunga- 
ry' also urgently demanded attention. Whilst 
the two principal rulers of Christendom in- 
flamed their natural jealousy into bitterer anti- 
pathy in the Italian wars, the potentate of the 
Osman empire led out his armies, fired by 
hatred of the Christians and love of conquest, 
and took possession of Belgrade, the ancient 
buhvark of Christendom, which was but feebH' 
defended on that frontier. Germany was not 
insensible to the danger : the States met ex- 
pressly on this account in the spring of 1523. ± 



1 The summons is dated Feb. 12. : for the Sunday Oculi 
(Riarch 23, 1522), so as to allow time to arm. On Ma-i-ch 
28, a number of the States were present, and procession.-; 
and prayers Vv'ere ordered : "Damit S. göttlich Barmher- 
zigkeit den Zorn, ob und wie wir den durch unsre Schuld 
und Kissethat verschuldet hätten, von uns wende."—" in 
order that the Almighty mercy may turn from us the 
v/rath which we have brought upon ourselves by our 
guilt and misdeeds." The Proposition was made on the 
Tth of April: the emperor therein declared that he gave 
up the supplies voted for his expedition to Rome to be ap- 
plied to the war against tiie Turks. The States deter- 
mined to vote three-eighths thereof to the war,— not, how- 



170 



COUNCIL OF REGENCY. 



Book III. 



and again in the autumn ; a part of the sup- 
plies which had been granted to the emperor 
for his expedition to Rome were, with his per- 
mission, appropriated to the succour of the 
Hungarians. Schemes for the complete equip- 
ment of an army, to be kept always in readi- 
ness for the same purpose, were proposed and 
discussed. The main point, however, on which 
every thing else depended, was the secure es- 
tablishment of the form of government itself. 
Every day show^ed the inconveniencies of al- 
lowing the salaries of the members of the Im- 
perial Chamber and the Regency to be depen- 
dent on the matricular taxes, which v/ere 
granted from year to year, and w^ere always 
difHcultto collect; neither would it do to leave 
these salaries to be paid by the emperor, as it 
was justly feared he would then raise a claim 
to appoint the members himself. IMany other 
expedients were proposed, such as the applica- 
tion of the annates to this purpose; a tax upon 
the Jews ; or finall}'-, the le-imposition of the 
Common Penny, in connection with a perma- 
nent war establishment. But all were alike 
impracticable. For the annates, a previous 
agreement with the see of Rome was necessa- 
ry, and that was not so easily made. The 
towns which had obtained from earlier empe- 
rors the riglit of taxing their owm Jews (a right 
which they had lately maintained in opposition 
to the imperial fiscal) absolutely refused to 
surrender it. As to a return to the Common 
Penny, it did not get beyond aanere project, 
and w;as not even seriously debated. Under 
these circumstances, the Council of Regency 
adopted a plan which had formerly been enter- 
tained, and which, in itself, must have been 
productive- of very important national conse- 
quences, besides being connected with other 
views of the administration of the empire well 
worthy of our attention. 

Among the charges and complaints which 
the several classes of the comrAunity made 
against each other in those times, one which 
was urged with the greatest frequency and ve- 
hemence was directed against the merchants. 

Commerce still travelled along its accus- 
tomed roads; the Hanse Towns still enjoyed 
most of their privileges in foreign countries; 
peace had restored the markets of Venice ; but 
the splendour and importance of this traffic was 
eclipsed b)'' the brilliant and adventurous com- 
merce across the seas, to W'hich the discovery 
■of both the Indies had given rise. Some of 
the great commercial houses of Upper Germa- 
ny placed themselves in immediate communi- 
cation with Lisbon, or shared in the West In- 



■ever.in men, but in money ; everything was done in haste, 
as a better method of equipment was to be arranged in a 
conference with the Hunsarian commi.'^:*ioners. The 
Frankfurt deputy thought iliat iittie would be effected, 
but "aufs fürderlichste wieder zum Timr hinaus."— 
"That tl?ey would be out of the gate again as fast as 
possible." The chief delay was caused by the disputes in 
the sessions of the colleges. '• Der Sachen halber bleiben 
andre lliindel unansgerichtet und wir verzehren das 
Unsre oline Nutzen."—" For the sake of these, other af- 
fairs remained undetermined, and we eat up our sub- 
stance without profit." The order is dated May 7. (Frank. 
A.) At the following diet, in Dec. 1522, two-fourths more 
of the money intended for the expedition to Rome were 
voted for this service. 



dian enterprises of the Spaniards. Antwerp 
owed its prosperity chiefly to being the empo- 
rium of German maritime trade. 

In Germany, however, no one was satisfied ; 
the stricter part of the community disapproved 
the importation of new luxuries and wants; 
others complained of the quantity of money 
sent out of the country, and almost all were 
discontented at the high prices^ of the wares. 
During the years 151G to L522, especially, a 
general rise in prices was observed. Cinnamon 
cost upwards of a gulden the pound, sugar from 
twelve to twenty gulden the cwt., and some of 
the East Indian spices had risen to four times 
their former price.* Several causes might 
conduce to this effect; such as increased luxury 
and consequent demand ; the Venetian war, 
which had interrupted the course of trade, and 
a diminution of the value of money, arising 
from the importation of precious metals from 
America, which began to be felt, though far 
from what it afterwards became. At that 
period, however, the cause was chiefly sought, 
and perhaps not without justice, in the system 
of monopoly arising from the combination of 
the great commercial houses ; a practice which 
had continued to increase, in spite of the re- 
peated enactments of the diets. They were 
already, it was al Wed, possessed of such an 
amount of capital and such numerous and 
extensive factories; that no one could possibly 
compete with them. They were willing to 
give the King of Portugal higher prices even 
thaii he had previously asked, only on condition 
that he would demand still higher from those 
who came after them. It was calculated that 
every year 30,000 cwt. of pepper and 2000 cwt. 
of ginger were imported into Germany, and that 
within a few^ j^ears, t"he first had risen in price 
from 18 to 33 kreutzers per lb., and the second 
from 21 kreutzers to one gulden, 3 kreutzers ; 
this must, of course, have afforded an enormous 
profit. 

As Rome was constantl}'' assailed for her sale 
of indulgences, and the knights for their rob- 
beries, so the mierchants and commercial towns 
were now incessantly inveighed against for 
their extortions. At all events, the Frankfurters 
attributed the disfavour shown them for some 
time past in their transactions with the Estates 
of the empire, almost exclusively to the unpop- 
ularity of monopolists. 

At the diet of 1522-23, the resolution was 
taken to interdict all companies posses'sing a 
capital of more than 50,000 gulden : they were 
to be allowed a year and a half to dissolve their 



* I have extracted the following tables from a decree 

of the select Committee on Monopolies in 1523 (Frank. 

A.):- 

The best saffron from Cablonia, 

which in t516 cost 3 g« 6 kr., cost, in 1522, 4 ?. 15 kr. 

Second rate do. - - - - 1519 2 ?. 21 to 27 kr. —4?. 

Cloves 1512 ]9schill. — — 2 e;. 

Stick cinnnmou - - - - 1516 1 c. IS kr. — 1518 2 e. 3 ort. 

Short do. 1515 3 ort. — 1519 1 g. 21 kr. 

Nutme» 1519 27 kr. — 1522 3 g. 28 kr. 

Mnce J518 1 e. 6 kr. — — 4 e. 6 kr. 

Be~t pepper in the husk - 1518 IS kr. — — 32 kr. 

Ginger, formerly from 21 to 24 kr. . ~ 1516 1 g. 3 kr. 

Galingal — 1 g. 36 kr. _ _ l ^. 39 kr. 

Sugar, the hundred weight 1516 11 to 12 g. ~ 1518 20 g. 

Sugar candy 1516 16 to 17 g. — 1522 20 to 21 g. 

Venetian almonds, the cwt. 1518 S g. — _ _ 12 g. 

Do. raisins 1518 5 g. — — — 9 g. 

Do. .flgs 1518 3g. 2sch. — — 4 g. 1 ort. 



Chap. IL 



COUNCIL OF REGENCY, 1522. 



171 



partnership. It was hoped that this would 
enable the smaller commercial houses to enter 
into com\Detition with the great ones, and w'ould 
also have the etTect of preventing the accumu- 
lation of money and merchandise in few hands. 

Overlooking the enormous advantages af- 
forded by foreign commerce, however carried 
on, the diet conceived the idea of covering the 
general deficiencies of the state by a tax upon 
trade. It was notorious that each individual 
prince drew the gi-eater part of his revenues 
from the tolls, the right of levying which had 
been granted to him by former emperors ; and 
as it was evident that no direct tax could bte 
collected, a plan was adopted fc?it an Jfidirect 
one, in the form of a general system-o^npor^t 
duties to be levied for the use of the emph'e.' 

This project is worthy of a moment's atten- 
tion ; if carried into execution it must hate pro- 
duced incalculable results ; bat it is remarkable 
that it could even be entertained. So early as 
the year 15-21 it was discussed ; the Elector Jo- 
achim I. of Brandenburg adopted it with great 
eagerness and continually recommended it. ^ 

In the spring of 152-2 the States were really 
resolved to accede to it, principally because it 
did not appear burdensome to the common peo- 
ple; but in order to make sure of carrying it 
into effect, they determined to ask the previous 
consent of the emperor, before taking any fur- 
ther step. 

This consent having been received from 
Spain, accompanied, however, with the condi- 
tion that the further provisions should be again 
submitted to him for approbation, a commisäion 
was appointed at the diet of 15-22--33, by the 
general vote of the Slates, to work out the plan 
in detail.* 

The commission went on the principle of 
leaving all the necessaries of life duty-free. 
Under this head were classed corn, v;ine, beer, 
cattle for draught and slaughter, and leather. 
All other articles were to pay both an import 
and export duty, not to be regulated either by 
weight or by a tariff, which would have occa- 
sioned a great deal of troublesome investigation, 
but by the price at whi'ch the article was bought, 
to be stated b}^ the purchaser ; upon this the 
duty was to be four per cent. 

The whole extent of the Homan em.pire inha- 
bited by the German race w^as tobe surrounded 
by a line of custom-houses, which was to begin 
at Nikolsburg in r\Ioravia, and thence pass to- 
w^ards Hungary through Vienna and Grätz to 
Villach or Tarvis ; thence to extend along the 
Alps towards Yenice and Milan. Custom- 
house stations were to be erected in Trent, 
Brunegg, Insbruck, and Feldkirchen. The 
frontier of Switzerland, vvhich refused to subm.it 
to the imposition of the duty, was to be guarded 
by custom-houses ; the line was then to cross 
the Rhine and run through Strasburg, Metz, 
Luxemburg, and Treves, to Aix-la-chapelle ; 
which would bring it near the coast and within 
the region of maritime commerce. The Nether- 

* "Ordnung ains gemainen Reichs Zolls in Ratschlag 
verfast."— Fr. Ar. vol. xxxviii. "Ordinance for customs' 
dmies for the whole empire,"— a document which I intend 
to give in the Appendix. 



lands v/ere without hesitation considered as 
part of the empire ; Utrecht and Dordrecht, as 
well as Cologne and Wesel, were proposed as 
custom-house stations for inland- trade ; Ant- 
werp, Bruges and Bergen-op-zoom, for mari- 
time trade, especially that with England and 
Portugal. The line was thence to follow the 
coast northward and eastward. Towards Den- 
marlv|, which according to public law was still 
regarded as a permanent confederate of the em- 
.ptr^jjthe Hanse towns, from Hamburg to Dan- 
zig' inclusive, were to be the custom-house 
ports; towards Poland, Königsberg in the 
Newmark and Frankfurt on the Oder, besides 
a few other towns in Silesia and Lusatia. , 

Much was still left undetermine(^ in this 
project; for instance, it was immediately pro- 
posed that the frontiers should be surveyed, in 
order to ascertain whether better places could 
not be found for the prevention of smuggling, 
than those already named : it was still a matter 
of doubt whether Bohemia could be included, 
and neither Prussia nor Livonia had yet been 
taken into consideration ; jbut all these were 
mere details which could easily be ^determined 
when the project was carried into execution;— 
the main point was seriously resolved upon. 

As might have been expected, the whole 
commercial body thought it would be injured 
by this measure, which it attributed merely to 
the hostility generally shown towards itself, 
and accordingly raised numerous objections to 
it, more or less well founded. An attempt was 
made to answ^er all these objections at length. 
The example of neighbouring kingdoms Vvas 
cited, where much heavier restrictions existed, 
and where, jnevertheless, trade was most 
flourishing. It was argued that the duty by 
no means fell on the merchant, but on the con- 
sumer; and that it would be a prodigious ad- 
vantage to commerce if, by means of this tax, 
the disturbances in the empire could be put 
down, and general security restored. 

At all events, it cannot be denied that this 
project might have been the means of producing 
the most important results for the future fate 
of Germany. The establishment of accurately 
defined and well guarded frontiers, the entire 
circumference of which were closely bound to 
a common active centre, w^ould in itself have 
been a great advantage ; this alone v/ould have 
at once awakened a universal feeling of the 
unity of the empire. Besides, the whole ad- 
ministration would have assumed a different 
character. The most important national insti- 
tution, the Council of Regency, the formation 
of which had cost so much labour, would by 
this means have acquired a natural and firm 
basis, and sufficient power for the maintenance 
of order. As yet there was no peace through- 
out the country; all the roads were unsafe ; it 
v/as impossible to reckon on the execution of 
any sentence or decree. But had this ordinance 
been vigorously carried into effect, the Regency 
would have had the means of paying the 
governors and councillors in the circles, so 
often discussed, and of maintaining a certain 
number of troops under their own orders and 
those of the subordinate authorities. 



172 



COUNCIL OF REGENCY, 1522. 



Book III. 



In the spring of 1523 it seemed as if this 
point would certainly be achieved : the plan 
was again sent for final confirmation to the 
emperor, who was already bound by his former 
consent. 

It is evident that the Council of Regency 
entertained the project of constituting itself a 
powerful central government, and, in conjunc- 
tion with the States, resorted to every possible 
expedient to accomplish this end, in spite of all 
opposition. 

Hence the question, what course this rising 
power would take with respect to the religious 
movement, acquired additional importance. 

At the beginning of the year 1522 the feel- 
ings of%e Council of Regency were much 
opposed to the innovation. Duke George of 
Saxony was present, in whom a natural attach- 
ment to traditionary opinions,* the various old 
quarrels with his cousins of the Ernestine line, 
and a personal dislike to the bold and reckless 
monk, combined to raise a violent and active 
hostility to the new doctrines. The disturb- 
ances in Wittenberg happened opportunely to 
give more weight to his accusations ; and he 
actually obtained an edict in which the Regency 
exhorted the neighbouring bishoprics of Naum- 
burg, Meissen, and Merseburg not to allow the 
innovations to be forced upon them, but to 
maintain the customary rites and practices of 
the church. f 

But in the course of the next three m.onths, 
when news arrived that the disturbances had 
ceased, the feelings of the Council of Regency 
underwent a total change. One subject of dis- 
cussion, of course, was Luther's return to 
Wittenberg, by which he had openly bidden 
defiance to the imperial ban, and Duke George 
even proposed an appeal to the immediate 
intervention of the emperor; this, however, 
merely wounded the -self-love of the Council 
of Regency. John of Planitz, the envoy of 
Elector Frederic, would not hear his master 
blamed for permitting Luther to remain in 
Wittenberg ; nor would he allow it to be said 
that the monk's doctrine was heresy. " The 
receiving the sacraments in both kinds, the 
marriage of a few priests, and the desertion of 
the convent by a few monks, could not, he 
said, be called heresies ; these acts were 
merely opposed to regulations established not 
long since by popes and councils, and whica 
would perhaps be eventually abolished. If, on 

* Duke George said to our informant Planitz: " Wftnn 
S. F. Gn. nirht micht der Tatt und Gewalt dazu that, 
würd S. Gn. Land schyr gar ketzerisch: wollten alle die 
behemische Weis au sich nemen, und sub utraque com- 
launiciren : er geduckt es aber mit Gewalt zu lerere."—" If 
liis princely grace did not interfere with might and deed, 
his grace's subjects would soon become sheer heretics, for 
they all wanted to follow the Bohemian fashion, and to 
communicate sub utraque ; but that he intended to prevent 
it by force:'— Letter of the 2rf Jan. 1522. 

t Resolution und Decisum, fee, 20th Jan. 1522. Walch 
XV. 2Ö1G. The Appendix No. 10 is remarkable: "Bis so 
lang durch Versehung der gemeinen Reichsstände, christ- 
liche Versammlung oder Concilia solcher Sachen halben, 
eine bedachtlir.he wohlerwogene gegründete gewisse Er- 
klärung—vorgenommen werde."—" Until such time as, 
by the care of the general Estates of the empire, a chris- 
tian assembly, of council for such matters, shall have 
made a prudent, deliberate, well grounded, and certain 
declaration of faith." From this passage we may perceive 
the existence of another tendency, although as yet vague. 



the other hand, Luther were banished, imitators 
of him would arise, but animated with a dif- 
ferent spirit ; who, instead of preaching only 
against the dogmas of the church, might de- 
claim against Christianity and God himself;- 
and>nöt only a rebellion, but complete unbelief 
might be the result." This envoy was a man 
of talent, equally resolute and. dexterous : he 
was strongly in favour of 'Luther, less indeed 
from religious belief — although in the main their 
opinions were the same — than from the convic- 
tion that Luther's cause was equally the cause 
of his prince, of the Council of Regency, and 
of the empire. 

In the summer of 1522 it was the turn of the 
Elector Frederic to attend the Council of Re- 
gency in person. He was one of the few who 
remained of the old school of princes, to whgm 
that body owed its establishment, and he had 
lately taken the most active part in the firm 
settlement of its constitution. He had already 
been frequently consulted concerning questions 
of form. His calm judgment, his well-known 
experience, and the universal respect paid to 
his acknowledged integrity and talents for 
business, invested him with singular authority.:}: 
He might indeed at this time be said to govern 
the empire, in as far as it could be governed at 
all. 

Under these circumstances, it is evident that 
Luther, who enjoyed so fully the favour of this 
prince, had nothing to fear from the Council of 
Regency. Duke George continued to attack 
him before that assembly : he repeatedly com- 
plained of the monk's violence, and of the 
abuse which he poured forth against the princes 
of the empire, the emperor, and the pope. 
Never perhaps was a more evasive answer 
given than that which he received from the 
Council of Regency, to one of these accusa- 
tions. " We perceive," they write on the 16th 
of August, " that your grace feels displeasure 
at insults to the pope's holiness and the empe- 
ror's majesty, and we thereupon make known 
to your grace, that we would not patiently en- 
dure insult or injury to the emperor's majesty, 
wherever we should see or hear of it."§ No 
wonder that, when the duke afterwards com- 
plained of this answer to the lieutenant of the 
empire. Count Palatine Frederic, he replied 
that at that time there was nothing to be done 
in matters of this kind. 

An independent party favourable to Luther 
was now forming in the Council of Regency. 
It was, it is true, subject to fluctuations from 
the entrance of new members every quarter of 
a year ; but from the permanent operation of 



J The Elector of Treves hearing that Frederic was ill, 
sent him word through his minister, " E. Ch. Gn. solten 
vest halten, nicht krank werden noch abgehen, denn mau 
hett im Reich E. Ch. Gn. nye als wol bedurft als itzund, 
nachdem E. Ch. Gn. wusste, wye es allenthalben im 
Reiche stünde."—" Your Electoral Grace must stand firm, 
and not fall sick nor die, for your Electoral Grace was 
never so greatly needed by the empire as now, for your 
Electoral Grace knows how matters stand in the empire." 
—Planitz, 1st Nov. 1521. 

§ Instruction to the Regency at A^ürnberg. Answer to 
the same ; letter from Duke George, dated the Tuesday 
after the Nativity of the Virgin (9th Sept.), and from 
Otto Pack to the duke, the Monday before the XlmiUe 
Virginum (20th Oct.)— Dresden .archives 



Chap. II. 



DIET OF 1522-23. 



173 



principles once imbibed, it always regained 
the upper hand, and, in tact, constituted a 
majority. Here was, indeed, a wonderful, 
change in the aspect of affairs ! — In 1521 the 
emperor published sentence of ban against Lu- 
ther, and in 1522-23, the body which repre- 
sented the imperial power, took him, though 
still under ban, under its protection, and even 
approximated to his opinions. That body was, 
of course, not affected by the political combina- 
tions which had influenced the emperor. 

The bias it had received was all the more 
important, since the States had assembled 
during the last months of the one year and the 
first of the ensuing ; and at the instigation of 
the new pope, Adrian VI., were to come to a 
decision concerning the Lutheran affairs. 

Adrian VI. was undoubtedly an extremely 
well-intentioned man. He had formerly been 
professor at Louvain, and had even then zeal- 
ously reproved the arrogance of the priesthood, 
and the waste and misapplication of church 
. property.* He subsequently became tutor to 
Charles V., and took part in the administration 
of affairs in Spain, where he imbibed a thorough 
disgust of the worldly tendencies of the papacy. 
He was therefore strongly disposed to attempt 
some reform. He declared that he had only 
bent his neck under the yoke of the papal 
dignity, in order to restore the defiled bride of 
Christ to her original purity. At the same 
time he was a decided opponent of Luther, and 
belonged to those ' Magistri nostri' of Lou- 
vain, who had so long waged war against the 
innovating literature and theology ; he had ex- 
pressed unqualified approbation of the opinions 
professed by that university. The orthodox- 
dorainican tendency, which, as early as 1520, 
had once more formed a close alliance with the 
court of Rome, had now obtained a temporary 
sovereignty in his person. 

In conformity with these sentiments v.'ere 
the instructions which Adrian gave to his 
nuncio Chieregati, whom he sent to the Ger- 
man diet. He looked upon the spread of Lu- 
theran doctrines as a punishment for the sins of 
the prelates. " We are aware," said he, " that, 
some years ago, many abominations took place 
in this chair: every thing was turned to evil, 
and the corruption spread from the head to the 
members, from the pope to the prelates." 
Whilst he now declared himself willing to re- 
form the existing abuses, he at the same time 
exhorted the States of Germany to offer a de- 
termined resistance to the diffusion of Luther's 
opinions ;| and brought forward eight arguments 
in favour of that course, vrhich he thought of 
irresistible cogency. 

An answer to these propositions of the pope 
had now to be given, and a resolution to be 
formed upon them. This duty devolved on the 
Council of Regency. 

At the first appearance of the nuncio, a trial 

* Extracts from his " Commentary in Gluartiim Senten- 
tianim," in the letter of Joli. Lanoy to Henr. Barillon ; 
Burman's Vita Adriani, p. 360. 

t " Expergiscantur, excitentur — et ad executionera sftn- 
tentiaB apostolicas acimperialis edicti prtefati omnino pro- 
cedant. Detur venia iis qui errores suos abjurare vuJue- 
Tim^—Instructio pro Cheregato. 
p * 



of strength ensued between the two parties in 
that body. The orthodox minority brought 
forward a complaint from the nuncio, concern- 
ing two or three preachers who proclaimed the 
Lutheran tenets under the very eyes of the 
Regency, to their and his serious offence. Arch- 
duke Ferdinand, who then filled the office of^ 
lieutenant of the empire, and the Elector of 
Brandenburg, who was the next in succession 
for the ensuing quarter, declared themselves in 
favour of the nuncio. The majority, hov;ever, 
led byPlanitz, resolutely opposed them. This 
gave rise to several violent discussions. Fer- 
dinand exclaimed, " I am here in the place of 
the emperor." — "Yes, certainly," irejoined 
Planitz, "but in conjunction with the Council 
of Regency, and subject to the lavv's of the 
empire;" — and, in accordance with his sugges- 
tion, the affair was referred to the States ;:j: i. e. 
indefinitely adjourned. It is easy to imagine 
that this increased the boldness and vehemence 
of the Lutheran preachers. " Even if the pope," 
exclaimed one of them in the church of St. 
Lawrence, " had a fourth crown added to the 
three he already wears, he should not make me 
forsake the word of God." Thus was defiance 
hurled from the pulpit against the pope, before 
the very eyes of his nuncio. 

Under these circumstances the Council of 
Regency appointed a committee to draw up the 
answer which the States should give to the 
nuncio. This committee, like the Regency 
itself, contained representatives of both parties ; 
some of its members belonging to the clergy, 
and others to the laity, and for a time it was 
doubtful which side had the majority. This 
was however very soon decided. 

The most influential member was undoubt- 
edly Johann von Schwarzenberg, the Hofmeister 
of Bamberg, who was now advanced in life. 
In his early youth he had quitted the dissipa- 
tion of a court which had threatened to hurry 
him along in its vortex, and, in consequence 
of his father's admonition, had formed earnest 
and effectual resolutions of a virtuous life ; 
from that time he had devoted himself with 
untiring perseverance to study and to the service 
of the state. We have translations of some 
of Cicero's works, bearing his name, in which 
he has carefully adopted the purest and most 
intelligible forms of the language of his age.§ 
The first criminal code for Bambercr, if not 



t Planitz relates this himself, on the 4th Jan. 152:?. 
The States answered, that it was a srave matter which 
reqnired much consideration : they asked for copies of the 
brief and of the instruction, and wished " etzliche darüber 
verordnen, die die Sach mit Fleiss bewegen." "In der 
Stadt ist gross Murmeln, will nicht rathen, das man einen 
gefangen annehme."— " To appoint certain people who 
should manage the matter with diligence." " In the 
town is much nnirmuring. I cannoj, advise that any 
person should be imprisoned." 

§ e. ff. De Senectute. Neuber's was revised andcollate'd 
with the text by Hütten, and put into Hoffränkisch 
Deutsch by Schwarzenberg. Neuber's translation of the 
De OfSciis was put into "zierlicher Hochteutsch," — 
"elegant High German," — by Schwarzenberg, and then 
revised by a third person to see " obsdem Lateyn gemess 
sey,^" — " whether it were according to the Latiu." Christ 
praises it for the "emergens__e stilo nativa et vere Ger- 
manica siniplicitas." De Amicitia was translated " voa 
Synnen zu Synnen, nicht von Worten zu Worten," — 
" from sense to sense, not from words to words."— -See 
Degen, Literatur der Übersetzungen, i. 55. 



174 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. 



B( 



III. 



entirely his work, was at least in great measure 
constructed by him. In this he evinces as 
much capacity for appreciating the value of 
traditional and local usages (for he adheres in 
the main to the old customary law of the city 
of Bamberg) as the scientific inerits of the 
Roman lavv^. Wherever he applies the prin- 
ciples of the latter to supply some deficiency, 
he does it in a manner corresponding with ex- 
isting maxims.* He was, as we see, a man 
of original and productive talent, both in lite- 
rature and in politics : he expressed his wonder 
hov/any one could find the time too long. He 
eagerly embraced the Lutheran cause at its 
very first appearance, finding in it the scientific 
and practical tendencies of his own mind ex- 
alted by an alliance with religious sentiments 
and aims. He accordingly exchanged several 
very serious letters on the subject with one of 
his sons, and removed one of his daughters 
from her convent; indeed his mind was entirely 
engrossed by the new opinions.")- With all the 
force of a full and well-grounded conviction, 
armed against every objection, he adopted them, 
and, partly perhaps owing to the high and im- 
portant station he filled, he carried with him 
the minds of his colleagues ; some because 
they already inclined to those opinions — like 
Sebastian von Rotenhan and Dr. Zoch, and 
others, like the Bishop of Augsburg, because 
they knew not, just then at least, what resist- 
ance to offer. Those who did not share these 
opinions, such as Dr. v. Werthern, the envoy 
from Duke George, and the Archbishop of 
Salzburg, found it better to stay away from the 
assembly. Thus, with very slight opposition, 
this committee, which now represented the 
central government of the empire, agreed upon 
a report in a spirit of decided opposition to the 
papacy, and of the greatest importance to the 
whole future progress of the new doctrines. 

This report was based on the admissions and 
promises of reform made by the pope, which 
the committee accepted, but without giving in 
return the promise which the pope demanded, 
—to unite with him in the endeavour to crush 
the Lutheran doctrines. On the contrary, it 
declared that these admitted abuses rendered it 
impossible to carry into execution the bull of 
Leo X. and the edict of Worms, for that 
Luther had been the first to expose these 
abuses, and any display of rigour towards him 
would make every one believe that it was the 
object of the government " to suppress the 
truth of the Gospel by tyranny, and to main- 
tain unchristian abuses, wherefrom nothing 
could arise but resistance to authority, sedition 
and heresy." The pope was exhorted to ad- 
here to the concordats, to redress the grievances 
of the German nation, and above all, to abolish 
annates ; it was not indeed pretended that 
these reforms would now suffice to put an end 
to the schism ; that, it was said, could only be 
effected by a council. The convocation of a 

* Zöpfi das alte Bamberger Eecht als Quelle der Caro- 
lina, pp. 166, 170. 

t There is a notice of him in Strobe! Vermischte Bei- 
trüge, 1775, No. 1. Heller, Reformationsgeschichte von 
Bamberg, p. 45. 



council, which would occupy men's minds for 
half a century, had already been the subject 
of a serious conversation between the nuncio 
and Planitz, and was now officially agitated 
by the committee of the Council of Regency. 
Some of the conditions v/ere at once stated by 
it ; they were as follovv's : — The council to be 
convoked by the pope's holiness, with the as- 
sent of the emperor's majesty, as befitted the 
respective privileges of the two sovereigns ; 
to be held at a convenient neutral town without 
delay ; to begin within a year, and under a 
form materially differing from any previous 
council. One important innovation was, that 
the laity were to be allowed a seat and a voice 
in it, and all present were to be absolved from 
every obligation which might restrain them 
from bringing forward whatever might be of 
service in "godly, evangelical, and other ge- 
nerally profitable affairs." An assembly thus 
constituted would have answered to the Lu- 
theran ideas respecting the Church, and would 
have been totally different from what the Coun- 
cil of Trent afterwards was. In answer to 
the inquiry, what course would be pursued till 
the council had given its decision, the com- 
mittee answered, that they should hope, in 
case the pope agreed to their proposals, to 
prevail on the Elector Frederic and on Luther, 
that neither the latter nor his followers should 
write or preach any thing which might occasion 
irritation and disorder ; they should only teach 
the Holy Gospel and the authentic Scriptures 
according to the true Christian sense. These 
last conditions were of course the most im- 
portant; all the rest was vague and remote, 
but these would serve as a rule of conduct for 
the present moment. They were, as may be 
easily perceived, entirely in accordance with 
the opinions which prevailed at Wittenberg 
and at the court of Saxony, and were evidently 
proposed with the intention of promoting the 
free development of the doctrine embraced 
there. The 13th January, 1523, was the day 
on which this ever-memorable decision of the 
States was announced for further discussion. 
Hans von Planitz joyfully sent it to his master 
on the very same day.4: 

A great fermentation, and sharp collisions 
between the clerical and lay members began 
moreover to be observable in the States. It had 
indeed at first appeared as if both intended to 
make common cause against Rome, and at 
Worms the bishops had stated their own pecu- 
liar grievances in addition to those of the Ger- 
man nation ; yet it was there that the division 
began ; the clergy found that their interests were 
touched by tlie complaints of the laity, and re- 
solved to defend their prescriptive rights. Sev- 
eral outbreaks' of this animosity had already 
taken place in that assembly. A memorial from 
the cities, full of the most violent invective, 
was read, and the head of the German clergy, ^ 
the Elector of Mainz, v/armly expressed his 



J " Wessder Ausschuss zu pepstlicher Heiligkeit Ant.;' 
wurdt den lutherischen Handell betreffen verordnet der,, 
halb gerathschlagt hat."—" What the committee argued 
and decided with respect to his papal holiness's answer 
concerning the Lutheran affairs."— Frank/. It. A. A., torn, 
xrxviii. f. 99. 



Chap. IL 



DEBATES. 



175 



displeasure at it. It appeared, he said, as if the 
clergy were to be treated like criminals, and 
not to be secure from personal violence. But 
even the most zealously catholic lay princes 
demanded reforms; and if a prince had given 
no instructions on the subject b.imseif, his coun- 
cillors of their own accord inclined to that side. 
The grievances of the nation v<ere again recapi- 
tulated ; — this time indeed without the parlici- 
V pation of the clergy, but with much more vehe- 
mence, and with many additions, chiefly directed 
against the clergy themselves ; for the thousand- 
fold abuses enumerated, no reform was more 
strongly urged than the separation of the 
spiritual from the t^emporal jurisdiction. 

Nothing could be more calculated to drive 
these twoiiostile parties into open warfare than 
the report which-the committee of the Council 
of Regency had sent in to the States. 

The clergy did, however, succeed in intro- 
ducing some modifications into it. 

First of all, the admissions quoted from the 
papal brief were only allowed to stand as far 
as they regarded the pope himself: the words 
relating to priests and prelates were struck out.* 
Then no mention was made of the claims of the 
laity to a seat and voice in the council. A sin- 
gle phrase was frequently the cause of violent 
disputes ; for instance, the clergy would not 
admit the word " evangelical'' into the article 
concerning obligations ; whereupon such offen- 
sive expressions 'were used by the lay party, 
that the Elector of Mainz left the assembly and 
rode home to his lodging. In the end however 
the majority decided in his favour, and the 
word was omitted. 

Whatever were the changes made in parti- 
cular expressions, the main point was left unal- 
tered ; the States declined to carry into execution 
the edict of Worms ;"[■ a council was demanded, 
which was to begin, if possible, within a year, 
in a German town, and with the co-operation 
, of the emperor : a suggestion was even made to 
alter the form of such an assembly, and the 
participation of the temporal states in it was 
tacitly assumed ; both clergy and laity were to 
be relieved from all oblig-ations restrictive of 



* In the rough draft it is stated; " 1st von Ppl. Heilig- 
keit . . . woll arifjezeifft dass soIcIirs von wegen der Sund 
!)eschee und dass die Sund des Volks von den Sunden der 
Priester und Prälaten herfiiessen, und dass darum diesel- 
iienznförderst und am ersten als die endlich Ursach solcher 
Krankheit von der Wurzel geheilt gestraftund abgewendet 
Vv'erden soll." — "It is well shown b.y his holiness the pope 
that such things happen on account of sin, and that the 
sinfulness of tlie people flows from the sins of the priests 
and prelates; that these therefore should, first and fore- 
most, as the ultimate cause of sucli evil, he cured from tlie 
root upwards, and should be cured, punished and turned 
from their evil ways." This passage is wanting in the 
answer w'lich was really sent to the papal nuncio.— -See 
the reprint in. Walch, xv. p. 2551. No. 8. 

t'Thiswas expressed in the following manner in the 
answer given to the nuncio: "Majori namque populi 
parti jam pridem persuasuni est . . . nationi Germanic« a 
curia Romana per certos abusus multa et magna grava- 
mina et incommoda illata esse: ob id, si pro executione 
apostoiicte sedis sententis vel imperatorioe majestatis 
edicti quinpiam acerbius attemptatum esset, mox popu- 
laris niultit(]do sibi hanc opinionem animoconcepisset ac 
si talia facerent pro evertenda evangelica veritate et sus- 
tinendis nianutenenriisque malis abusibus, unde nihil 
aliud quam gravissimi tumnltus populäres intestinaque 
beila speranda assent." — Fr. A, 



the free utterance of opinion. In short, the 
party which strove to alter the entire constitu- 
tion of the Church had now decidedly the upper 
hand in both estates of the empire. The clergy 
were aware of the necessity of a change,. and 
the laity eagerly pressed for it ; — it is said that 
even Duke Louis of Bavaria insisted upon it, 
in spite of the opposition of the adherents of 
Rome. 4: 

The only points that now remained to be dis- 
cussed — and for the present the most important 
— were, the conduct of affairs in the interval 
before the convocation of the council, and the 
degree of liberty of speech and action which 
was to be allowed to writers and preachers. ' 

On this question the clergy succeeded in 
introducing still further r(?strictions. The)'' 
insisted that the elector should be requested not 
alone to prohibit whatever might lead to disor- 
der, but to allow nothing w^hatever to be written, 
printed or done by Luther or his followers ; and 
also that the request should be made imme- 
diately, without waiting for the pope's consent 
to the council. The Saxon envoy to the diet, 
Philip vonFeilitzsch, endeavoured to maintain 
the terms proposed by the Council of Regency, 
and failing in this, protested that " his prince 
could not consider himself bound hy this reso- 
lution, and would always know how to act in 
a, christian, praiseworthy and irreproachable 
manner." 

Thus we see that in this contest the victory 
inclined first to one side and then to the other. 
The two parties collected all their forces for the 
last point at issue, which w^as, perhaps, still 
more important than the preceding one, as it 
was to decide the latitude to be allowed to 
preaching ; a matter which immediately con- 
cerned the mass of the people. The clergy 
w^ere not satisfied with merely directing the 
preachers to confine themselves to the Gospel 
and to writers approved by the Church, but 
required a more accurate specification of what 
was meant by the latter, and wished to include 
the four great Latin fathers, Jerome, Augustin, 
Ambrose and Gregory, to whom they ascribed 
canonical authority. This is the more remark- 
able, since a century earlier fhe more explicit 
of the Hussite doctrines had been regarded 
mainly as a departure from these four founders 
of the Latin church. But the nation was now 
so deeply imbued with the spirit of Luther's 
teaching, that it w^ould no longer be bound b}'- 
the particular form and character assumed by 
the Latin church ; the common sense of the 
people revolted against the imputing to St. Paul 
less authority than to Ambrose. The time was 
past in which the clergy could carry theii 
point. After a great deal of debating, a resolu- 
tion Vv'as passed, which was in reality only a 
more complete expression of the meaning of 
the original proposition. It was decreed, that 
nothing should be taught but the pure, true and 
holy Gospel ; mildly, piously and in a Christian 
spirit, according to the doctrine and interpreta- 
tion of writings approved and accepted by the 



I Planitz names him as early as on tha 18th Jan. with 
Schwarzenburg and Feilitzsch. 



176 



DIET OF 1522-23. 



Book III. 



Christian church.* Perhaps the adherents of 
the established faith were satisfied by the 
decision, because it recognised the authority of 
the expositions of the Latin fathers; but this 
recommendation was couched in vague, general 
and uncertain language; whereas that of the 
evangelical doctrine was precise, decided and 
emphatic, and therefore was alone likely to 
make an impression. 

Thus, after all, the answer went back to the 
Council of Regency, having undergone a few 
partial changes, but agreeing in the main with 
the spirit of the original plan. Contrary to all 
expectation, it caused another vei^y stormy de- 
bate in that assembly. Some of the members 
(among whom was the Bishop of Augsburg) 
who had repented of the part they had taken in 
the original scheme, made another attempt to 
retain the express mention of the four fathers 
of the Church. Planitz reports that he had to 
endure many proud and wicked words, and to 
resist a violent storm on this question. He 
expresses the greatest indignation at the apos- 
tacy of the bishop, whom, he says, God had 
raised out of the dust and made a ruler over 
his people, and who in return persecuted the 
Gospel. f However, with resolution and pa- 
tience, and the assistance of Schwarzenberg, 
he succeeded in maintaining the form which 
had at last been decided upon, and the answer 
was delivered to the nuncio as it had been re- 
turned from the assembly of the States.^ 

The nuncio did not attempt to conceal his 
astonishment and vexation. Neither the pope 
nor the emperor, nor any other sovereign, he 
said, had expected such a decision from them. 
He renewed his request for the execution of the 
edict of Worms and the establishment of an 
episcopal censorship ; but it was impossible to 
persuade a body Vvdiich moved so slowly and 
with so much difficulty, to think of retracting 
a resolution once formed, and all his endeavours 
were fruitless. 

The substance of the answer was published 
in an imperial edict. The Elector of Saxony 
and Luth'er himself were highly pleased with 
it; Luther, indeed, thought that the ban and 
excommunication which had been proclaimed 
against him were virtually revoked by it. 

It is indisputably true that these decisions 



* " duodnihil prfeter verum purilm sincerum et sanctum 
evangelium et approbatam scripturam pie mansuete 
Christiane juxta doctrinara et expositionem approbatis et 
ab ecclesia Christiana receptae scripturrp. doceant." Tiiis 
is the passage in the answer given to the papal nuncio, 

t Planitz, 4th Feb. : " Ich will aber Patienz und Geduld 
tragen. Es haben die Stünde ohangezeigte wort (he has 
inserted them in his letter) haben wollen und nil die vier 
Doctorcs zu benennen und sulchs dem Regiment anzeigen 
lassen, dabei es blieben." — "I will, however, have pa- 
tience and temper. The States would ha\T? the words I 
have before mentioned, and would not allow the four doc- 
tors to be named or specified to the Council of Eegency, 
so it remained as it was." 

t Planitz, 9th Feb. : " Die Schrift 1st dem päpstl Nuntius 
auf die Mass übergeben wie ich E. Chf. G. zugeschickt. 
Der ist der nicht zu frieden und hat darauf repücirt. . . . 
Er will den Kayser dabei nit haben, so gefällt ihm auch 
iiit dass es so gar frei seyn soll wie begehrt."—" The 
paper is handed over to the papal nuncio, on the whole 
much as I have sent it to your electoral grace. The 
nuncio is not satisfied with it, and has replied, he will 
not allow the ertiperor to be mentioned in it, nor does he 
like that there should be so much freedom as is demanded." 



of the diet of Nürnberg were exactly the con- 
trary of those passed at Worms. The important 
step which had been expected of Charles V., 
namely, that he would place himself at the 
head of the national movement, was now 
actually taken by the Council of Regency. 
The political opposition which had so long 
been gathering its forces, offered a more vigor- 
ous resistance than ever to the pope : allied 
with it, and protected by the representatives of 
the imperial power, religious discussion was 
now left to its free and unfettered course. 



CHAPTER in. 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 

15p2— 1524. 

No new arrangement needed to be made, 
no plan to be concerted, no mission to be sent : 
like the seed which shoots up on the ploughed 
field at the first genial rays of the sun in spring, 
the new opinions, the way for which had been 
prepared by all the events and discussions we 
have endeavoured to trace, now spread abroad 
through the whole land where the German 
language was spoken. 

A religious order was destined to afford the 
first common centre to the various elements of 
opposition. 

The Augustines of Meissen, and of ThurJn- 
gia generally, had madexthe first step towards 
emancipation, by a formal resolution. Among 
them were old friends of Luther, who had 
followed the same career of studies and of 
opinions as he had : even among the more dis- 
tant Augustine convents, there were few in 
which similar questions had not been agitated, 
and similar changes of opinion manifested ; 
indeed, a list is still extant, of those who took 
part in the movement at Magdeburg, Osnabrück, 
Lippe, Antwerp, Regensburg, Dillingen, Nürn- 
berg and Strasburg,§ and in the territories of 
Hessen and Würtemberg. Many of these re- 
formers were men advanced in life, who had 
held these doctrines ever since the time of 
Johann Proles, and v;ho now exulted to see 
them attain a fuller development and greater 
power; others again were youthful and fiery 
spirits, inspired with admiration for their vic- 
torious brother of Wittenberg. Johann Stiefel 
of Esslingen beheld in him the angel of the 
Apocalypse flying through the heavens, and 
holding in his hand the everlasting Gospel; 
he composed a mystical and heroic poem in his 

§ According to Eberlin's " Syben frumme aber trostlose 
Pfaffen," " Seven devout but comfortless Priests," Dr. 
Casper Amon, " ain erwirdig Man," " a reverend man," 
taught at Dillengen. This is doubtless the same person 
who in 1523 published a Psalter done into German from 
the genuine text in the Hebrew tongue, — " geteutscht 
nach warhaftigem text der hebreischen zungen." The 
dedication of this book is dated Lauingen. Panzer, ii. p. 
131. 



Chap. III. 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



177 



praise.* This body, moreover, had the glory 
of being the first to draw down persecution on 
itself. ^Two or three Augustine friars at Ant- 
werp were the first martyrs of the new faith. 
Jean Chatelain of ^letz was soon afterwards 
condemned to the flames for the attacks he had 
made on the prerogatives of the clergy in the 
Advent of 1523, and the Lent of 1524. 

A number of Franciscans, not, like the Au- 
gusiines,f supported by their order, but sepa- 
rating themselves entirely from it, and, as v»-e 
may infer from that act, men of more energetic 
temper, were the next to join the new sect. 
Some of these were learned men, like Johann 
Brismann of Cottbus, who had been for many 
years devoted to the study of the schoolmen 
an4 had become doctor of theology, but who 
now, like Luther, drew from their works en- 
tirel}^ opposite opinions.ij: Others were spirits 
full of deep religious yearnings, which the 
conventual rule and discipline failed to satisfy ; 
such was Friedrich M5'conius. It is related 
that on the night following his investiture, he 
dreamed that whilst wandering in steep and 
tortuous paths, he was met by a holy man, 
baldheaded, and clothed in an antique dress, as 
St. Paul is painted, who led him first to a 
fountain whose waters flowed from a crucified 
body, whereat he slaked his thirst, and then 
through endless fields of thick standing corn, 
in which the reapers were making ready for 
the harvest.§ This vision is sufficient to show 
the turn of his mind ; and we may easily infer 
from it the impression which must have been 
produced on him by the revival of the, apos- 
tolical doctrine, and the prospect of an active 
co-operation in its diifusion. Others again 
vrere men who in the various intercourse with 
the lower classes, to which the duties of a 
Franciscan convent leads, had perceived the 
pernicious effects of the doctrine of justifica- 
tion by works, and now attacked it with all 
their might; among these were Eberlin of 

* Von der christformigen rechtgegriindeteu Lehre Doc- 
toris Martini Luthers: 

" Er th'jt sicli worlich fyegen zu Got in rechten mut, 
Gwalt mag ihn auch nit biegen: er geb er drum sein 

blut. 
Zu Worms e;- sich erzeyget : er trat keck auf den plan. 
Sein feynd hat ergeschueyget: keiner dorft ihn wenden 

an." 
-"Concerning the Christian-like well-grounded doctrine 
of Doctor Martin Luther: 
" rie trusted truly in God with a good courage. 
Force could not bend him: for it (the cause) he would 

liave spilled his blood. 
He proved himself at Worms : stepping boldiv into the 

field. 
He silenced his enemies ; none could answer him." 
See Strobel's J^eue Beitrüge, i. p. 10. 

t The Reimchronik of Metz speaks very favourably of 
this Augustine monk. 

"A Metz prescha ung caresme, 
devaiu grand peuple homme et femme, 
qui en sa predication 
avoient grande devotion." 
His persecutor says to him,— 

" Tu as presche de nostre estat, 
je te hai plus qu'un apostat : 
as tousche sur le gens d'eglise ; 
maintenant te tiens a mä guise. 

Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, ii., Preuves cxix. 
t Extract from hi^sermous in Seckendorf, Historia Lu- 
theran ismi, i. p. 272. 
§ Adami Vitee Theologoram, edition of 1705, p, S3. 
23 



Günzbnrg, and Heinrich of Kettenbach, who 
came out of the same convent at Ulm, and who 
possessed, in an extraordinary degree, the gift 
of popular orator3^ Eberlin's opponents said 
of iiim, that he alone had power to mislead a 
whole province ; so great was the efiect of his 
eloquence on the common people. Among 
them were found the most steadfast champions, 
like Stephen Kempen, whose brave and vrarlike 
bearing was worthy of his name. The Fran- 
ciscans were almost everywhere among the 
fixrst reformers : Kempen was the founder of 
the new doctrines in Hamburg, where he de- 
fended them nearly single-handed for three 
years against all opponents. 

But there was not, perhaps, a single religious 
order which did not furnish partisans to the 
new opinions, many of whom were among its 
most celebrated champions. Martin Butzer 
had been appointed professor' of the Thomist 
doctrines by the Dominicans ; but he dissolved 
his connexion with that order by a kind of 
lawsuit, and from that time forward took a 
most active and successful part in the estab- 
lishment of the new system of faith. Otto 
Brunnfels came out of the Carthusian convent 
at Mainz and became the follower of Hütten, 
whose labours he shared with rival ardour. 
The young reading-master of the Benedictine 
abbey of Alperspach, P. Ambrosius Blaurer, 
was incited by the general ferment to the study 
of the sacred writings, and formed opinions 
which soon rendered a longer residence in the 
convent impossible to him. (Ecolampadius, 
who had but lately ~taken the vows in the con- 
vent of St. Bridget at Altomünster, raised his 
voice in favour of the new views : he had 
hoped to find in the convent undisturbed leisure 
for the learned works he purposed to write ; 
but the conviction which soon forced itself on 
his mind hurried him into an eager participa- 
tion in all the mental conflicts of the Firnes. 
The brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 
at Augsburg declared themselves for Luther 
from the very first, with the prior at their head ; 
and to them belonged, for a time at least, Urban 
RegiusJ| one of the most devoted and favourite 
disciples of Johann Eck, whom he now, how- 
ever, deserted for the new cause :*^ he supported 
it with great effect, first in Upper,' and after- 
wards still more successfully in Lower Ger- 
many. Here he was, after a while, assisted by 
Johann Bugenhagen, who had also for a long 
time followed a very different course of studies 
and opinions, in a convent of Prsemonstratenses 
at Belbuck in Pomerania. Bugenhagen, as 
his history of Pomerania, written in 1518, and 
vigorously attacking the abuses prevailing in 
the Church, shows, was even then convinced 
of the necessity of a complete change in the 
body of the clergy-;** but he was no less 



1; Braun, Geschichte der Bischöfe von Aussburff, iii. 
230. He is also called a Carmelite in Welser's Augsburger 
Chronik. ' 

IT There are a few letters which passed l^tween them 
in Adami, p. 35. Eck is violent and bitter. Resius 
(König), in spite of the firmness of his opposition, never 
forgets the accustomed reverence towards his master. 

** J. H. Balthasar, Preefatio in Bugenhagii Pomeraniam, 
p. 5. 



178 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



Book III. 



strongly opposed to Luther ; and when Luther's 
book on the Babylonish captivity was brought 
to him one day as he sat at dinner, he ex- 
claimed, that since the Passion ofv Christ a 
more pernicious heretic had never existed. But 
this very book w^rought a complete revolution 
in his mind : he took it home with him, read 
it, studied it, and became convinced that the 
whole world was in error and that Luther alone 
saw the truth. Of this change of sentiments 
he informed his colleagues at the conventual 
school over which he presided, his abbot, and 
all his friends.* Similar conversions took 
place in all the religious orders. The superiors 
were often the most strongly impressed, like 
the priors of the Augustine and Carmelite 
convents, of whom we have spoken : among 
others were Eberhard Widensee, provost of the 
convent of St. John at Halberstadt, and by his 
influence, Gottes-Gnaden and St. Moritz, pro- 
vosts of Nuenwerk and Halle, and Paul Lem- 
berg, abbot of Sagan, who openly declared 
that if any one of his monks felt his conscience 
burdened by remaining in the convent, so far 
from attempting to keep him there, he would 
rather carry him out of it on his own shoulders. f 

On a careful examination, I do not find, 
however, that love of the world, or any licen- 
tious desire to be freed from the restraints of 
the convent, had much effect in producing 
these resolutions ; at all events, in the most 
conspicuous cases, where motives have been 
recorded by contemporaries, they were always 
the result of a profound conviction ; in some, 
gradually develo])ed, in others, suddenly forced 
on the mind, sometimes by a striking passage 
in the Bible : many did not leave the convent 
of their own accord, but were driven out of it ; 
others, though of a most peaceful nature them- 
selves, found their abode between the narrow 
walls embittered by the frequent disputes which 
arose ^out of the state of men's minds. The 
mendicant friars felt disgust at their own trade : 
one of them, a Franciscan, entered a smithy at 
Nürnberg with his alms-box in his hand, and 
was asked by the master why he did not rather 
earn his bread by the v/ork of his hands : the 
robust monk immediately threw off his habit 
and became a journeyman smith, sending back 
his cowl and box to the convent. 

There is no doubt that the monastic institu- 
tions, of the West were originally founded in 
imitation of the Hindu penitents, who live in 
lonely forests, clothed in the bark of trees, 
eating only herbs and drinking only Avater, free 
from desires, masters of their passions, beati- 
fied even in this life, and a sure refuge to the 
afflicted.^ But how widely had the recluses 
of Europe departed from their model ! They 
took part in all the pursuits, dissensions and 
troubles of the world, and their main object 
was the m.aintenance of a dominion at once 
temporal and spiritual, aided by masses ac- 
tuated by the same sentiments and working to 

* Cliytrai Saxonia, p. 287. Lanjre, Leben Bugenhageus, 
1731, contains nothing of importance. 

t C.italogus Abhatum Saganensium.in Stenzel's Scriptt. 
Rer. Siles., i. p. 457. 

X Nalas, twelfth song. 



the sara,e ends ; they were held' together by 
servile vows, frequently taken from interested 
motives, and as muchi as possible disregarded. 
No sooner, therefore, had the validit}^ of these 
vows, and their religious efficacy to the sou], 
become doubtful, than the whole stnicture fell 
in pieces : nay more, the institution on which 
the Western Church mainly rested, sent forth 
the most sturdy antagonists to its further hie- 
rarchical development. 

This general movement am.ong the regular 
clergy was now seconded by all ranks of the 
secular priesthood. 

There was one even among the bishops, 
Polenz of Samland, who openly declared him- 
self for Luther, occasionally preached hjs doc- 
trines from the pulpit at Königsberg, and took 
care to appoint preachers of his own way of 
thinking to a number of places in his diocese. 
Luther was overjoyed at this'; such a peaceable 
and lawful change was exactly what he desired. § 

A few other bishops were also supposed to 
be favourably inclined to the new doctrine. 
Johann Eberlin of Günsburg mentions the 
Bishop of Augsburg, who did not conceal that 
" the life and conversation of the Lutherans 
were less sinful than those of their adversa- 
ries ;" the Bishop of Basle, who was pleased 
when Lutheran books were brought to him, and 
always read them diligently ; the Bishop of 
Bamberg, who no longer opposed the preaching 
of Lutheran doctrines in his city, and the 
Bishop of Merseburg, who sent for the writer 
to consult him concerning the reforms which 
were wanted. He assures us that several others 
sent their canons to study at Wittenberg. Most 
of tlie names which we find in the list of 
Reuchlin's patrons appear among those who 
took part in the religious innovation. 

They were also joined by the patrician pro- 
vosts of the great towns, such as a Wattenwyl 
in Berne, and a Besler and Bömer in Nürn- 
berg, under whose protection the evangelical 
preachers were established in the churches of 
their respective cities. 

Even without this encouragement, a great 
number of the officiating priests and preachers 
in Lower, and still more in Upper, German}^, 
declared themselves converts to Luther's 
opinions. The name of Hermann Tast, one 
of the twenty-four papal vicars in Schleswig, 
is well knowm. In the church5^ard at Husum 
stood two lime-trees, which were called the 
Mother and the Daughter ; under the largest 
of the two, the Mother, Tast used to preach, 
escorted to and from^ the place of meeting by 
his hearers, who went armed to fetch him 
and conduct him home. At Emden, in East 
Friesland, Georg von der Dare was driven 
out of the great church when he began to 
preach Luther's doctrines ; but the people, 
after flocking to hear him for some time in the 
open air, at length obtained re-admittance for 
him into the church. Johann Schwanhäuser, 



§ " Lntheri Declicatio in Deuteronomium ; Reverendo 
Georgio de Polentis vere episcopo. Tibi gratia donata est, 
nt non modo verbum susciperes et crederes, sed pro epis- 
copali autoritate etiam palam et publice confessusdoceres 
docerique pertuam diocesim curares, liberaliter his qui in 
verbo laborant provisis."— 0;?p. iii. p. 75. HartknocKs 
Preussische Kirchengeschichte, i, p. 273. 



Chap. III. 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



179 



custos of St. Gangolph in Bamberg, declaimed, 
in the language of a Carlstadt, against the 
adoration of the saints.* The parish priest 
of Cronach was one of the first who married. 
At Mainz, it was tlie preacher in the cathedral, 
Wolfgang Köpfl (for a long time the confi- 
dential adviser of the elector) ; at Frankfort, 
the preacher in the church of St. Catharine, 
Hartmann Ibach ; at Strasburg, the parish 
priest of St. Laurence, Matthew Zell ; at Mem- 
mingen, the preacher of St. Martin's, Schap- 
peler, who were the first to propagate the new 
doctrines. In the imperial city of Hall, Johann 
Brenz, a mere youth, but deeply impressed 
with the doctrines of St. Paul, and an imitator 
of the apostle's style of speaking, pronounced 
his sermon of trial in September, 1523, and 
drove his antagonists, the guardian and the 
reader of the Minorite convent, out of the field 
without further contest, by the doctrine of the 
sole merit of Christ.| In the Kreichgau, a 
band of village priests, united by similarity of 
opinion, collected around Erhard Schnepf, 
under the protection of the Gemmingen. In 
Basle, at the procession of the Corpus Christi, 
Röubli, the priest of St. Alban's, carried a 
splendidly-bound Bible instead of the host, 
declaring that he alone bore the true Holy of 
holies. Next followed, at the minister of 
Zürich, the great secular priest, Ulrich Zwingli, 
equally courageous and influential in politics 
and in religion, and in whom the vicar of Con- 
stance soon thought he beheld a second Luther. 
We may follow these movements even into the 
lofty regions of the Alps. The leading men 
of Schwytz often timed their Tides so as to 
arrive at Freienbach, where a friend of Zwingli's 
preached, at the time of divine service, after 
which they stayed and dined with him.:]: It 
made no difference that they were Swiss, for 
in those days the feeling of nationality had not 
yet separated them from Germany ; indeed the 
people of the Valais called the territory of the 
confederate cities, Germany. The new doc- 
trines then followed the course of the moun- 
tains as far as the valley of the Inn, where .Jacob 
Strauss first expounded them to many thousand 
converts; then to Salzburg, where Paul von 
Spretten made the cathedral resound with them, 
and fijially into Austria and Bavaria. At Al- 
tenöttingen, where there was one of the most 
popular miraculous pictures, the regular priest, 
Wolfgang Russ, had the courage to declaim 
against pilgrimages. 

It may be concluded that all these changes 
were not brought about without stout resistance 
and a hard struggle. Many were compelled 
to yield, but some persevered ; and at all events 
the persecution did no harm to the cause. 
When that' zealous Catholic, Bogislas X. of 
Pomerania, destroyed the Protestant society at 
Belbuck, and confi.scated the property — for the 
seizure of church lands began on that side — 
the only result was, that one of their teachers 
accompanied some young Livonians, who had 
been studying there, to Riga, and thus scat- 



* Extracts from his sermons in Heller, p. 62. 
t Hartmann and Jäger, Johann Brenz, i. 43. 59. 
X Hettinger, Geschichte der Eidgenossen. 



tered the seed of the Word over the most re- 
mote parts of Germany. § 

Paul von Spretten was expelled from Salz- 
burg, after which we find him preaching in 
St. Stephen's church at Vienna, and v.'hen 
driven thence, at Iglau in Moravia : there also 
he was in imminent danger, and at last found 
a safe asylum in Prussia. With this scene of 
action, the ardent Amandus was not content; 
he soon left it and went to Stolpe, where he 
challenged the monks to a disputation on the 
truth of the old or the new system : he told 
them they might prepare a stake and faggots, 
and burn him if he was overcome in argument ; 
and that if he obtained the victory, the sole 
punishment of his opponents should be con- 
version. 

As yet no attention was paid to the place 
where the Gospel was preached. It is almost 
symbolic of the ecclesiastical opposition, that 
at Bremen it was a church standing under an 
interdict, in which two or three Augustine 
friars who had escaped the stake in Antwerp, 
first assembled a congregation. At Goslar, the 
new doctrine was first preached in a church in 
the suburbs; and when that was closed, a 
native of the town, who had studied at Wit- 
tenberg, proclaimed it on a plain covered with 
lime-trees (the Lindenplan), whence its ad- 
herents were there called Lindenbrüder (bro- 
thers of the lime-tree). II In Worms a mova- 
ble pulpit was put up against the outer walls 
of the church. The Augustine Monk, Caspar 
Güttel of Eisleben, at the request of the in- 
habitants of Arnstadt, preached seven sermons 
in the market-place there, according to ancient 
custom. At Danzig the people assembled on 
a height outside the town, to hear a preacher 
who had been driven from within its walls. 

But even if none of the clerg)'' had embraced 
the new faith, it would have found many pro- 
claimers and defenders among the laity, 'At 
Ingolstadt, under the very eyes of Dr. Eck, an 
enthusiastic journeyman weaver read aloud 
Luther's writings to assembled crowds ; and 
when, in the same town, a young Master of 
Arts, called Seehofer, who had begun to teach 
from Melanchthon's pamphlets, was forced to 
recant, his defence was undertaken by a lady, 
Argula von Staufen, whose attention having 
been directed by her father to Luther's books, 
she had, in conformity with their precepts, 
devoted herself exclusively to the study of the 
Scriptures. Believing herself fully able to 
compete v/ith them in knowledge of the Bible, 
she now challenged all the members of the 
university to a disputation, and hoped to main- 
tain the superiority of her own faith in the 
presence of the prince and the whole commu- 
nity.! It was in this intimate acquaintance 



§ Andreas Cnoph von Ciistrin. " Er hat viel herrlicher 
und geistreicher Lieder, darin die Summa von der Lehre 
von der Gerechtigkeit, dem Glauben und des?elbigen 
Früchten . . . verfasset." — " He has composed many 
most beautiful and ingenious songs, wherein is contained 
the essence of the doctrine of righteousness— faith and 
its fruits."— iJiarn, Lieflündische Oesch., book v. p. 193. 

11 Hamelmann, Historia renati Evangelii. 0pp. Hist. 
Gen., p. 869. ^ 

IT Winter, Gesch. der evang. Lehie in Baiern, i. 120. f. 



180 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



Book IIL 



with Scripture that the leaders of the religious 
movement trusted. Heinrich von Kettenbach 
cxultingly enumerates countries and cities — 
Nürnberg, Augsburg, Ulm, the Rhenish prg- 
vinces, Switzerland and Saxony — where women 
and maidens, serving-men and artisans, knights 
and nobles, were more learned in the Bible 
than the high schools.* 

There was indeed something very extraordi- 
när)'' in this simultaneous and universal con- 
viction, unquestionably religious in its origin, 
rising up in opposition to forms of ecclesiastical 
and political life which had been revered for 
centuries, though now men could see in them 
only their wide departure from true primitive 
Christianity, and their subservience to an op- 
pressive and odious power. 

As every effort on the one side was followed 
b}^ a re-action, and every attack by persecutioii, 
it was of great importance that there should be 
one spot in Germany where such was not the 
case : this spot was the electorate of Saxony. 

In the year 1522 the neighbouring bishops 
made another attempt to re-establish their power 
here also, in consequence of the favourable 
tone of the first proclamation of the imperial 
government; and the Elector Frederic offered 
no opposition to them so long as they promised 
to send preachers who should combat the Word 
with the Word.-j- When, however, not content 
with this, they demanded that the priests who 
had married or dared to administer the Lord's 
Supper in both kinds, and the monks who had 
quitted their convents, should be given up to 
them, he declared, after brief consideration, that 
the imperial edict did not oblige him to this.ij: 
By withdrawing his countenance from them, 
he of course annihilated their influence. 

This naturally induced all those who were 
forced to fly from other places, to take refuge 
in his dominions, where no spiritual authorities 
could reach them. Eberlin, Stiefel, Strauss, 
Seehofer, Ibach from Frankfurt, Bugenhagen 
from Pomerania, Kauxdorf from Magdeburg, 
Mustpeus from Halberstadt, where he had been 
barbarously mutilated,§ and numbers more, 
flocked together from all parts of Germany; 
they found a safe asylum, and in many cases 
temporary employment, and then went forth 
again, confirmed in their faith by intercourse 
with Luther and Melanchthon. Wittenbergr 



* " Ein new Apologia vnnd Verantwortung Martini 
Luthers wj'der der Papisten Mortsreschroy, die zelien 
klagen wyder jn ussblasinircn so wyt die Christenheyt 
ist, 1523."— "A new Apology and Answer of Martin Liitlier 
against the Papist's Cry of Murder, who trumpet forth 
Ten Complaints against him throughout Christendom." 

t Frederic instructs his officers, "An Verkündigung des 
Wortes Gottes nicht zu hindern."— " Not to hinder the 
preaching of the Word of God." He takes for granted, 
" sie würden die Ehre Gottes und die Liebe des Nüchsten 
suchen"—" that they would seek the honour of God and 
the love of their neighbour." 

t Geuterhock, St. Lucastag. The very remarkable corre- 
spondence in the Sammlung vermischter Nachrichten zur 
sächsischen Geschichte, iv. 282, 

§ What cruelties then took place! "Aliquot ministri 
canonicorum capiunt D. Valentinum Mustsum,"— " with 
the sanction of the burgher-master he had preached the 
Gospel in Neustadt," "et vinctum manibus pedibusque, 
injecto in ejus os freno, deferunt pertrabesin inferiores 
coenobii partes ibique in cellacerevisiaria eum castrant." 
—Hamelmanv, 1. c. p. 880. 



was the centre of the whole movement ; without 
the existence of such a centre, the unity of 
direction, the common progress, which we ob-y 
serve, would have been impossible ; we may 
add, that the admixture of foreign elements was 
of great importance to the development of the 
public mind of Saxony. The university espe- 
cially thus acquired the character of a national 
body, — incontestahly the true character of a great 
German high school. Both teachers and hearers 
resorted from all parts of Germany, and went 
forth again in all directions., 

Wittenberg became equally important as a 
metropolis of literature. 

It was the agitation of these important ques- 
tions which first obtained for the German popu- 
lar literature general circulation and influence. 
Up to the year 1518 its productions w^ere far 
from numerous, and the range of its subjects 
very narrow. During the last twenty years 
of the fifteenth century there appeared about 
40 German works ; in 1513 about 35 ; in 1514, 
47, in 1515, 46; in 1516, 55; in 1517, 37: 
these were chiefly mirrors for the laity, little 
works on medicine, books on herbs, religious 
tracts, newspapers, official announcements, and 
travels, — in short, the books fitted to the com- 
prehension of the many. The most original 
productions w^ere always those of the poetical 
opposition — the satires which we have already 
noticed. The increase in the number of German 
publications which followed Luther's ap- 
pearance before the public was prodigious. In 
the year 1518 we find 71 enumerated ; in 151Ö, 
111; in 1520,208; in 1521, 211 ; in 1522,347; 
in 1523, 498. If we inquire whence this won- 
derful increase emanated, we shall find it was 
from Wittenberg, and the chief author, Luther 
himself. In the year 1518 we find 20 books 
published with his name ; in 1519, 50 ; in 1520, 
133 ; in 1521, when he was interrupted by his 
journey to Worms, and hindered by a forced 
seclusion, about 40; in 1522, again 130; and 
in 1523, 183. II In no nation or age has a more 
autocratic and powerful writer appeared ; and 
it would be difiicult to find any other w^ho has 
united so perfectly popular and intelligible a 
style, and such downright homely good sense, 
to so much originality, pow'er and genius '; he 
gave to German literature the character by 
which it has been ever since distinguished, of 
investigation, depth of thought, and strenuous 
conflict of opinions. He began the great dis- 
cussion which has heen carried on in Germany 
through all the subsequent centuries^; though 
often grievously interrupted by acts of violence 
and by the influences of foreign policy. In the 
beginning he stood quite alone, but by degrees, 
especially after the year 1521, disciples, friends, 
and rivals began to appear in the field. In the 

1(1 rely upon Panzer's Annalen der altern Deutschen 
Literatur, 1788—1802. That his information, useful as it 
is, is not quite complete, is a defect this has in common 
with most statistical works. We can, however, gather 
from them the general facts, which is all we here have to 
do with. According to Adam, Vit» Jurisconsult., p. 62., 
it wasSchneidewin's father-in-law — ex honorata familia, 
qufe nomen gentilitiuin Turingorum habiiit, agnomen 
vero Aurifabrorum— who established the first printing- 
press at Wittenberg, socio Luca pictore seniore. This is 
anothex of Lucas Cranach's merits. 



Chap. III. 



DIFFUSION. OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



181 



year 1523, besides his own works, there were 
published 215 by others, in favour of the new 
opinions ; that is, more than four-fifths of all 
that appeared, while we do not find above 20 
decidedly catholic publications. It was the 
first time that the national mind, uninfluenced 
by foreign models, and manifesting itself purely 
in the form impressed on it by the great events 
of the times, and the high destinies to which 
Germany^ was called, found a general expres- 
sion ; moreover, this expression regarded the 
most important interests that can occupy the 
attention of man, and its very first utterance 
was prompted by ideas of religious freedom. 

It was a singular felicity, that at the very 
instant of full intellectual awakening, the Holy 
Scriptures, both of the. New and Old Testa- 
ment, were laid open to the nation. It is true 
that the Bible had long been known in transla- 
tions ; but it is. impossible to conceive, without 
reading them, how full of errors, how rude in 
style, and how unintelligible these versions 
are. Luther, on the contrary, spared no labour 
to obtain an accurate knowledge of the mean- 
ing of the original, and gave it utterance in 
German, with all the clearness and energy of 
which that language is capable. The im- 
perishable records of the earliest ages of the 
world, characterised by the freshness of the 
youth of mankind, and the sacred writings of 
later date, in which true religion" appears in all 
its child-like candour, w^ere now put into the 
hands of the German people in their own ver- 
nacular tongue, piece by piece, like a periodical 
work which relates to the immediate interests 
of the day, and were devoured with equal 
avidity. 

There is one production of the German mind 
which ov/es its origin directly to this concur- 
rence of circumstances. In translating the 
Psalms, Luther conceived the project of making 
a paraphrase of them for the purpose of con- 
gregational singing;* for the idea of a Church, 
such as he had described and besfun to call 
into existence, supposed that the congregation 
should take a far more considerable part in the 
service than it had ever done before. In this 
case, however, as in some others, a mere para- 
phrase did not suffice. The devout spirit, tran- 
quil in the conviction of possessing the re- 
vealed Word of God; elevated by the strife 
and danger in which it was placed, and in- 
spired by the poetical genius of the Old Testa- 
ment, poured forth lyrical ^compositions, at 
once poetry and music ; words alone would 
have been insufficient to express the emotions 
of the soul in all their fulness, or to excite and 
sustain the feelings of a congregation. This j 
could onl}"" be done by the melody which 
breathed in the solemn old church music, and 
the touching airs of popular songs. Such was 
the origin of the evangelical hymns, which we 

* Luther's preface to Johann Walter's Hymns recalls 
"das Exempel der Propheten und Könise imalten Testa- 
ment, die mit singen und klingen, mit dichten und allerlei 
Seitenspiel Gott gelobet haben," — "the example of the 
prophets and kings in the Old Testament, who, with 
songs and music,. with verses and all manner of stringed 
instruments, praised God."— Jlltenb. A., ii. p. 751. 
Q 



may date from the year 1523.| Detached 
hymns by Luther and Spretten acquired imme- 
diate popularity, and lent their aid to the 
earliest struggles of the reforming spirit; but 
it was many years later that the (jiennan mind 
displayed its whole wealth of poetical, and still 
more of musical, productions of this kind. 

The popular poetry also devoted itself in 
other ways to the new ideas with that spirit of 
teachableness, and at the same time resistance 
to arbitrary power, which characterised it. 
Hütten published his bitterest invectives in 
verse ; iMurner depicted the corruption of the 
clergy in long and vivid descriptions : to this 
feeling of censure and reprobation was now 
added, if not in Murner himself, at any rate in 
most others, a positive conviction of the truth 
of the new doctrine, and a profound admiration 
of its champion ; the man who maintained the 
righteous cause among crimson barrets and 
velvet caps was celebrated in verse. The 
pope was brought on the stage in carnival farces ; 
he congratulates himself that, in spite of his 
knavery, men continue to ascribe to him the 
power of admitting them into heaven or binding 
them in hell, which brings many birds to his 
net to be plucked ; that he reaps the fruits of 
the sweat of the poor man's brow, and can ride 
with a retinue of a thousand horses — his name 
is Entchristelo ; there also appear, uttering like 
sentiments. Cardinal Highmind {Hochmufli)^ 
Bishop Goldmouth Wolfsmaw {Goldmurtd 
WoIfsmage7i), Vicar Fabler {Fabekr), and a 
long list of personages held up to ridicule and 
contempt under such names ; the last who 
enters is the Doctor, who expounds the true 
doctrine very much in the tone of a sermon.:^ 
Under the influence of these impressions was 
educated Burckhardt Waldis, who afterwards 
made such a happy application of the old fable 
of the beasts to religious controversies. ^ The 
greatest German poet of that day vrarmly em- 
braced' Luther's cause. Hans Sachs's poem, 
the Nightingale of ^Yittenberg, appeared in 
1523 ; he compares the faith which had pre- 
vailed for four hundred years, to the moonlight 
vy-hich had led men astray in the wilderness; 
now, however, the nightingale announces the 
rising sun and the light of day, while she her- 
self soars above the dark clouds. Thoughts 
emanating from a sound understanding, in- 
structed by the infallible YN'ord, and coniident 
of its own cause, form the basis of the many- 
ingenious, gay, and graceful poems — not the 
less attractive for a slicrht smack of the work- 



t Riederer, "von Einführung des deutschen Gesanges," 
p. 95. The remarkable letter to Sjialatiu concerning the 
translation of the Psalms into German verse, in De 
Wette, ii. p. 4S0., is doubtless earlier than that dated 14th 
Jan. 1524, ibid. p. 4GJ. In it we see what the Muse Ger- 
ma niece, about which De Wette seems to be in doubt, 
really meant. It appears from the letters to Hausmann, 
that Luther was employed in A'ovember and December, 
1523, in the composition of the liturgy. 

*"Ein Fassnachtspyl, so zu Bern uf der Hern Fass- 
nacht in dem ?iIDxXil. Jare von Burgerssonen olE^nt- 
lich gemacht ist, darinn die warlieit in Schimpffswyss vom 
Pabst und siner Priesterschaft gemeldet würt." — "A Car- 
nival Play, the v.hich was publicly enacted in the Lord's 
carnival of the year 1522, at Bern, by the sons of burghers, 
wherein the truth is satirically told of the pope and of 
his priesthood." Newly printed by Grüneisen.— JVic^. 
Manuel, p. 339. 



182 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



Book III. 



shop — with which the honest master delighted 
all classes of the nation. 

In Germany, the proper aim of art — to teach 
by giving a sensible form to ideas — had never 
been lost sight of. Hence, there is no less 
fancy displayed in her symbols, than earnest- 
ness in her character. It so happened that one 
of the great masters of the time, Lucas Kra- 
nach, went to live at Wittenberg, and, in a 
constant familiar intercourse with Luther, be- 
came thoroughly imbued with the modes of 
thinking of the reformers, and consecrated his 
talents to embodying them. He sometimes 
entered the ranks as a combatant. Some of his 
smaller pictures, such as the Passion of Christ 
and Antichrist, in which the lowliness and hu- 
mility of the Founder, and the pride and pomp 
of his vicegerent, are contrasted, are protests 
against Catholicism ; and accordingly wood- 
cuts of them were inserted into Luther's writ- 
ings. It may be imagined that his chaste 
pencil was employed in no works but such as 
harmonised with the evangelical faith. The 
grace and loveliness with which he had for- 
merly adorned groups of beatified female saints, 
he now shed over the little children receiving 
the blessing of our Saviour. The mysteries 
shadowed forth in early art, were now expressed 
in representations of the sacraments retained 
by Luther, which were sometimes painted on 
one canvass, and of the sublime work of Re- 
demption. The eminent statesmen and divines 
by whom he was surrounded, presented forms 
and features so remarkable and characteristic, 
that he had no temptation, except in- the cause 
of religion, to strive after the ideal. Albert 
Dürer, though his genius had already reached 
maturity, was p'owerfully affected by the pre- 
vailing spirit : the most perfect, perhaps, of all 
his works — the evangelists Mark and John, 
and the apostles Peter and Paul — were produced 
under the impressions of these times. There 
exist studies for these pictures with the date 
1523 : they reflect the image suggested by 
Scripture (now rendered accessible to new 
views), of the Vv'isdom, devotedness and energy 
of these first witnesses of the Christian church. 
Vigour and grandeur of conception manifest 
themselves in every feature.* 

The general development of the German 
mind was closely connected with the new ideas ; 
the same spirit was stirring in the learned, as 
in the popular branches of mental activity. 

Wittenberg was far from being the only 
university in which the course of studies was 
changed. At Freiburg, where Luther was 
detested, the Aristotelian philosophy ceased to 
be studied and inculcated as hitherto. " Pe- 
trus Hispanus," says Ulrich Zasius, " has had 
his day ; the books of Sentences are laid aside ; 
our theologians are some of them reading 
Matthew and others Paul ; nay, even the very 
beginners, those who are but just arrived, crowd 
to these lectures."! Even Zasius himself, one 



* How Pirkheimer and Dürer disputed about the ques- 
tion of the Lord's Supper in Melanchthon's presence: re- 
lated by Peucer in StrobePs " Nachricht von Melanch- 
thons Aufenthalt in Nürnberg," p. 27. 

tZasii EpislolEB, i. 63. 



of the most distinguished German jurists of 
that time, gives a remarkable testimony to the 
universal diffusion of the reforming spirit. He 
complains that his lecture-room is deserted ; 
that he has barely half a dozen hearers, and 
they, all Frenchmen ; and at the same time he 
can find no better mode of recommending his 
own exertions in the cause of learning, than 
by comparing them to the labours of Luther. 
The glossators of the genuine texts whom he 
was engaging in combating, appeared to him 
in the same light as the schoolmen on whom 
Luther was waging war; he laboured to re- 
store the Roman law to its original purity, just 
as Luther strove to revive the theology of the 
Bible. 

Of all departments of learning, none, how- 
ever, stood more in need of a similar reform 
than history. There existed an immense ac- 
cumulation of materials ; but the, earlier periods 
were obscured by the learned fables which 
were continually receiving fresh and more 
circumstantial additions ; while the later were 
known only in fragments dressed up to suit 
the interests of the dominant party : the most 
important parts had been intentionally falsified, 
in consequence of their necessary connection 
with the great ecclesiastical fiction. It was 
impossible to arrive at a true, lively and con- 
nected view of history ; even minds thirsting 
for real information shrank from such insuper- 
able masses of reading. An attempt to penetrate 
them was, however, made just about this time 
by Johann Aventin, who, at an earlier period, 
had sympathised in the literary tendencies of 
the new school of thinkers, and now followed 
its religious direction with the liveliest zeal. 
In writing his Bavarian chronicle, the contents 
of which are interesting to Germany generally, 
and even to the world, he spared no pains in 
searching libraries and archives in order to 
substitute genuine records for the shallow and 
improbable traditions hitherto current. He 
puts the reader on his guard against the re- 
presentations of the ignorant; especially "peo- 
ple who have seen nothing of mankind, who 
know nothing of cities and countries, have no 
experience of earthly or heavenly matters, and 
yet pretend to judge of every thing." His 
endeavour is to understand history in its true 
and necessary aspect, " such as it should be." 
The spirit of the national opposition to the 
papacy is powerfully at work within him : 
whenever he strives to depict the simplicity 
of the Christian doctrine, or alludes to its 
origin, he never fails to contrast with it the 
spiritual power in its rise, progress and ope- 
ration. His history of Gregory VII. is even 
now the best extant : he takes a very compre- 
hensive view of the results arising from the 
dominion of the hierarchical principle, though 
he had not the peculiar talent requisite to 
place them distinctly before the reader. His 
works are indeed generally unfinished ; but he 
w^s the first labourer in that field of profound 
and penetrating research into universal history, 
which in our day occupies 30 many minds. 

For a time, it seemed as if the interest in 
theological questions would absorb all others. 



Chap. III. 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



183 



Erasmus complains that nothing was read or 
bought but publications for or against Luther ; 
he fears that the study of the humanities, 
which was but just established, would be 
stifled under a new system of school learning. 
The chronicles of the time describe how the 
contempt into which the clergy had fallen re- 
acted on learning : the proverb, " Die Gelehrten, 
die Verkehrten," (the morei learned, the more 
wrongheaded,) was in every body's mouth, and 
parents hesitated to devote their children to 
studies which offered so doubtful a prospect. 
This, however, was only a momentary aberra- 
tion; the mind, roused to a desire for authentic 
knowledge, could not reject the very instru- 
ment which had awakened it. In the year 15-24 
Luther published a letter to the " burgher- 
masters and councillors, of all the towns on 
German ground," exhorting them " to establish 
Christian schools."* He means by this, 
especially for the training of priests; for, he 
says, it is only by the study of languages that 
the Gospel can be preserved in its purity, to 
which end it was delivered down to us in 
writing ; otherwise there would be nothing but 
wild and perilous disorder, and an utter confu- 
sion of opinions. Yet he does not by any 
means confine his recommendation to ecclesi- 
astical schools; far from it: he deplores that 
schools have been so exclusively calculated for 
the education of the clergy, and his chief. ob- 
ject is to free them from this narrow destination, 
and to found a learned class among the laity. 
He holds out the education of the ancient 
Romans as an example to Germany ; and says 
that instructed men well versed in history are 
absolutely necessary for the government of the 
state ; he also insists upon the establishm.ent 
of public libraries, not only to< contain editions 
and expositions of the sacred writings, , but 
also orators and poets, whether heathen or not; 
besides books on the fine arts, law and medicine, 
chronicles and histories ; "for they be profitable 
for the learning of the wonders and works of 
God." This letter had as great an effect on 
secular learning, as his book addressed to the 
'German nobility had on the general condition 
of the laity. Luther first conceived the idea of 
that learned body of official laymen which has 
exercised such an incalculable influence over 
the social and political condition of Germany; 
he advocated the popular cultivation of know- 
ledge for her own sake, apart from the church ; 
it was he wh"o laid the first stone of that edi- 
fice of learning in northern Germany, which 
succeeding labourers have reared to such a 
height. In this he was vigorously seconded 
by the indefatigable Melanchthon, who was 
the author of the Latin grammar used in the 
schools throughout the North of Germany, till 
the beginning of the eighteenth century. "j" He 
completed it in the year 1524, beginning from 
- — — — « 

* Altenb. eriitioii, ii. p. 804. Eoban Hess caused tlie 
letters which he had received on this subject from Luther, 
Melanchthoti, Jonas, Draco and others, to be printed col- 
lectively in 1523, in the pamphlet, " De non contemneudis 
Studiis humanioribus." 

t The editions most worthy of note till 1737 are enume- 
rated in Strobe], Von den Verdiensten Melanchlhons, um 
die Grammatik. . . neue Beiträge, ii. iii. p. 43 



some notes made for the private instruction of 
a young Nürnberger; at the same tiftie, the 
Greek grammar, of v/hich he had previously 
drawn up the plan, received the form in which 
it was taught for centuries afterwards^ Teachers 
were formed under Melanchthon's discipline, 
who adopted all his ideas, and became the 
founders of the German school-training. The 
most remarkable of these was Valentine Trot- 
zendorf, who was called from Wittenberg to 
Goldberg in Silesia, in the year 1523, and who 
Vv'as said to be born a schoolmaster as much as 
Cfösar was born a general, or Cicero an orator. 
Innumerable German schoolmasters were formed 
by him. 

A large and coherent survey of all these 
facts suffices to convince us that the Reforma- 
tion was by no means confined to theological 
dogmas; a whole circle of aspirations and 
thoughts of a peculiar character, and pregnant 
with a new order of things, had arisen ; closely 
connected, it is true, with the theological oppo- 
sition, and partly developed under that form, 
but the existence of which is neither to be 
ascribed to, nor confounded with that pheno- 
menon. The opposition was itself merely one 
manifestation of this spirit, the future workings 
of which were entirely independent of it. 

The first object of the awakened mind un- 
doubtedly was, deliverance from that mighty 
power which claimed the right of retaining it 
captive. 

In examining more closely the course of 
this struggle, as it displayed itself in all parts 
of Germany, we shall fall into error if we ex- 
pect to find the same points of variance which 
exist between the later Protestant and the re- 
vived Catholic systems. The ideas and intel- 
lectual powers which were then arrayed against 
each other, stood in a far more distinct, broad, 
and intelligible opposition. 

One of the most violent conflicts was that 
concerning faith and good works. We must 
not understand by this the more deep and ab- 
struse controversy which has since arisen out 
of the subtilty or the obstinacy of the schools. 
At that time the question was very simple : on 
the one side, by good works were meant those 
ritual observances through which men then 
really hoped to merit reward, both in this world 
and the next — such as pilgrimages, fasting, the 
foundation of masses for the souls of the dead, 
the recital of particular prayers, the reverence 
paid to certain saints, and the gifts to the 
churches and the clergy which formed so im- 
portant a part of the piety ofthe middle ages. To 
this perversion of the idea of moral obligation, 
which had been so culpably allowed to gain 
currency and strength, the other party opposed 
the doctrine of the efficacy of faith without 
works. But — especially after the troubles in 
Wittenberg — no one now ventured to inculcate 
an ideal, abstract, inactive faith. We still pos- 
sess many of the sermons of that period, and it 
would be difficult to find one in which faith and 
charity are not spoken of as indissolubly united. 
Caspar Giittel earnestly inculcates the doctrine, 
that the conduct which a man pursues towards 
his neighbour for the love of God is the one 



184 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



Book III. 



essential thing.* The preacher blamed those 
who spent their substance in enriching the 
clergy, decorating the image of a saint, or 
going on distant pilgrimages, and at the same 
time forgot the poor. 

The same thing took place with respect to 
the opinions concerning the church. The re- 
formers entirely refused to recognise the holy 
church of Christ, out of whose pale there is no 
salvation, in the persons of the pope, his pre- 
lates and priests ; they considered it profane to 
say that the Church commands or possesses 
any thing; they distinguished that ecclesiastical 
institution, which, by its scandalous govern- 
ment, gave the lie to the principles on which it 
was founded, from the mysterious existence of 
that holy fellowship which appears not out- 
wardly, which, according to the words of the 
Symbol, is a pure object of faith, and which 
unites heaven and earth indeed, but without 
the intervention of the pope.j " Far be it from 
us to suppose," said Pastor Schmidt, in a 
sermon he preached with great effeqt at Küss- 
nacht, "that the Christian church can acknow- 
ledge a head so spotted with sin as the pope ; 
and° thus forsake Christ, whom St. Paul so 
often calls ' the head of the church.' "ij: 

In like manner the institution of the Lord's 
Supper, freed from all priestly intervention, 
was contrasted with the compulsory obligation 
of confessing every individual sin, — an obliga- 
tion which led and still leads to all the odious 
abuses of the confessional, and to the despotism 
of a stern and tyrannical orthodoxy. The 
discretionary power of the priest to grant abso- 
lution was denied, together with the doctrine 
of the actual presence ; and people were, even 
dissuaded from too nice a pondering over par- 
ticular sins, as tending to stimulate the desires 
anew, or to produce despair : nothing was re- 
quired but an undoubting, cheerful, steadfast 
reliance on the mercy of God, and faith in his 
present favour. § 

* Sclnitzrede wider etzlicli migezemte Clamanteii. The 
very sermons preached at Arnstadt: printed in Olearii 
Syntagma Rerum Tharingicarum, ii. 274; an edition 
which Panzer does not mention in his Annals, ii. p. 9:3. 

t Ain Sermon oder Predig von der christlichen Kirchen 
■welches doch seydie hailisr christlich Kirche, davon unser 
Glaub sagt, geprediget zu Ulm von Bruder Heinrich von 
"Kettenbach, 1522.— " A Sermon or Preaching touching the 
Christian Church— which is the holy Christian Church of 
which our belief speaketh ? Preached at Ulm by Brother 
Henry of Ketten bach." Johann Brenz took up this 
doctrine very vehemently. He will not allow that the 
church is to be believed because it received Christ. " Juden 
und Heiden die haben Christum angenommen— und sind 
Tiachfolgends die äusserliche christliche Kirche geworden, 
und hat die Kirche ihren Ursprung von den frommen Christ- 
, finmenschen und ist nachfoltendsdie äusserlichechristliche 
Kirche worden, doch nit dass die Menschen ihre Seligkeit 

haben von der üusserlichen Kirche Dieweil die Kirche 

ein geistliclier verborgener Leib ist und nit von dieser 
Well, so folgt, dass in^diesem Leib kein weltlich äusser- 
lich noch sichtbar haupt ist."—" Jews and Pagans received 
Christ, and thereupon became the outward Christian 
church, and the church has its origin ü-orn pious Christians, 
and is thereafter become the outward Christian church, 
not that men receive salvation from the outward church. 
...For since the church is a spiritual hidden body, and 
not of this world, it follows that this body cannot have a 
worldly, outward, and visible head." 

I Myconius ad Zwinglium. Epp. Zw. p, 195. 
§ " Eyn verstendig trostlich Leer über das Wort St. 
Paulus": Der Mensch sol sich selbst probieren und alsso 
von dem Brott essen und von dem Kelch trinken : zu Hall 
in Inthall von D. Jacob Strauss geprediget, MDXXIL"— 
'^\ reasonable and comfortable Doctrine concerning the 
Word of St. Paul : ' But let a man examine himself, and 



But perhaps the most strongly and totally 
opposed Vv'ere the opinions as to creeds of 
human origin and the pure word of God. Here 
again the dispute was not concerning tradition, 
as it has been defined by the more ingenious 
and enlightened controversialists of modern 
times ; that is to say, little more than the 
Christian spirit propagating itself from gene- 
ration to generation, — -the Word living in the 
hearts of the faithful. || What the reformers 
combated, was the entire system of the Latin 
church, developed in the course of centuries by 
hierarchical power and school learning, and 
claiming absolute authority. They remarked 
that the fathers of the church had erred, Jerome 
often, and even Augustin occasionally ; that 
those holy men had themselves been well 
aware of it ; and that nevertheless a . system 
from which no deviation was allowed, had 
been based on their decisions, and spun oat 
w^ith the aid of heathen philosophy. Thus it 
came to pass that they had given themselves 
up to human devices, and that there was not 
a teacher among them who led his hearers to 
the true understanding of the Gospel. And to 
this human doctrine, which neither satisfied 
the reason nor consoled the heart — which w^as 
connected with all sorts of abuses — they now 
opposed the eternal word of God, "which is 
noble, pure, cordial, steadfast and comfortable, 
and should therefore be kept unadulterated and 
undefiled."^ They exhorted the laity to work 
out their own salvation ; to gain possession of 
the word of God, which had now come forth 
in full splendour from its long concealment, to 
take it as a sword in their hands, and to defend 
themselves with it against the preachers of the 
contrary faith.'*-'* 

Such were the questions concerning which 
the warfare of popular literature — preaching, 
was mainly carried on. On the one side, cer- 
tain external ecclesiastical observances were 
deemed meritorious ; the idea of a Church was 
identified with the existing hierarchy ; the 
mystery of the individual relation to God, 
which is expressed in absolution, was made 
dependent on absolute obedience to the clergy. 
These opinions belonged to the s^^stem of faith 

so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.' 
Preached by D. Jacob Strauss, 1522, at Hall, in the valley 
of the Inn." The body and blood of Christ are taken as 
the surest sign of his merciful promises to forgive us our 
sins, if we have faith. This contradiction appears in 
some later writings of this author. 

IJMöhler Symbolik, p. 361. 

"ff Das hailig ewig Wort Gots was das in im kraft, Sterke 
frid, fred, erleuchtung und leben in aym rechten Christen 
zu erwecken vermag— zugestelt dem elden Piitter— Hern 
Jörgen von Fron?perg; von Hang Marscb.alk der genennt 
■Wirt Zoller zu Augsburg, 1523.—" The holy eternal word 
of God, what strength, power, peace and joy, light and 
life it is able to awaken in a true Christian. Addressed 
to the noble Knight George von Fronsperg, by Haug Mar- 
shalk, who was named tax-mae^ter at Augsburg in 1523." 
In his preface he praises the knight, ," dass Eur Gestreng 
yetzumal so hoch benennt und gepreist wird, dass das 
edel rain lauter und unvermischt Wort Gottes, das heilig 
evangelium bey eur gestreng statt hat, mid in eur ritter- 
lich ge'müt und herz" eingemaurt und befestiget," &c.— 
" that your worship is now so highly famed and praised, 
for that the noble, clear, plain, and pure word of God, the 
holy Gospel, has an asylum with your worship, and is 
enclosed and made fast in your knightly spirit and 
heart," &c. 

** Cunrad Distelmar von Arberg; ain trewe Ermannung, 
Sec. 1523. 



Chap. III. 



DIFFUSION OF THE NEW DOCTRINES. 



185 



which defended its authority with fire and 
sword. On the other side, was the obligation 
of faith and Jove ; the idea of the unity of an 
invisible Church consisting in a community of 
souls; the forgiveness of sins through faith in 
the redemption, and reception of the sacrament 
without the necessity of confession ; and, finally, 
belief in the Bible alone as a rule of faith and 
doctrine. We are not now treating of the 
modifications given to their opinions by indi- 
vidual theologians, but simply of the prevalent 
trains of ideas which vrers at war in every part 
of Germany. 

So early as the year 1521, a little work was 
published containing the allegory of this con- 
test, under the name of " The old and the new 
Gods." On the title-page we see, as repre- 
sentatives of the new God, the pope, some of 
the fathers of the church, Aristotle, and,. at the 
bottom of the leaf, Cajetan, Silvester, Eck and 
Faber ; on the opposite page, the true and 
ancient God in his triune form, the four evan- 
gelists, St. Paul grasping a sword, and lastly, 
Luther. The contents of the book were quite 
in character with the frontispiece.^ With the 
ceremonies, rites, and articles of faith which 
had grown up under the protection of the rising 
hierarchy and its bloody sword, and turned 
Christianity into a kind of Judaism, is con- 
trasted the old God, with his authentic word, 
and the simple doctrine of the redemption, of 
hope, faith, and love.| 

These coarse and naked expressions sufiice 
to show that the nation felt wliat were the real 
points in debate. The German mind became 
conscious that the hour of its maturity was 
come; boldly resisted the tyranny of those 
accidental forms which had governed the world, 
and returned to the only true source of religicAis 
instruction.^: 

Considering the vast agitation, the strong 
feeling of conflict, which prevailed, it is doubly 
remarkable how much control men had over 
themselves, and with how much caution they 
often acted. 

Heinrich of Kettenhach continued to assume 
that the Church — by which, however, he un- 



* Panzer, ii. p. 20. 

t See the preface by Hartmann Dulich, printed in 
Veesenmeier's Sammlung von Aufsätzen, p. 135. Tlie 
following passage in Eberlin of Giinzburg's Fraindlicher 
Vermanung, p. iii., shows how much the purpose of the 
whole movement was recognised in these its most promi- 
nent tendencies: '-Ich halt, Luther sey von Gott gesandt 
zu säubern die ßiblia von der lerer auslegung vnd zwang, 
die gewissen zu erlösen von [wanden der menschlichen 
gebot od' bapstgesetzen, und den gaistlichen abziehen den 
titel Christi un seiner kirclien, dz fürohyn nit mer sollich 
gross büberey — strafflos sey und' dem heyligen namen 
Gottes . . . auch i.«t der Luther gesant dz er lere das creutz 
vnd glauben, welche schier durch alle doctores vergessen 
seindt ; darzu ist Luther beruft von Got vnd Got gibt im 
weysshait, kunst, Vernunft, sterke, vnd herz dazu." — "I 
hold that Luther was sent by God to free the Bible from 
the empty expositions and restrictions of the teachers, to 
release the conscience from the bondage of human com- 
mands or popish laws, and to strip ecclesiastics of the 
title of Christ and of his church, so that in future such 
great knavery should no longer remain unpunished in the 
holy name of God. Luther is likewise sent to teach the 
cross and the faith, which are clean forgotten by all the 
doctors. Hereunto was Luther called by God, and to this 
«end has God given him wisdom, knowledge, prudence, 
strength and courage." 

1 Sermon von der Kirche, at the very beginning. 

24 Q* 



derstands an invisible community — possessed 
the treasure of the merits of Christ, of the Vir- 
gin Mary, and of all the elect. 

Eberlin of Günzburg, whilst writing from 
Wittenberg to exhort his friends in Augsburg 
to procure for themselves each a copy of the 
New Testament, even if they had to save the 
price of it out of their food or raiment, admon- 
ishes them at the same time not to be too hasty 
in condemning the opinions of their fathers. 
There were many things, he said, which God 
in his wisdom had kept secret, and which they 
needed not to inquire about ; such as purgatory, 
and the intercession of saints. He adds, that 
even Luther condemned nothing that had not 
some distinct passage of Scripture against it. 

A young Bohemian critic brought forvv^ard a 
whole train of arguments to prove that it was 
very doubtful whether St, Peter had ever been 
in Rome ; and the Catholic party clearly per- 
ceived that if this question was decided in the 
negative, the whole doctrine of the primacy 
would be overthrown. But the theologians of 
Wittenberg did not allow them.selves to be 
dazzled by the brilliant results to which this 
line of argument would lead ; they pronounced 
it to be of no avail§ towards furthering faith 
and piety ; and, indeed, in a work wherein this 
question is treated at length, and the ill effects 
of the abuse of the doctrine of primacy set forth 
with great earnestness, a hope is expressed that 
the new Pope, Adrian VL, would renounce all 
existing errors, and confine himself entirely to 
the precepts of the Bible — which some passages 
in his writings seemed to promise ; and that 
then not only the present differences v/ould be 
healed, but also the old schism ended, and that 
even Greeks and Bohemians would return to 
the bosom of the Church. || 

Others who were less sanguine, were yet of 
opinion that all violent measures were to be 
avoided, and that the abolition of abuses should 
be left to the government. Some, indeed, ex- 
horted their followers to free themselves from 
the dominion of the priesthood, as the Israelites 
did from that of Pharaoh. But even such men 
as the vehement Otho of Brunfels opposed 
them, saying, that "the Word had power to 
improve the state of the world without trouble 
or the sword ; and that things rashly and in- 
considerately begun never ended well. "IT 

This v,'as Luther's opinion also ; and for a 



§ Luther to Spalatin, 17th Feb. 1520, in De \V., i. 559. 

|( Apologia Simonis Hessi adv. dominum Rofiensem 
Episc. Anglicanum super concertatione ejus cum Vlrico 
Veleno. Julio mense 1Ö-23. The author maintains 
chiefly, " quod gentiliter et ambitiöse pro Petri primatu 
a multis pugnetur, cum hinc nihil hicri accedat pietati : 
quod impie abusi sint potestate sua Romani pontifices in 
statuendis quibusdam articulis seditiosis niagis quam 
piis." The passage of Adrian, in titulo de Sacram. bap- 
tismi, is : " Noverit ecclesia se non esse dominam sacra- 
mentorum sed ministram, nee posse magis formam sacra- 
mentalem destituere aut nova.m instituere quam legem 
aliquam divinam aboJere vel novum aliquemfidei articu- 
lum instituere. Spero fore," he then proceeds, " si ille 
perstat in sua sententia, ut tota catholica ecclesia, quse 
nunc in sectas videtur divisa, in unam fidei unitatem 
aggre^etur, adeo ul et Bohemos et Greecos dexteras daturos 
confidam bene proesidenti Romano pontifici." 

TT Vom evangelischen Anstoss, Neuenberg in Breisgau 
Simonis und Judü, 1523. 



186 



OPPOSITION TO THE REGENCY. 



Book III 



long, time it was acted on throughout the whole 
empire. 

Ever}'- thing might yet be hoped from the 
guidance of the Council of Regenc}? ; for in 
directing that the pure word of God should be 
preached, and in avoiding all reference by name 
to the fathers of the Church, who were looked 
upon as the corner-stones of modern Rom.anism, 
the Council of Regency had adopted the most 
important ideas of the reformer^. 

In the year 1523 it took the cause of reform 
more expressly under its protection. 

When Faber, thevicar of Constance, received 
a commission from Rome to preach against 
Luther, and applied to the Council of Regency 
for protection and safe conduct, they gave him 
a letter purporting, indeed, to have that elTect, 
but conceived in such terms that, as Planitz 
says, he would gladly have had a better. 

Duke George made fresh complaints to the 
Regency of Luther's violent attacks, and se- 
veral members of that body were of opinion 
that the elector should be admonished to punish 
him. This, however, was opposed by the 
majority. Count Palatine Frederic, the empe- 
ror's lieutenant, proposed that the duke's letters 
should, at any rate, be sent to the elector. 
" Sir," said Planitz, " the voice of the majority 
decides that my gracious master shall not be 
written to ;" and the duke was told that he 
might make the application to the elector him- 
self. 

In the convocation of a fresh diet, care was 
taken to make no allusion to the religious 
troubles.* 

The main point, however, was that no step 
whatever was taken towards the execution of 
the edict of Worms ; but the new doctrines 
were allowed freely to take their course, in ex- 
pectation of the ecclesiastical council which 
had been demanded. 

It is evident of what importance to the State 
as well as to the Church was the question, — 
whether a government in which sentiments of 
this kind predominated, would be able to main- 
tain itself or not. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OPPOSITION TO THE COUNCIL OF REGENCY. — 
DIET OF 1523-24. 

Two great ideas occupied the mind of the 
whole German nation ; that of a national, re- 
presentative, and at the same tim?, powerful 
government, and that of a complete renovation 
of the religious condition of the country ; both 
these ideas were now, to a considerable extent, 
represented; each received support froni the 
other; and, united, they seemed to promise a 
future equally imporlant in a political and in- 
tellectual point of view. 

All endeavours, however, which are directed 

* Letter from Planitz, dated 2etli Feb., 3d March, and 
18th August, 1523. 



towards ends so vast and comprehensive, in- 
evitably provoke strong and various opposition 
from many quarters. 

Not that the connexion between these two 
important objects was so close as to be evident 
to all minds, or that the antagonists of the op- 
position were fully aware of both its bearings ; 
but each of them roused the peculiar antipathies 
of a class. It by no means followed that those 
who opposed the Council of Regency were 
hostile to the^reformation of the Church. 

We are generally inclined, in our views of 
the past, to fall into the error of ascribinor too 
soon an exaggerated influence to anew element 
of social and political life. „However powerful 
it may be, there are other influences at work 
which it cannot immediately overcome, and 
which continue to exercise their own indepen- 
dent action. 

The hostility to the Council of Regency 
arose from two causes fundamentally opposed. 
In the first place^That hody seemed destined to 
become a powerful and efficient government, — 
a prospect which was far from w^elcome.to 
every one. In the second, it was at present 
very feeble ; it possessed no executive power. 
Hence the first obstacle it encountered was 
disobedience. 

SICiaNGEN AND HIS ADVERSARIES. 

It was not to be expected that the Public 
Peace proclaimed by Charles V. would be 
better observed than those of former reigns. 
Two imperial councillors, Gregory Lamparter 
and Johann Lucas, the master of the treasur}?-, 
were attacked and taken prisoners on their way 
to Augsburg from Worms, wehere they had 
assisted at the closing of the diet. Nürnberg, 
the seat of government and of the couits of 
law, and at this time in a certain sense the 
capital city of the empire, was surrounded on 
all sides by the wildest private wars. Hans 
Thomas of Absberg, doubly irritated by the 
resolutions taken against him by the Swabian 
League, assembled again, in 1522, the most 
daring and reckless reiters from all the sur- 
rounding districts: fresh letters of challenge 
were brought to Nürnberg every day, or were 
found stuck on the whipping-post in the neigh- 
bouring villages; the roads east and west 
became unsafe. There was a lonely chapel at 
Krügelstein, in the territory of Bamberg, where 
mass was said three times a week. Here, 
under colour of hearing it, all tlie bands of 
robbers and their scouts met together. Woe 
to the company of merchants that fell in their 
way, for they not only plundered them of all 
their wares, but had now adopted the barbarous 
practice of cutting off the right hands of their 
prisoners : it was in vain that the wretched 
sufferers implored them at least to cut off the 
left and leave the right. Hans Thomas of 
Absberg thrust the right hand of a shopkeeper, 
W'hich he had chopped off, into the bosom of 
the unfortunate man, and told him that when 
he got to Nürnberg he might give it to the, 
bürgermeister in his name.f 

t Milliner's Nürnberger Annalen for the )'ears J522 and 
1523 contain tins and many other details; for example, 



Chap. IV. 



SICKINGEN. 



187 



The Frankfurt Acts of 1522 present a very 
striking example of the general insecurity. 
Philip Fürstenberg, who was sent by the town 
of Frankfurt to the Council of Regency to 
take part in the government of the empire, 
found the road he had to travel from Milten- 
berg to Wertheim so unsafe, that he quitted 
his carriage, and joining a party of some 
'prentice tailors whom he met, assumed their 
garb, and took a by-road on foot. The carriage 
was attacked by several horseman with bent 
cross-bows. In order to reach Wertheim he 
was forced to take an escort of five or six men 
armed with firelocks or cross-bows.* "The 
Reiters are angry," says he: "what they are 
about I know not." 

In this state of things, when the Council of 
Regency could not even protect its own mem- 
bers, there broke out a private war, more violent 
than any that had disturbed the peace of the 
empire during Maximilian's reign.-. In August, 
1522, Franz von Sickingen, with a well-armed 
force of infantry, cavalry and artillery, ven- 
tured to attack an elector of the empire, the 
Archbishop of Treves, in his own country and 
strongly fortified capital. 

In the main this was merely a private war 
(Fehde) like many others, originating in a 
persona] quarrel (this same elector having once 
earnestly entreated the assistance of the empire 
against Sickingen's outrages in Hessen) ; the 
pretext for which was some doubtful legal 
claims, — especially concerning a fine which 
had been transferred from the archbishop to 
Sickingen; and the re^l object, the plunder, 
and, if possible, the conquest of the fortified 
towns. There exists a most interesting letter 
from an old confidential friend of Sickingen's, 
in which the writer dissuades him from the 
enterprise, and lays before him all the 6hances 
of success or failure."}" 

Other motives were also at work, which gave 
public importance to this undertaking : success 
in a hostile enterprise was no longer Sickingen's 
ultimate aim ; he had an eye to interests of far 
greater moment. 

First of all, to those of the whole body of 
the Knights of the Empire. We have seen 
how great was their discontent at the state of 
public affairs at that time : at the Sv^abian 
League, which took upon itself to be at once 

Riidifikheim und Reuschlein "haben im Junio2Wägen 
Diit Kupfer beladen z\yo Meil von Fiankfurt angenom- 
men und die Fuhrleut unsrescheut benötliiget, dasssie das 
Kupfer in das Schloss Rücking, dem von Rüdigkheiin 
zugehörig, führen müssen." — "Rüdiskheim andReuschiin 
did in June take, two miles from Frankfurt, two wagons 
loaded with copper, and in the most shameless manner 
constrained the drivers to convey the copper to the castle 
Bucking, which belonged to Rüdigkheiin." Rüdigkheim 
wrote to the burgher of Nürnberg, to whom the copper 
belonged, that if he wished to have it back, he might 
come and buy it of him. Tliey were exasperated because 
the citizens of Nürnberg had complained to the emperor. 

* Fürstenberg writes from Wertheim on St. Peter's and 
Paul's day, 1522: •' also hab ichmeyn gnedigen Herrn ge- 
beten, uns gen Wirtzburg zu verhelfen : ist er willig, Gott 
helf uns furter." — " I have then besought my gracious 
Lord to assist us in our journey to Würzburg : if he be 
v.'ilhng, God help us further." 

t Balthazar Scblör's letter to Sickingen, without date, 
but immediately before the outbreak of hostilities, in 
Gunther's Coder Diploma ticus Rheuo-Mosellanus, v. p. 
202. 



accuser, judge and executor of its own sen- 
tences ; at the Imperial Chamber, whose pra- 
ceedings were only directed against the weak, 
and left the strong to their own guidance ; at 
the encroachments of the pririces, their courts 
of law, taxes and feudal privileges.-^- In the 
spring of 1522 the nobility of the Upper Rhine 
met at Landau, and resolved that they would 
only allow their feudal affairs to be judged 
before feudal judges and vassals, according to 
old custom ; and their difi'erences with those 
of other classes, before tribunals composed of 
impartial judges, of knightly rank ;^ -wra^at 
they would come to the assistance of every 
man to whom this was refused. They elected 
Franz von Sickingen their leader in this matter. 
An address to the imperial towns, written by 
Hütten and dated 1522, § is the manifesto of 
the opinions entertained by Sickingen and his 
followers. Never were the sovereign princes 
more vehemently accused of violence and in-; 
justice ; the towns were invited to accept the 
friendship and alliance of the nobility, and 
above all, to destroy the Council of Regency, 
which Hütten looked upon as the representative 
of the princely power. 

The religious dissensions gave, of course, a 
strong additional impulse to hostilities under- 
taken against one of the most powerful of the 
spiritual princes. The Ebernburg was, in fact, 
the first place in which the evangelical service 
was regularly celebrated in its new forms.. 
Sickingen's followers v.'ent further than the 
school of Wittenberg. »JT-hej considered the 
administration of the Lord's Supper in both 
kinds not alone lawful, but absolutely necessary .^ 
John CEcolampadius was the first who con- 
demned as pernicious the spiritual satisfaction 
which the people felt at listening every day to 
the unintelligible muttering of the mass, being 
present at the ceremony of benediction, and 
commending themselves to God without much 
expenditure of time or attention; and he ac- 
cordingly read the mass only on Sundays, 
omitting the elevation of the host, and using 
none but the German language. 1| There is a 
letter extant written by Sickingen himself, in 
which he inveighs against the use of pictures 
in churches, and pronounces them better fitted 
for the decoration of stately halls ; he also de- 
claims against the invocation of saints. The 



X " . . .wo der Kleger den Antwurter erfordert vor sein 
des Antwurters Genoss, oder ungefehrlich dem etwas 
gemess oder darüber, unparteilichs Rechten oder Austrags, 
vor die, so inlendisch der Sachen gesessen oder gelegen 
seyn." — " where the plaintiff cites the defendant before a 
tribunal composed of his own and the defendant's peers 
(or nearly so), and having jurisdiction over affairs occur- 
ring in the country." 

§ "Beklagunge der Freistette deutscher nation." — 
" Complaints of the free cities of the German nation." — 
The date is ascertained by these words: — 

"Der (Kaiser) zeuciit nun von uns wider Alher; 
Sis wollen nit, dass er widerkheer." 
" The emperor now leaves us again ; 
They wish he may not come back." 

These ideas prevailed in the following year also, as we 
learn from a writing by Kettenbach : " Practica practi- 
cirt," (Sec. (Panzer, ii. ]90,) wherein the cities are ex- 
horted not to involve themselves in the disputes between 
the nobles and the princes. 

!J CEcolampadii Epistola ad Hedionem in Gerdesius 
Historia Evaugelii, torn. i. Monumenta, p. 166. 



188 



iSICKINGEN. 



Book III. 



marriage of Johann Schwebel, one of his 
preachers, was arranged by him. One of his 
friends was Hartmuth von Kronenberg, w^ho 
may be considered as ihe earliest specimen of 
a pious and earnest Lutheran in the style of 
more modern times.* 

The connexion with these mighty elements 
gave unwonted importance to Sickingen's en- 
terprises. The majority of the whole knight- 
hood of the empire was on his side, and ex- 
erted itself in his favour ; he also called on 
Luther, to whom he had formerly offered pro- 
tection, for his support. And assuredly it 
would have been no mean alliance, had the 
monk, whom the nation honoured as a prophet, 
taken up his abode with the brave and puissant 
knight, and lent to the formidable bands of the 
Ebernburg the powerful aid of his w^ord.\/But 
Luther had the' great good sense to avoid all 
political connexions, to attempt no violence, 
and to trust solely and entirely to the might of 
his doctrines. Sickingen received nothing 
from Saxony but dissuasions. Nevertheless, 
his manifesto to the inhabitants of Treves 
shows how much he reckoned on the prevailing 
national inclinations ; for he promises that " he 
will deliver them from the heavy antichristian 
yoke of the priesthooda.nd lead them to evan- 
gelical freedom. "jAThe ideas and sentiments 
of a warlike noble, who feels himself a match 
even for a powerful prince; of the head of the 
whole order of knighthood ; and of a champion 
of the new relig^ious opinions, were all blended 
in his mindi--It is a significant fact that Hütten, 
in one of his dialogues, puts into the mouth of 
Sickingen an ardent panegyric on Ziska, the 
invincible hero who cleared his country of 
monks and idle priests, em.ployed their pro- 
perty for the genered good, and put a stop to 
the depredations of Rome.ij: 

On the 27th of August, 1522, Sickingen 
declared war against the archbishop, chiefly for 
those things " wherein he had acted against 
God and the emperor's majesty." Secretly 
assisted, rather than hindered, by the Elector 
of Mainz, he arrived before Treves on the 7th 
of September, having taken St. Wendel. He 
crossed the jMarsberg with 1500 horse, 5000 
foot, and a considerable body of artillery ;§ 
and we have reason to believe that he expected 
to be joined at this point by his friends, Ren- 
nenberg, who was recruiting for him in Cleves 
and Juliers; the bastard of Sombreff, who 
was doing the same in the archbishopric of 
Cologne; and Hanz Voss, vrho was arming 
in the territory of Limburg; Nickel Minkwitz, 
too, was to join him with 1500 men out of 
Brunswick. In Sickingen's camp, it was ru- 
moured that he would soon be elector ; nay, 
perhaps something even greater stilL The 
eyes of .the whole empire were turned upon his 

* Letters from Kronenber? to the four mendicant 
orders, 25th June, 1522, and to the inhabitants of Krouen- 
berg ; Münch's Sickingen, ii. pp. 145 and 153. 

t E.xtract3 from the manifestoes in Meiner's Leben 
Huttens, p.-3]7. 

I Monitor Secundus Opp., iv. p-. 144. 

§ This number, smaller than that which is usually 
given, is taken from the Fiersheiraer Chronik, in Münch's 
Sickingen, jii. p. 215. 



movements ; the delegate of Duke George of 
Saxony wrote to his master that nothing so 
dangerous to the princes of the empire had 
been' attempted for centuries. || Others affirmed 
that affairs were in such a state, that before 
long it v>'ould be impossible to know who was 
king or emperor, prince or lord. 

The turbulent and anarchical power of the 
knights thus once more threatened the peace 
and security of the whole empire. It is not 
easy to imagine what would have been the 
result had they been successful. 

It is scarcely credible that a tolerably v.-ell- 
organised government could have been formed 
out of the several knightships which were now 
become absolute and independent sovereignties ; 
or that the wild and arbitrary courses of men 
who were accustomed to look to their swords 
for right and security, could easily have been 
restrained by the sermons of the reformers : it 
is at least certain that fficolampadius found a 
hard and ungrateful soil on Sickingen's moun- 
tain fortress. INIoreover, the elements of which 
this body was composed were of the most 
heterogeneous natures : the knighthood — one 
of the most peculiar products of the middle 
ages — arose out of, and existed in, the disorga- 
nization of the powers of the state : whereas 
the declared tendency of the new religious 
system was to renovate and confirm those 
powers. The position of Sickingen himself 
was anomalous : the forces which he led were 
by no means of a chivalrous kind ; he was at the 
head of a hired army which could only be held 
together by money, and furnished with the 
apparatus for a kind of warfare -essentially 
opposed to all knightly modes of combat. 
Strange spectacle ! — the forces which decided 
the fate of the world in two different ages were 
here in contact, and it was imagined that they 
could be brought to unite and co-operate ! We, 
in our days, can see how impossible was such 
a union ; for it is only by keeping pace, sin- 
cerely and energetically,. with the progress of 
society, that any thing permanent can be 
effected. Even at that time, however, it was 
perceived, that if the power of the princes 
were overthrown, and the constitution of the 
empire (which was as 3'^et by no means firmly 
establi^ed) broken up, nothing was to be ex- 
pected but an exclusive, violent, and at the 
same time self-conflicting rule of the nobles. 

The question then was, who should under- 
take the defence of public order, thus fearfully 
menaced. 

The Council of Regeiicy did all that was in 
its power. Remonstrances were sent to Sick- 
ingen, and mandates to all the neighbouring 
princes, enjoining them to resist his attempts. 
On Sickingen, the warnings from the Regency 
made little impression: he yeplied, that he 
himself intended to introduce a new order of 
things into the empire.^ He utterly refused 



li Letter in the Royal Saxon Archives. 

TT Planitz to the Elector Frederic, 13th Sept. : " Sickingen 
habe gesagt, er wolle sigh eines Thuns unterstehn, dessen 
sich kein "lömischer Kaiser unterstanden. 28th Sept. er 
habe den Boten des Regiments gesagt : er wisst vorwar, 
sein Herr der Kaiser %verde nicht zürnen, ob er den Pfaffen 
ein w-enie strafet und ihm die Kronen eintränkt, die er 



Chap. IV. 



SICKINGEN. 



180 



to submit to a decision of the Imperial Chamber, 
and said that he had a court of justice of his 
own, composed of soldiers who argued with 
muskets and carronades. It is very probable 
that his whole army did not t^ink as he did; 
at any rate, the Council of Regency asserted 
that Franz's following and power were greatly 
diminished in consequence of their efforts. Eut 
a far weightier authority was required to' force 
him to submission, and every thing depended 
on the resistance he would find from the elector 
and his allies. 

Richard von Greiffenldau, Archbishop of 
Treves, had made the best possible prepara- 
tions. He had burned. dow"n the convent of 
St. Maximin, on which the enemy rec^koned 
for stores, bringing in his own hand the first 
torch that fired it : in the town, his presence 
kept down the disturbances which certainl}' 
had begun. The clergy mounted guard round 
the cathedral, the citizens in the market-place, 
the mercenaries on the walls and in the towers ; 
and the conduct of the war was entrusted to 
the native nobles who had not deserted the 
cause of the see. 

While Sickingen, who had calculated on 
making a coup-de-main, now met with an un- 
expected and determined resistance, it so hap- 
pened that all his friends and allies, v;hose 
arrival was necessary to the completion of his 
force, were either detained or beaten. The 
Duke of Cleves and the Elector of Cologne 
ordered all the horsemen v/ho had been re- 
cruited in their territories, to stay at home, 
under pain of forfeiture of their fiefs, and even 
of their lives. The young Landgrave of Hessen 
succeeded in defeating Minkwitz's troops as 
they were marching from Brunswick ; taking 
their leader, with all his papers, prisoner, and 
finally inducing the soldiers to enter his own 
service.* All these reverses deterred the Lüne- 
burg and Westphalian troops from taking the 
field at all. 

On the other side, tlie Elector Palatine, Sick- 
ingen'.s former patron, as well as his old and 
bitter enemy the Landgrave of Hessen, took 
arms and hastened to the assistance of their 
neighbour and ally, the Elector of Treves. 

Sickingen, deprived of the support he had 
expected, and encamped before a bravely de- 
fended town, in an open country, among a 
peoßle exasperated by his devastations, did not 
dare to await the conjunction of forces so su- 
perior to his own; besides this, he himself did 
not evince that energy and those resources of 
talent and bravery, without which no one can 
venture with impunity on such hazardous en- 

penommeii hätte." "Sickingen had said he would dare 
to do a deed which no Roman emperor liad j'et darefl. 
28th Sept. he said to the messenger of the Regency, he 
knew for certain that his lord the emperor would not be 
angry because he punished the priest a little, and paid 
him oiF for the crowns he had taken." People really 
began to believe that the emperor might have some under- 
standing with him. The emperor afterwards said, Franz 
had not served him well enough to induce him to connive 
at matters of this sort. 

* Letter from Landgrave Philip to the Elector of Treves, 
5ih Sept. 1522, in Rommel's Geschichte von Hessen, vol 
V. p. 858. 



terprises. On the 14th of September he was 
compelled to abandon Treves, j 

That one week sufficed to give a turn to the 
whole destiny of Germany. 

The three sovereigns who represented the 
threatened princely power, were thus triumphant 
over the rebellious knights and their leaders. 
They were not content with clearing the arch- 
bishopric of its enemies; and though, strange 
to say, they did not pursue Sickingen, they 
immediately attacked his allies. 

The Elector of Mainz, who was accused of 
allowing a detachment of Sickingen's horse to 
pass the Rhine unmolested, was forced to buy 
his peace at the cost of 25,000 gulden.ij: 

Hartmuth von Kronenberg, whom the land- 
grave \vanted above all to punish for the'share 
he had taken in Sickingen's foray on Darm- 
stadt, was beleaguered in his castle near Frank- 
furt. The landgrave would not hear of pardon 
or conditions ; he helped to point the cannon 
with his own hand. The knight escaped but 
just in time, for his fortress was forced to sur- 
render on the 16th of October. The three 
princes received in person the oaths of allegiance 
from the inhabitants, and the town was for a 
longtime treated as Hessian. § 

They next marched against Frov/en von 
Hütten, " because he had taken part in the re- 
bellion, and received proclaimed outlaws in his 
house :" his castle of Saalmünster was taken. 

The same fate was shared by Philip Waiss 
of Haussen in the Blark of Fulda, and by 
Rudeken in Rukingen ; others endeavoured to 
save themselves by negotiation. 

A similar storm threatened Sickingen's allies 
in distant parts of the country. The Fran- 
conian nobles had not, it is true, directly as- 
sisted him, but they had encouraged him in his 
project, and had generally adhered to his faction: 
the Swabian League, on the contrary, had 
made common cause with the princes, espe- 
cially with the Elector Palatine, and now 
summbned the Franconian knights before its 
tribunal, to stand their trial for certain breaches 
of the Public Peace. The knights did not 
consider themselves bound to obey this citation, 
and, accordingly, met at Schweinfurt to protest 
against it : they w^ere still determined to defend 
themselves. The vassals of the Bishop of 
Vvürzburg, who had been the last to join the 
League, were so exasperated at his tardiness, 
that, in the beginning of the year 1523, they 
deprived him of all his offices. This threw 
all Swabia and Franconia into confusion. From 
the very superior strength of the League, the 
result of the struggle was easily foreseen, 
unless the Council of Regency had power to 
prevent it. 

Events indeed now acquired a totally dif- 
ferent character and importance, from their 



t These events at Treves are described by Latomus and 
Browerns, Annal. Trev. ii. 340, who has also quoted La- 
tomus Gesta Trevirorum in Hontheim's Prodromus, p. 
858, Chronicon S. Maximini, ibid. p. 1035. 

J The delegate of Duke George says that this is one of 
the reasons : " Die andern stecken in der Feder." — " The 
others stick in the pen." 

§ Tendel : " Beschreibung der Belagerung von Kronen- 
berg."— Munch, iii, p. 28. 



190 



SICKINGEN. 



Book III. 



ejffect on tins supreme administraÜTe body of 
the empire. 

Its authority was formerly resisted and con- 
temned by Sickingen and his friends, for which, 
on the accusation of the procurator of Treves, 
Sickingen had been outlawed on the 8th of 
October, contrary to the laws of the empire, 
without summons or trial. Now. however, his 
enemies placed themselves in an attitude of 
equal defiance, and of equal peril to the Council 
of Regency : instead of pursuing the outlaw 
himself, they attacked his supposed allies, 
frequently without proof of their guilt, and 
took their fortified dwellings. The Swabian 
League, vvhich already declared that it had 
only acquiesced in the creation of the Council 
of Regency on the supposition of its union, 
jww openly usurped part of the functions of 
the Imperial Chamber by the citations before 
its own tribunal to which we have alluded; 
and it did not deign even to return an answer 
to an admonition not to molest people about 
the Public Peace. 

]Me;}i's pretensions naturally rise with their 
power. As the attempts of Sickingen, and 
the insubordinate spirit of the Franc6nian no- 
bilit}- had not been put down by the Council 
of Regency, but by the superior force and the 
arms of their neighbours, it was natural that 
the latter should now continue the struggle 
with a view to their own interests, without 
much regard to the supreme authority of the 
empire."^ 

Hence it happened that the Council of Re- 
gency soon took under its protection the very 
men it had but just before treated as its ene- 
mies. Frowen von Hütten, after the opinions 
of the most considerable m.embers of the Im- 
perial Chamber had been heard, obtained 
without much trouble a mandate wherein the 
princes were required to restore all his castles 
to him; and shortly after a formal judgment 
was given in his favour. At the same time, 
the Council of Regency pressed the princes to 
release the Elector of ^Mainz from the conditions 
so arbitrarily imposed on him.i These princes 
had wished for the aid of the empire to put 
down the outlawed Sickingen ; but this they 
found it impossible to obtain, either from the 
Regency or from the Estates assembled in the 
beginning of the year 1523 ; if the sentence of 
outlawry had not already been pronounced, we 
may safely assume that it would not have been 
pronounced at all.:j: Some members of the 
Swabian League proposed that all meetings 
and associations among the order of knights 
should be forbidden, but to this the Regency 
could not now be brought to consent 4 on the 
contrary, it proclaimed its intention of protect- 
ing all the knights, except those who had 
committed any offence against the Public Peace. 

* See the letter from the Elector of Treves, 2d Nov. 
1522, in Munch, iii. 33. 

t Planitz, 4th Feb. ]523, says, they should release him 
from his obligations, and give Sickingen an amicable 
hearing. 

X Planitz thought on the 24th Nov. that sentence of 
outlawry would not be pronounced against Sickingen, 
" man hätte ihn denn citiert ; aber geschehn ist geschehn" 
— "without citing him to appear; but wiiat is done is 
done." 



It appears to me that the knights as a body 
now first became of real importance to the or- 
ganization and progress of the empire. Their 
wild project of founding an independent power 
j was at an end. The Council of Regency was 
their sole support, and they found themselves 
under the necessity of making common cause 
with it. The union of these two bodies, esseii- 
tially distinct, was rendered more strict by the 
circumstance that the knights and the Regency 
had both embraced the evangelical doctrines. 
For the same reason, the Elector of Saxony, 
who was the main prop of the Regency, entered 
into a kind of alliance with the knights. In 
the second quarter of the year 1523, when the 
duty of personal attendance at the Council of 
Regency fell upon the Elector of Mainz, his 
place was filled by his cousin, the grand master, 
Albert of Prussia, whose sole purpose was to 
m^aintain the dominion of his order, i. e. the 
Teutonic knights, and especially those of 
Swabia and Franconia, in. their own country, 
and to set the whole pow-ers" of the empire in 
motion to that effect. 

Little as it had been to be desired a 5'^ear ago, 
that Sickingen should conquer Treves, it was 
of great importance that he should be able to 
defend himself against the attacks which were 
preparing against him in the spring of 1523. 

Thus, by a strange turn of fate, the safety 
of the knight Avho had so often disturbed the 
Public Peace, and committed so many deeds 
of violence, became now, after he was out- 
lawed, inextricably bound up with the interests 
of order in the empire. 

Nor did he by any means give up his cause : 

he expected to receive assistance from Lower 

Germany, and from the LTpper Rhine ; to be 

joined by the Bohemian and Franconian 

knights, and to be supported by the Lutherans, 

From his fortress of Landstuhl, where he was 

then living, he one day descried horsemen 

among the distant underwood ; he flattered 

himself that they were Lutherans who were 

coming to see what he was about, but they 

] came no nearer, and tied their horses to the 

I bushes. § What he saw was the advanced 

I guard of the enemy who were approaching to 

j besiege him. 

Meanwhile he had no apprehension. Hs 

! had just repaired his fortress; and had no 

doubt that he would be able to stand a siege 

of three months at least, in W'hich time his 

allies would come up and relieve him. • 

But the event proved that he had not rightly 
calculated the improvement that had taken 
place in the engines cf war during the preceding 
century. Fie had no other means of defence 
than those used by the knights of old : it re- 
mained to be seen whether theJofty situation, 
the vaulted towers — solid as the rocks they 
stood on — and the massive walls, could afford 
protection against artillery. It was soon evident 
that the old defences were far too weak for the 
modern arts of war. On the 30th of April 
1523, the princes began to bombard the castle 
with carronades and culverins, well supplied 

§ Hubert Th. Leodius, Acta et GestaTrancisci de Sick- 
ingen in Freher Script. Rer. Germ. iii. p. 305. 



Chap. IV. 



SICKINGEN. 



191 



with ammunition and well served. The young 
landgrave, who appeared in the dress of a 
landsknecht, showed courage and skill :* the 
great tower, which commanded and threatened 
their camp, fell the same day : the nevv'ness of 
its walls made them less able to withstand the 
shock of the cannon-balls. Sickingen seeing 
this unexpected misfortune, went to a loophole, 
and leaning on a battering engine, sought to 
get a view of the state of things, and of what '* 
was to be done. A culverin happened at the 
moment to be pointed in that direction with 
but too sure an aim ; the implements of de- 
fence were scattered in all directions, and 
Sickingen himself was hurled against a sharj) 
beam and mortally wounded in the side. 

The whole fortress was a ruin : in the only 
vault which remained standing, lay the lord of 
the castle, bereft of all hope. No help ap- 
peared in sight. " V\"here now," said Sick- 
ingen, " are those gentlemen, my friends, who 
promised me so much 1 Where is Fürstenberg ] 
where are the Swiss and the Strasburgers V 
He was at last forced to capitulate. | 

The princes having refused to allow him 
liberty to evacuate the castle, as, according to 
custom, he proposed, he said,» "I will not be 
their prisoner long." He had scarcely strength 
enough left to sign the conditions, and lay 
dying when the princes entered the donjon. 

The Elector of Treves said, "^Yhat charge 
had you to bring against me, Franz, that you 
attacked me and my poor subjects in m}' see 1" 
"And what against me," said the landgrave, 
" that 3'ou invaded my land in my nonage ]" 
Sickingen replied, " I have now to render an 
account to a greater sovereign." 

His chaplain Nicolas asked him whether he 
wished to confess, but he answered, "I have 
already confessed to God in mj heart." 

The chaplain addressed to him some last 
words of consolation, and held up the host; 
the princes bared their heads and knelt down : 
at that moment Sickingen expired, and the 
princes said a paternoster for his souL:i: 

Sickingen's memory will live for ever ; net 
on account of any great achievements productive 
of lasting results, nor even on account of his 
extraordinary bravery, or of any eminent moral 
qualities he evinced, but for the novelty and 
importance of the position to which he gradually 
attained^ The first step in his rise v.-as his 
connexion with the Elector Palatine, vv-ho em- 
ployed him against his enemies, opened a 
career to him, and afforded him support and 
assistance both publicly and in secret. Thus 
in a short time, from an inconsiderable knio-ht, 
possessor only of two or three mountain castles, 
he became a povrerfal Condottiere, who could 
bring a small army into the field at his own 
charges. The more considerable he became, 



* Lettera da Ispruch a dl 12 xMazo, 15-23, al S^ Mch. di 
Mantoa. " 11 Landgrafio si e portato inagnaiiiinamente, 
essendo sempre stato de li primi, in zuppone con le caize 
tagliate et in corsaietto da Lanzichenech, et e giovane di 
18 amn.''—Sanuto's Cron. Ven. vol. xxx'iv. 

t Account of what occurred in the wars of Franz Sick- 
ingen ; Spalatin, Sammlung zu Sachs. Gesch., v. p. 148^ 

X The Flersheimer Chronik contains the most authentic 
account. Pdiinch, iii. 222. 



the more he felt tempted to pursue his own line 
of policy, and justified in doing so. The 
Würtemberg war was the first occasion on 
which he separated himself from the elector, 
who did not cordially approve that enterprise. 
He did not, however, on that account join 
the Swabian League ; on the contrary, he soon 
entered into the closest alliance with the Fran- 
conian knights, with whom that body was at 
enmity. This it was that rendered his position 
so iiTiposing. We have seen how, a few years 
before, Würtemberg, the Palatinate, and 
Würzburg opposed the Swabian League with 
■the aid of the knights. Now% hoAvever, the 
princes had been forced to join the league, and 
Würtemberg had been subdued; so that Sick- 
ingen and the knights maintained the opposition 
single-handed. Visions of reviving the ancient 
independence of the nobilit}'^ ; of freeing them- 
selves from the territorial jurisdiction of the 
temporal and spiritual princes, and of opening 
the way for the spread of tfie new religious 
convictions, iloated before their minds. Never 
was there a more singular combination : in the 
midst of the deeds of violence that were com- 
mitted, there was a lively and ready apprehen- 
sion of great ideas : it is this strange union 
which characterizes the nobility of that time. 
Meanwhile they had neither the intellectual 
power ncr the political influence necessary to 
carr}' out projects of such a nature. When 
Sickingen at last decidedly attacked the 
princely authority, mightier powers took the 
field against him ; the Palatinate not only 
abandoned him., but combined with his enemies 
for his destruction. § He then discovered that 
he was not so strong as he believed himself to 
be, that he did not owe his elevation to his own 
powers alone, and that those which had helped 
to raise, were now turned against him. In this 
confljkct he perished. 

The taking of Landstuhl was a victory of 
the order of princes {FürstentJium) over that 
of knights {Riiterthum) ; of the cannon over 
the stronghold, and in so far, of the new order 
of things over the old ; it fortified the newly 
arisen independent powers of the empire. 

^11 the castles belonging to Sickingen and 
his friends now fell into the hands of the 
princes. They were twenty-seven in all, in- 
cluding those taken in the course of the autumn. 
Those on the right bank of the Rhine fell to 
the share of the landgrave, those on the left 
were divided betw^een the elector palatine and 
the archbishop. In the Ebernberg, the only 
castle that defended itself for any length of 
time, rich booty was taken, — splendid jewels 
and plate, both for w^orldly and religious pur- 
poses ; but above all, thirty-six pieces of artil- 
lery, the linest of which — the Nightingale, 
cast by Master Stephen of Frankfurt^ — measured 
thirteen feet and a half, weighed seventy hun- 



§ Contemporaries saw it in this light, as is shown hy 
the dialogue between the Fox and the Vv^olf: "Wolf: 
Wie niainstu hat der Pfalzgraff gethon, wir wollen gut 
feiste Bolz erlangt han? Fuths : es ist bei Got war, der- 
selb hat uns allein den Schaden thon des wir uns nit ver- 
sehen."— '"The Wolf: How thinkest thou, has the elector 
palatine done— should we have received good large cross- 
bow bolts? The Fox :. It is true, by God; h^ alone has 
done us the mischief against which we had not guarded." 



192 



FRANCONIAN KNIGHTS. 



Book III. 



dred weight, and was decorated with the 
figures of the knight and his lady, their re- 
spective ancestors, and the saint for whom tliey 
had formerly had a peculiar devotion — St. 
Francis.* This was part of the landgrave's 
share. The princes hound themselves to aid 
each other to keep what they had won in com- 
mon, after which, on tire 6th of June, they 
separated. 

At the same moment the Swabian League 
held a meeting at Nördlingen, to which all the 
Franconian knights accused of a breach of the 
Public Peace were summoned for trial. Some 
of them succeeded in clearing themselves from 
suspicion : others appeared, but failing to prove 
their innocence, they were not admitted to their 
oath. Man)'- altogether disdained to present 
themselves before the councillors of the league. | 
Against the two last classes, an army of 1500 
horse and 15,000 foot assembled on the 15th 
.Tune, at Dünkelspiel, under the command of 
George Truchsess : the cities of Augsburg, 
Ulm, and Nürnberg provided the artiHer5\:|: 
Such an army as this was far too powerful to 
be resisted by the Franconian nobles. Bocks- 
berg, near Mergentheim, was considered the 
strongest castle in Franconia, and upon it, on 
the advice of the Nürnbergers, the march was 
first directed. The Rosenbergs, to whom it 
belonged, had orrginaljy meant to defend them- 
selves, and had hired a troop of landsknechts 
and musketeers to serve their guns ; but when 
they saw such an overpowering force, they 
gave up all idea of defence, and surrendered 
their castle with its stores. This example put 
an end to all resistance. The castle of Absberg 
was burnt, and nothing left standing but the 
bare walls. In the Krügelstein there stood a 
tourer, the walls of which were eight feet 
thick, even at the top; this was blown up 
with gunpow^der. Waldstein, in the midst cf 
its wilderness, whither many a prisoner had 
been dragged, was blown up and destro)'^ed by 
Wolf von Freiberg, the captain of the city of 
Augsburg : twenty-six castles are enumerated, 
all of which were seized, and most destroyed. 
Some of these Vv^ere Bohemian fiefs; and at 
first tlie Bohemians haU made a show of re- 
sistance in the neighbourhood of the moun- 
tains; but the League ordered its commander 
to act up to his instructions, without regard to 
the Bohemians, v^'ho accordingly retreated, 
leaving him to fulfil his terrible commission. 

The independent knights were utterly crushed. 
Just as they had caught the inspiration of re- 
ligion, and had hoped by its influence to open 
a new career for themselves, their power was 
broken for ever. We must not fail to observe 
a fact intimately connected with this event. 
The man who first brought the warlike spirit of 
knighthood into contact with the religious agita- 
tions of the times, Ulrich von Hütten, was in- 

* Report in Spalatin, p. 151. 

t Letter from Nörcllinsen in the Dresden Archives, he- 
ginning of Jime, 15-23, "clor Bund geht te_glich zwir in 
Rath." — "The league meets in council everv day." 
Chiefly from Miillner's Annalen, which contains a'joarnal 
of the whole expedition. ^ 

I Nürnberg gave 2 cannon, 2 cai-ronadep, 2 nightingales, 
•2 culverins, 6 rabinets, 6 mortars, 60 pole-axes. 



volved in the common catastrophe. He had given 
to Sickingen's enterprises the incalculable aid 
of a zealous counsellor and encouraging friend : 
he was, therefore, naturally struck with con- 
sternation at his fall. He dared not ^endanger 
the safety of his relations by his presence ; and 
in Upper Germany he was equally obnoxious 
to the vengeance of the spiritual, and of the 
victorious temporal authorities ; he took refuge 
in Switzerland, as others had done in Saxony. 
There he fell again into the same bitter and 
desponding state of mind which he had once 
laboured under in his youth. Nor, even here, 
did he always find a welcome ; he wandered 
from place to place, under the unhappy neces- 
sity of asking money and assistance of his 
literary friends, many of whom shunned him 
as dangerous. Erasmus, who carefully kept 
up his connexions among the great, was fright- 
ened at the idea of receiving a visit from him, 
'and avoided and repulsed him. In addition to 
this, his old disease broke out again in a 
dreadful manner. Yet the veteran combatant 
did not lose his courage ; once more he poured 
forth all the vehemence of his rhetoric against 
Erasmus, whom he looked upon as an apostate. 
But he had now no longer strength to bear 
such violent emotions and exertions, and before 
he could receive the answer of Erasmus, dis- 
ease put an end to his life : — he died at Ufnau, 
on the lake of Zürich, where he had gone at 
Zwingli's advice to consult a priest skilled in 
the healing art.§ 

It was fortunate for Luther that he had made 
no closer alliance v/ith the knights ; as both he 
and tlie doctrine he preached vrould have been 
involved in their evil destiny. 

If we now return to the point v;hence we 
started, we shall clearly perceive, that the 
whole turn of afiairs Avas unpropitious, and 
even dangerous, to the Council of Regency. 
It Vv'ould indeed have been unable to do any 
thing for Sickingen, having tied its own hands 
by declaring him an outlaw ; it would however 
gladly have afl'orded protection to the knightly 
order ; but what resistance could it possibly 
m.ake to two such powerful armies as those of 
the League and of the princes 1 Moreover 
these two powers, emboldened by conquests, 
assumed an attitude of still greafer defiance, 
and even hostility. The princes declared the 
judgment in favour of Frowen von Hütten 
invalid and illegal, || and rejected the proceed- 
ings of the Regency in that and all other cases. 

To this dangerous hostility another no less 
formidable was soon added. 

THE CITIES AND THE IMPERIAL COURT. 

Under the circumstances we have been de- 
scribing, the establishment of the proposed 
import duties, by Vvhich the povv^er of the 



§ Zwinglius to Wolfhardt, 11th Oct., " libros nullos ha- 
buit, supellectilem nuiiam praeter calamum." — JEpp., u. 
313. 

!l Pianitz,23d July. He thinks that, under such circum- 
stances, the Council of Regency could not last long: 
"Denn der dreier Fürstent und des Bunds Vornehmen 
will sieht mit unsern gethanen Pflichten gar nicht leiden." 
—"The intentions of the three princes and of the league 
will not square with our duties." 



Chap. IV. 



THE CITIES AXD THE IMPERIAL COURT, 



193 



Council of Regency must have been materially 
increased, could not have failed to produce 
important results. There ought to have been 
no hesitation on the subject ; the States had 
resolved on it ; the emperor had given his con- 
sent beforehand. A messenger from the lieu- 
tenant of the Empire had already carried the 
acts and the Recess of the diet to Spain. 

But we have already remarked how much 
the cities thought themselves injured and en- 
dangered by such an interference with com- 
merce : they were determined not to submit 
to it without resistance. 

They had also many other grievances to 
allege. 

In the year 1521, the decree concerning the 
levies for the expedition to Rome had been 
passed without summoning the cities, according 
to ancient usage, to the deliberation. The 
cities immediately complained, whereupon an 
explanation was given which satisfied them 
for the moment. 

Since then, however, the attempts made to 
meet the exigencies of the empire by taxes 
which would have fallen most heavily on the 
cities ; their determined resistance ; the attacks 
on the monopolies on the one side, and the 
obstinate maintenance of them on the other, 
had been continually augmenting the ill-will 
between the cities and the higher classes ; and 
at the diet of 1522-3 it openly burst forth. 

A general meeting of the States was an- 
nounced for the 11th of December. 1522, in 
order to hear and discuss proposals to be made 
by the Council of Regenby and the committee, 
for succours to be granted to the Hungarians. 
It had formerly been customary for the Council 
of Regency, after submitting a proposition, to 
retire and leave the three colleges to deliberate 
thereupon. On this occasion, however, the 
Regency did not retire : the electors and princes 
assented to its proposal without separating, 
and it was then laid before the cities. The 
cities, which were peculiarly interested in 
questions of this kind, and always rather hard to 
satisf}", asked time for consideration — only till 
the afternoon. Hereupon they received an 
answer which they little expected : they were 
told, that " the usage in the empire was, that 
when a thing was determined on by the electors, 
princps and other Estates, the cities should be 
content to abide by it." The citizens, on their 
side, contended, that if they were to share 
weal and woe with the other States, they ought 
also to have a voice in the deliberations ; in 
short, that those who took their purses must 
be fain to take their counsel. The subsidies in 
money were what they particularly objected 
to; like the other States, they would only 
furnish men. But no attention was paid by the 
assembly to a resolution they drew up to this 
effect. A mandate was issued, requiring them 
to furnish contributions which they had never 
voted : they asked fresh time for deliberation, 
but were again told that it was not the practice : 
they were preparing to reply when it struck 
eleven, and the sittinor was dissolved.* 



Letter from Holzhausen to Frankfort, Dec. 1522. 
25 R 



The cities were the more confounded at this 
proceeding, on being told that it was by special 
favour that two of their deputies were received 
into the committee, whereas the counts had only 
one : thay thought this betrayed an intention 
of excluding them from the committees alto- 
gether. In the year 14S7, they had given up 
the opposition which, as a body, they had lon^ 
maintained, because the Elector Berthold of 
Mainz had, as we saw, obtained for them a 
practical share in the deliberations ; and we 
knov%- how powerfully this was sometimes ex- 
ercised : they now supposed that the intention 
was to strip them of all their rights, at the same 
time that the fulfilment of their obligations 
was strictly enforced. 

As measures which threatened to be ex- 
tremely injurious to their trade and manufac- 
tures were now resolved on with reference to 
monopolies and import duties, and as a fresh 
petition, in which all their grievances past and 
present were set forth, had proved as ineffectual 
as the preceding ones, they determined to resist 
with all their might. 

They steadily withheld their assent to the 

decisions of the diet, and obstinately refused 

to grant a loan which they were called upon to 

advance, andvwhich was to be repaid out of 

the proceeds of the tax for the Turkish war. 

, Hereupon the princes took care to let them feel 

I their displeasure. " The imperial towns," 

I writes the deputy from Frankfurt, j " are depart- 

I ing under heavy disgrace : time alone can 

show wjiat will be the result; but my journey 

, home is a sad one." 

j It was fortunate for the cities that the de- 
. cisions of the States did not immediately ac- 
quire the force of law, but had first to be sent 
to Spain to receive the emperor's ratification. 
Their only hope lay in this. In March, 1523, 
the cities assembled in Spire, and resolved to 
send an embassy of their own to Spain, to re- 
present to the emperor the injury they appre- 
. bended from the proposed duties, as well as 
. their other grievances. 

The report of this mission is fortunately still 
extant, and we will pause over it for a moment, 
as it affords us a curious specimen of the 
manner in which the affairs of Germany were 
conducted at the Imperial court in Spain. 

The journey was extremely long and fa- 
tiguing. On the 15th of June, the delegates 
met at Lyons, and it was not till- the 6th of 
Augfust that they reached Yalladolid : the 
chief cause of delay was the oppressive heat, 
which even caused som.e of the party to fall 
sick. 

They began by visiting Markgrave Johann 
of Brandenburg, the high chancellor, and 
above all the councillors to whom the affairs 
of Germany were referred ; Herr von Rösch, 
Hannart, Provost ]\Iärklin of ^Yaldkirchen, 
and ?»Iaximilian von Zevenberghen. 

Hereupon, on the 9th of August, the em 
peror gave them a formal audience in the pre- 

Frankf. Arch., vol. xxxvi., particularly f. 110. Die Supplik 

der Sttidte. 

t Holzhausen, 2öth, 26th, 29th Jan. 15-33. Vol. sxxvii. 
i of the Frankf. A. is here my chief authority. 



194 



THE CITIES AND THE IMPERIAL COURT. 



Book III. 



sence of a brilliant assembly of grandees, 
bishops and ambassadors : they addressed him 
in Latin, and were answered in the same lan- 
guage by the chancellor, in the emperor's name. 

A commission was then appointed to discuss 
affairs with them, consisting only of the four 
German councillors we have named above : 
the proceedings commenced on the 11th of 
August. 

The delegates had drawn up a statement of 
their grievances under six heads ; — adminis- 
tration of justice, tolls, subsidies. Public Peace, 
monopolies, and other things of less import- 
ance. These they laid before the commis- 
sioners in German and Latin, and then went 
through them together, which gave them an 
opportunity of expressing their vv'ishes orally. 

The councillors at first appeared unfavour- 
ably inclined. They thought it unjust that 
the question of the jurisdictions should not 
have been brought forward till now, when a 
young emperor had just ascended the throne: 
they complained that no class in the empire 
would do its part, although neither the Coun- 
cil of Regency nor the courts of justice could 
be maintained without supplies from the 
several Estates : they exhorted the cities to 
submit for a short time longer, and not to refuse 
their share of the contributions voted by the 
diet on the part of the whole empire, in aid 
of the Hungarians. A draught of a ratifica- 
tion of the decree of the diet had actually been 
prepared at the instigation of another imperial 
councillor. Doctor Lamparter. But the dele- 
gates were not so easily put off: they declared 
that the cities were ready to contribute their 
share ; for example, to pay two members of 
the Imperial Chamber, and even to pay the 
contributions, at the rate determined at the diet 
of Constance; but that they had no intention 
of submitting to the unjust demands attempted 
to be enforced against them. They supported 
their declarations with a very few acute and 
stringent remarks. " Who can foretell," said 
they, "what will become of the revenues 
raised from these import duties 1 It is reported 
that a scheme has already been proposed by 
the princes for sharing the proceeds amongst 
themselves ; and even if this be not true, there 
is a project of electing a king of the Romans, 
who would be able to maintain his power out 
of the revenue thus raised." In short, they 
made it appear that the duty would be dan- 
gerous to the emperor himself; remarking, at 
the same time, that the Council of Regency 
was not composed in the manner most favour- 
able to the interests of the emperor. They 
also promised the councillors, personal]}'-, " to 
make a grateful return to them for their trouble." 

The cities had thus hit upon the means by 
which any thing was to be accomplished at the 
imperial court. 

At the next meeting the Provost of Wald- 
kirchen gave them to understa,nd, that the 
emperor, finding how unpopular it was, was 
not inclined to impose the duty in question ; 
neither was it his intention to continue the 
Council of Regency; but he must then ask, 
what the cities were prepared to do for his im- 



perial majesty, if he took the government into 
his own hands ] The delegates replied, that if 
the emperorgranted'theirpetition, and then made 
any reasonable suggestion to them, they would 
show themselves grateful and obedient subjects. 
Waldkirchen reminded them that it appeared 
from the old registers, that the last emperors 
on their accession had received a gift of honour 
from the cities ; and asked, why this had been 
omitted for the first time with -the young em- 
peror, who, he said, placed his whole confi- 
dence in the cities, and, were it not for the 
wars, would take a straightforward and royal 
course with regard to them. 

Another matter next fell under discussion. 
The pope's nuncio had complained that in 
Augsburg, Strasburg, and Nlirnberg, Luther's 
doctrines were received, and his works printed. 
The delegates, on being chilled to account for 
this, denied the fact. They declared that not 
a syllable of Luther's writings had been printed 
in their towns for several years ; nay more, 
that foreign itinerant venders of his books had 
been punished ; and that, however much the 
common people might thirst after the Gospel 
and reject human doctrines, it was not from 
the towns that Luther found protection : it w^as 
well known who his defenders were ; the cities, 
for their part, were resolved, hereafter as here- 
tofore, to remain Christian members of the 
Christian church. 

Hereupon the two parties came to an agree- 
ment on the most important points. Another 
conference between the whole commission and 
the delegates was held on the 19th of August, 
and attended also by the Count of Nassau. 
The doors having been carefully closed, the 
delegates were informed, that the emperor in- 
tended to take the government into his own 
hands, to appoint a valiant lieutenant, and a 
noble and dignified Imperial Chamber, and not 
to allow the imposition of the import duties. 
The amount of the sum to be offered to him 
w^as left to the discretion of the delegates ; but 
they promised to come to an agreement on the 
subject with Hannart, who was to go to Ger- 
many as the imperial commissioner. 

The delegates were also to treat concerning 
the monopolies ; not exactly on the part of the 
cities as a body, but in the name of the great 
mercantile companies. The omnipotence of 
money and its possessors soon helped them to 
the attainment of their object. It was settled 
that the Council of Regency was to be directed 
to pass no resolution with regard to the mo- 
nopolies, without again asking the consent ot 
his imperial majesty.* 

Their commission being thus satisfactorily 
executed, the delegates quitted Spain. At 
Lyons they had an audience of Francis I., 
who vented upon them his anger against the 
emperor. In December they reached Nürnberg, 
where a fresh diet had just assembled. 



* " Der gemeynen Frey und Reichs Stadt Potschafftea 
Handlung bei Romisch Kayserl. Majestadt zu Valedolid 
in Castih'a."— " The Negotiation of the Embassy of the 
united, free, and imperial Cities, with his Roman Im- 
perial Majesty at Valladolid in Castile." In the montli 
of August, anno 1523. In the Frankf. Arch., torn, xxxix, 
foL 39-56. 



Chap. IV. 



DIET OF 1524. 



195 



The final result then was, that the imperial 
court had entered into a combination with the 
cities, against the existing form of government 
in the empire, and especially against the 
Council of Regency. 

And, indeed, it was only natural that the 
imperial councillors, who had always been in 
competition with this administrative body, 
should *ake advantage of any international 
dispute to rid themselves of it. 

Another and a still stronger motive existed. 
The idea had really arisen in Germany, as the 
towns had hinted, of electing' a king of the 
Romans. Ferdinand of Austria, the emperor's 
own brother, was the man pointed out by the 
public voice. It was believed, as far as I can 
discover,* that he wo aid govern in concert 
with the Council of Regency, according to the 
forms of the constitution which had just been 
established ; and it is manifest that this could 
only have attained its completion, had Germany 
possessed a sovereign of limited power, and 
dependent on constitutional forms. No wonder 
that the m.ere suggestion should be very ill 
received in Spain ; in fact, it almost implied 
an abdication on the part of the emperor. 

Moreover, Ferdinand was very unpopular 
there. He w^as constantly making fresh de- 
mands, while frequent complaints were pre- 
ferred against him ; besides, the Spaniards 
believed his most confidential adviser, Sala- 
manca, to be equally ambitious and selfish. 
When Hannart went to Germany, he was 
commissioned, if possible, to effect Salamanca's 
dismissal, and to counteract all his ambitious 
views. 

DIET OF 1524. 

If in a former chapter we have endeavoured 
to show what weighty interests of church and 
state were involved in the existence of the 
Council of Regency, we must nov/ turn our 
attention to the might)'" and determined oppo- 
sition arrayed against it. 

Three warlike and victorious princes ; the 
Swabian League, which wielded such formi- 
dable forces ; wealthy cities ; and finally, 
though as yet in secret, the Emperor, whose 
whole hope of regaining unlimited authority 
rested on the overthrow of this representative 
body. 

The Council of Regency was not, however, 
destitute of support. Archduke Ferdinand 
promised not to consent to its overthrow, and 
some of his councillors were its decided ad- 
herents, as might be expected, from the pros- 
pects it held out to him and to them. The 
Elector of Saxony, to whom it chiefl}'' owed its 
existence, attended the diet in person in order 
to defend it. The Elector of Mainz, who had 
suffered from the oppression of the three princes 
alluded to, together with the whole house of 
Brandenburg, were among its champions. The 
Regency also enjoyed the whole sympathy of 

* I extract from a roll of the Weimar Archives, which 
contains a number of scattered papers written bv the 
chief councillors of the archduke to Elector Frederic, of 
which I intend to give some farther account in the Ap. 
pendij. 



the knightly order (whose only hopes were 
founded upon it), and of the partisans of the 
religious innovations. 

Thus it still stood on firm ground : in spite 
of all the changes of individual members, the 
majority once established, remained : those who 
did not belong to it, like the Chancellor of 
Treves, Otto Hundt of Hessen, stayed away.f 
i The imperial fiscal commenced the proceedings 
against the great mercantile companies, and a 
[ judgment against the three princes was pre- 
] pared. Several most important questions were 
i laid before the diet, which opened on the 14th 
I of January, 1524, concerning the means of 
I maintaining the government and the adminis- 
! tration of justice; the execution of decrees of 
j the diet, the code of criminal procedure,:|: &c. 
j It is a calamity for any power to have pro- 
duced no great results ; and under this disad- 
vantage the Council of Regency laboured. It 
had been unable to maintain the Public Peace, 
or to control either Sickingen or his adversaries. 
The great scheme'of customs' duties, on wliich 
all the resources for carrying on the government 
depended, had come to nothing. It was now 
I assailed by blow upon blow. 
I On the 1st of February the attorney of the 
three princes, Dr. Yenningen, appeared before 
the general assembly of the States, and made 
a long, bitter, and insulting speech against the 
proceedings of the Council of Regency. 

A mandate from the emperor was produced, 
by which the proceedings already commenced 
against the commercial companies Vv^ere stayed. 
! The court of Spain demanded to have the docu- 
ments relating to the case laid before it. 

Hannart next arrived, and from the first took 
part with the opponents of the Regency — the 
Elector of Treves, in whose company he came, 
and the cities, from w-hom he had received a 
present of 500 gulden.§ At his first interview 
with the archduke he did not pay him the re- 
spect which that prince expected, nor did he 
attempt to conceal that the emperor wished for 
the dissolution of the existing form of govern- 
ment. 

Such were the circumstances under which 
the assembly of the States began their delibe- 
rations : the debate on the grant necessary to 
the maintenance of the Council of Regency 
must, of course, bring the matter to a decision.' 
The Regency was, after all, the expression 
of the power of the several States of the em- 
pire ; was it then credible that the States would 
themselves assist in its dissolution] 

We have seen that the Regenc)'' obtained a 
majority in the former diets of the empire ; 
though after laborious efforts and with pre- 
carious results. A host of new antipathies 
were now added, arising out of the interests 
of the sovereign princes and the free cities ; of 

t Otto von Pack to Duke George of Saxony, the Friday 
after St, Lucia (Dresden Arch,), thinks that they were 
driven out. " Darnach wissen E. F. Gn. wer die andern 
seint, welche alle E. F. Gn. Abweuen wol erdulden 
können." — "Your princely grace will by this know who 
the others are, that can all well bear your grace's absence." 

J Frankfurter Acten, vol. xxxix., in which are these 
documents, and vol. xl., containing the letters of Holz- 
hausen concerning this diet. 

§ Letter of Ferdinand's in Bucholtz, ii, p. 46. 



98 



DIET OF 1524. 



Book III 



money and of religion. The influence of the 
great capitalists was enormous even in those 
times. The Fuggers were instrumental in the 
election of Charles V. ; and,'in all probability, 
in the publication of the bull of Leo X. against 
Luther. They brought about the alliance be- 
tween the court and the discontented towns ; 
and it was mainly by their influence that the 
projected system of duties was abandoned ; 
and now they had the audacity to turn the 
affair of the monopolies, which had called forth 
so many decrees of the diet against themselves, 
into a subject of accusation against the Council 
of Regency ; alleging that that body had as- 
sumed judicial powers which properly belonged 
to the Imperial Chamber alone.* The Bishop 
of Würzburg accused the Council of Regency 
of openly favouring the new creed : he said 
that it had set at liberty two members of his 
chapter whom he had brought before the eccle- 
siastical court on the charge of contracting 
marriage, and that it had given a safe-conduct 
to a canon whom he had banished for Lutheran 
opinions. The imperial commissioner was 
informed that most of the members of the 
Council of Regency were zealous Lutherans. | 
The majority which had hitherto been in favour 
of that body was not compact enough to resist 
such a multitude of hostile influences, and 
after some debate and vacillation, turned against 
it. The States did not, indeed, go so far as to 
propose its total abolition, but resolved not to 
meet on the 20th of February to consider the 
means for its maintenance, unless its members 
v\'er8 previously changed ; tfnd declared they 
could by no means consent to its continuance, 
composed as it then was. 

This was, however, decisive. The important 
point was, the establishment of a vigorous 
government, chosen out of the body of the 
States ; but what could be expected for the 
future, if the present members, who had been 
really earnest in the performance of their duties, 
and had actually begun to govern, were to be 
deprived of office, without any charge worthy 
of a moment's discussion being brought against 
them 1 Was it likely that their successors 
would show any courage or independence 1 

It was once more rendered evident, that the 
powerful separate elements, of which the em- 
pire was compounded, could never be controlled 
by one central government. 

Frederic the Wise of Saxony felt the whole 
significance of this decision. He now, at the 
close of his life, saw the idea of a representative 
government, which had been the object of his 
whole existence, completely wrecked. He 
said, that he had neA'"er witnessed such a diet :^ 

* Holzhausen, 12th Feb. 1524. It appears from this 
that only Augsburg offered any resistance to the imperial 
edicts in the matter of the monopolies. All the other 
towns were in favour of their abolition. Dr. Rolinger 
had inserted the article touching monopolies of his own 
accord in the instruction given to the d§legates sent to 
Spain. 

t Hannart to the emperor, 14th March :— " Et certes je 
me suis pour vray averty, la pluspart du regiment sont 
grands Lutheriens; car en beaucoup de choses et provi- 
sions qu'ils out fait, ils eussent bien peu user de plus 
grande discretion et moderation qu'ils n'ont (use). 

X At all events the provost of the cathedral of Vienna 
excused him with these words, to Campeggi, who asked 



he left it on the 24th of February, and never 
appeared at one again. 

Archduke Ferdinand, it is true, still refused 
his assent to the decision; he even used his 
personal influence to win over the cities to the 
side of the Council of Regency; but in the 
course of a short time, observes the Saxon 
ambassador, his councillors were no longer of 
the same opinion : it seemed as if Hannart, 
instead of destroying Salamanca's power, had 
gained him over; at all events, he never de- 
livered the letter in which the emperor desired 
the Elector of Saxony to assist in getting rid 
of Salamanca. These causes at length pro- 
duced their effect on Ferdinand : " after holding- 
out resolutely for nine weeks," writes the 
Saxon ambassador, on the 1st of March, " he 
has suddenly fallen away." He consented 
that not a single member of the old Council 
of Regency should be admitted into the new.§ 

The Imperial Chamber underwent the same 
sort of purification. No inquiry was made as 
to whether the m-embers had been attentive or 
negligent, capable or incapable; but merely 
whether they had supported the nobles against 
the princes, or aided the fiscal in the prosecu- 
tion of monopolists. Their conduct as to re- 
ligious matters was also taken into considera-^ 
tion. Dr. Kreutner, the assessor for the circle 
of Franconia, was dismissed for having eaten 
meat on a fast-day, without considering that he 
had a claim for upwards «f 1000 gulden, arrears. 

This brings us to the main question, — hov/ 
far these great changes re-acted on the conduct 
of spiritual affairs. The cause of the Council 
of Regency and that of the religious reforma- 
tion were, as we see at every step, connected, 
though not indissolubly : the question now 
was, whether the States, which had abandoned 
the Regency to its fate, would be equally un- 
favourable to the new faith. 

After the early and unexpected death of 
Adrian VL, the purer and severer spirit which 
he had introduced and exemplified, disappeared. 
Clement VII., who next ascended the papal 
chair, v^^as, like his predecessors, exclusively 
bent on maintaining the papal privileges ; and 
on applying the temporal forces of the Statefj 
of the church to personal or political ends, 
without troubling himself seriously about the 
necessity of reform. He sent to the German 
diet a man of his own way of thinking, — Lo- 
renzo Campeggi. 

Campeggi found Germany, which a few 
years before he had traversed, surrounded with 
the halo of an unshaken and sacred authority, 
in a state of complete apostasy. In Augsburg 
he was assailed with derision and mockery 
when, at his entrance into the town, he raised 



the cause of his absence. Letter from Wolfstal, 14th 
March, Weimar Arch. The Italians thought he had gone 
away because the legate had come. "Assai sdegnato," as 
the Venetian Ziani expresses himself, Disp. 29 Martio. 
The same person remarks that Nürnberg had already 
entirely fallen aw*ay from Catholicism : " Di qui e total- 
mente scancellata la sincera fede." 

§ According to a letter of Wolf von Wolfstals, Ferdi- 
nand, even on the 17th of April, said, " Dass Hannart 
ihn sampt ihm selbst verführt, wie wenn ein Blinder den 
andern führt."— " That Hannart had deceived him, as 
well as himself, like as when the blind lead the blind." 



'.IV. 



DIET OF 1524. 



197 



his hand to give the» customary benediction. 
After this he was advised by others, and thought 
it most prudent himself, to enter Nürnberg 
without any ceremony whatever. He did not 
wear his cardinal's hat, and made no sign of 
benediction, or of the cross; and instead of 
riding to the church of St. Sebaldus, where 
the clergy were assembled to receive him, he 
rode straight to his lodging.* 

His presence, instead of damping the zeal 
of the reforming preachers, seemed to inflame 
it to the utmost. The pope v/as characterised 
as antichrist, before the face of his legate. On 
Palm-Sunday no palms were strewed ; and in 
Passion- Week the ceremony of laying down 
the cross and raising it again, w^s omitted : 
thousands received the sacrament in both kinds,| 
and not only among the common people; se- 
veral members of the Council of Regency were 
among the communicants, and even the sister 
of the archduke. Queen Isabella of Sweden, 
partook of the cup at the castle of Nürnberg. 

It is very possible that these public demon- 
strations produced in the mind of Ferdinand, 
on whom the new doctrines had made no im- 
pression, and who had been brought up in all 
the rigour of Spanish Catholicism, the deter- 
mination to abandon the Council of Regency ; 
and it is also likely enough that the pope's 
legate had some influence in the same direction. 
At all events, the fall of the Council of Re- 
gency, which had taken the new doctrines 
under its protection, w^ould necessarily be very 
favourable to the maintenance of Catholicism. 

Perhaps the legate founded on this a hope 
of obtaining from the States a decision agree- 
able to his wishes on religious affairs generally. 
He complained of the innovations which were 
made before his eyes. He reminded the States 
of the edict published at Worms, and expressed 
his astonishment that ordinances of this kind 
were so imperfectly enforced in the empire. 
Hannart also demanded the execution of the 
edict in the emperor's name. 

On this occasion, however, it became mani- 
fest that relig-ion had by no means decided the 
course of affairs, how^ever it might ha.ve in- 
fluenced the conduct of some individuals. Had 
no political motives existed, the councillors of 
the Regency would never have been dismissed 
on account of their religious inclinations. The 
complaints of the legate made no impression. 
" Some," writes Planitz, " are indignant, but 
most only laugh." The cities, which had, 
contributed so greatly to the overthrow of the 
Council of Regency , were furious at the mention 
of the edict. They declared that the common 
people w^ere so eager for the word of God, that 

* The Regency recommended him " dass er seinen 
Sejren und Kreuz" zu thuti vermeyd, ano^esehen wie es de- 
shalb jetzund stee."— " To avoid making: the sign of the 
cross or the benediction, seeing how matters then stood-" 
— Feilitzsch to Frederic of Saxony, lltk March. 

t Planitz (2Sth March) reckons 4000. " 1st deshalb 
Mühe und Erbetjt. und sunderlich, dass es des Regiments 
Personen eines Theyis also genommen." — "On this 
account is trouble and labour, and especially as the per- 
sons of the Regency have in part received it thus." He 
remarks that Ferdinand was very angry at such a mani- 
festation of his sister's opinions. " Nicht weiss ich wie 
es gehn will."—" I know not hovv it will end." 



to deprive them of it would cause rebellion, 
bloodshed and general ruin; and that the re- 
solutions of the preceding year must be abso- 
lutely adhered to. In short, with regard to 
religious affairs, those who were hostile to 
Rome still constituted the majority in the States. 
The legate was reminded soon after his arrival 
of the hundred grievances of the nation which 
had been sent to Rome by his predecessor. 
This had been foreseen in Rome ; and the 
legate had been instructed to feign that the 
memorial containing these complaints had not 
been delivered in the names of the princes.^: 
Accordingly Campeggi answered with a per- 
fectly untroubled countenance, " that no official 
announcement of those grievances had reached 
Rome ; that three printed copies had been sent 
thither, it was true, one of which he had seen 
himself, but that he could not bring himself to 
believe that any thing so beyond measure ill- 
j WTitten could be produced by the diet." This 
was certainly not at all calculated to satisfy 
the temporal Estates, w-ho had been extremely 
in earnest with regard to the grievances, the 
statement of which had cost so much trouble 
and- deliberation. 

Moreover, the personal behaviour of the 
legate, who was accused of sordid avarice, and 
of revolting oppression towards the poorer 
sort of German priests, was far from favourable 
to the success of his negotiations.§ 

W^hen the decisive discussion on religious 
affairs arrived, the order necessary to the trans- 
action of public business and the presence of 
the imperial commissioner so far influenced 
the States, that they did not deny the obliga- 
tion they lay under to carry the edict of Worms 
into execution ; but to this admission they 
added a clause to a directly contrary effect ; 
namely, that they would execute it " as far as 
was possible," — a modification of so vague a 
nature that it was left to the discretion of each 
individual to do v;hat he pleased. The cities 
had already represented at length that it was 
j not possible. At the same time the demand 
I was renewed, that the pope should convene a 
I council in the German dominions, wäth the 
I emperor's consent. This the legate undertook 
I to advocate faithfully to his holiness. 

It was, however, questionable \vh ether this 
i was sufficient to tranquillise men's minds ; or 
I whether, in such a state of fermentation, they 
would v.-ait patiently for so remote an event as 
the convocation and decision of an ecclesias- 
tical assembly : lastly, whether the German 
nation would so far renounce the unity of its 
anti-Romish tendencies, which had taken so 
deep a 'root, as to consent to abide by the 
results of a council composed of all nations. 

No sooner were the representatives of the 
reforming principles dismissed from the Coun- 



l Pallavicini, i. p. 222: " che dissimulasse che la scrit- 
tura si fosse ricevuta per nome dei principi." 

§ A detailed contemporary account of the manner in 
which the legate induced the learned but poor Schoner to 
present to him his mathematical instruments, on the 
promise of a benefice, and then neither procured him the 
benefice nor paid him for his instruments. Btrobel, 
Nachricht vom Aufenthalt Melanchthons, in Nürnberg, 
p. 18. 



J98 



ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



Book III 



cil of Regency, than the necessity of supplying 
the place of their labours in some other manner 
was doubly felt. This aroused the champions 
of the new doctrines to unite in forming a most 
remarkable determination. 

The question which had once before been so 
important was still unanswered ; namely, what 
was to be done in Germany in the interval till 
the council met. Spite of all opposition, a 
resolution still more extraordinary, and of 
which the results were still more incalculable 
than that of the former year, was adopted on 
this point. It was determined that, in the 
"month -of November of the current year, a 
meeting of the States should be convened at 
Spire, and should there hold a definitive de- 
liberation. To this end the sovereign princes ! 
were to direct their councillors and learned 
clerks to draw up a list of all the disputed 
points which were to be discussed and decided. 
Besides this, the grievances of the nation and 
means for their redress v/ere to be considered 
anew. Meanwhile it was resolved, as the year 
before, that the holy Gospel and God's word 
should be preached.* 

It is indeed true that the party favourable to 
Rome, emboldened by the overthrow of the 
Council of Regency, had regained somewhat 
of its influence at this diet, but still it was kept 
in check by a large majority : the German 
nation asserted its claim more strenuously than 
ever, to complete independence in ecclesiastical 
affairs, as against the pope and the unity of the 
Latin church. 



CHAPTER y. 



ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 

There are probably few reflecting men, 
how^ever well-disposed on other grounds to the 
cause of ecclesiastical reform, who have not 
occasionally felt inclined to join in the usual 
condemnation of it, as the cause of the sepa- 
ration of Germany into two parts, — often at 
open war and never thoroughly reconciled ; — 
to impute to the adherents of the new opinions 
all the blame of having broken up the unity, 
not only of the church, but of the empire. 

* Decree of tbe Diet of Nürnberg, 18th April, J524. 
When, after this decree, we read Luther's paper,—" Zwei 
kaiserliche uneinige und widerwärtige Gebote" (Altenb. 
ii. 7ti2), "Two imperial contradictory and incompatible 
Orders,"— we are astonished that he was so ill satisfied. 
The cause of this, however, is, that in the mandate 
founded on the Recess, the article prescribing the teaching 
of the holy Gospel was omitted, while, on the other hand, 
preat stress was laid on the observance of the edict of 
Worms. The clause " so viel möglich," indeed, is there ; 
but almost disappears under the constant reiterations of 
the edict of Worms ; hence we perceive the influence 
which the imperial chancery obtained after the abolition 
of the old Council of Reeency. Luther does not appear 
to have been aware of \he Recess, and still less of the 
preceding negotiations. The imperial delegate, Hannart, 
and the papal legate, took a far more complete view of 
the matter. They thought it a great gain that at any 
rate the name of national council had been avoided. 
Nevertheless, Hannart concludes his letter of the 16th 
April with the words, " que cependant se fera ung concil 
national d'Aliemasne." 



So long as we regard the facts from a dis 
tance, they doubtless wear this aspect; but if 
we approach nearer to them and contemplate 
the events which brought about this division, 
the result we shall arrive at will, if I mistake 
not, be far different. . 

No man, to whatever confession he may 
belong, can deny, what was admitted even by 
the most zealous Catholics of that day; viz. 
that the Latin church stood in need of reform. 
Its thorough worldliness, and the ever-increas- 
ing rigidity and unintelligible formalism of its 
dogmas and observances, rendered this neces- 
sary in a religious view ; while the interference 
of the papal court, which was not only op- 
pressive in a pecuniary sense, by consuming 
all the surplus revenue, but destructive of the 
unity and independence of the nation, made it 
not less essential to the national interests. 

Nor can it be alleged, either on religious or 
national grounds, that any unjustifiable mea- 
sures were resorted to to effect this change. 

Independently of all the more precise articles 
of the Protestant creed, which were gradually 
constructed and accepted, the essence of the 
religious movement lay in this, — that the spirit 
of Christianity, so deeply implanted in the 
German mind, had been, by degrees, ripened 
to a consciousness of its own independence of 
all accidental forms; had gone back to its 
original source, — to those records which di- 
rectly proclaim the eternal covenant of tbe 
Godhead with the human race,-— and had there 
become confident in its own truth, and resolute 
to reject ajl untenable theories and subjugating 
claims. 

No one could shut hiö eyes to the peril im- 
pending over the whole existing order of things 
in the nation, from a departure from those es- 
tablished ecclesiastical forms which had such 
mighty influence over domestic as well as 
public life. We have, however, seen with 
what care all destructive elements v/ere rejected, 
with how much self-control every violent 
change was avoided, and how patiently every 
question was still left to the decision of the 
empire.. 

Let it not be objected that discord had al- 
ready arisen, and that, as we have remarked, 
action was encountered by re-action ; no mo- 
mentous crisis in the life of a great nation was 
ever unaccompanied by this stormy shock of 
conflicting opinions. The important point is, 
that the divisions should not have sufficient 
power to overthrow the paramount and ac- 
knowledged supremacy of the principle of 
unity. 

Such was the tendency of affairs in Germany 
in the year 1524. 

The adherents of the new faith had hitherto 
always submitted to the constitutional govern- 
ment of the empire ; in the hope of obtaining 
from its proceedings and favour a reconstruc- 
tion of the ecclesiastical institutions, in ac- 
cordance both with the wants of the nation 
and the commands of the Gospel. 

The majority in the Council of Regency, as 
we have seen, influenced the States in this 
spirit. In spite of all the efforts of opponents, 



Chap. V. 



ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



199 



and of the various external difficulties, a ma- 
jority was formed in the diet, favourable to the 
reformation. Two Recesses were drawn up 
and agreed to in its favour. Even after the fall 
of the Regency, this majority maintained itself, 
and resolved that a national assembly should 
be convened at an early date, and should oc- 
cupy itself exclusively with the endeavour to 
bring the religious affairs of the empire to a 
definitive conclusion. 

A nobler prospect for the unity of the nation, 
and for the farther progress of the German 
people in the career they had already entered 
upon, certainly never presented itself. 



tained its object, it would have given tc that 
unity a much more solid foundation. 

In order to discover who it was that, at this 
decisive juncture, broke the bond of the national 
unity, we must examine how it happened that 
an assembly for which such solemn prepara- 
tion had been made, never took place. 

The See of Rome naturally opposed it ; for 
in proportion as the prospect it afforded was 
full of hope and promise to the German nation, 
it was threatening and disastrous to the court 
of Rome. 

We have the report of a congregation held 
at this crisis by Pope Clement VII., at which- 



To form some notion of the degree to which means were discussed for carrying into effect 
it occupied the minds of men, we have only to | the bull against Luther, and the edict of Worms, 
examine the state of Franconia, where, daring " " - - - 
the summer of 1524, six opinions or reports, 
destined to be laid before this assembly, ap- 
peared, all conceived in the spirit of the evan- 
gelical party. Luther felt contented and 
happy when he saw the judgment of the 
learned men of Brandenburg ; he said that 
this was coin of the right stamp, such as he 
and his friends at Wittenberg had long dealt 
withal. That of Henneberg was not so com- 
pletely in accordance with his opinions. Lu- 
ther's doctrine concerning free will vras com- 
bated in it ; but in all other respects it was 
soundly evangelical, and condemned the invo- 
cation of saints, the seven sacraments and the 
abuses of the mass. The reports of Wind- 
sheim and Wertheim were particularly violent 
against the saints ; that of Nürnberg, against 
the pope. One of the two parties which di- 
vided Rothenburg sent in an opinion favourable 
to the evangelical side.* The other party, 
however, v/hich was more faithful to the ancient 
doctrine, was no less active. Ferdinand re- 
quired his universities of Vienna and Freibyrg 
to send in full and minute explanations of the 
disputed points. At the former university, the 
faculties immediately prepared to draw up their 
report, and that of theology exhorted the others 
to abstain from all mutual offence.f It is evi- 
dent that the most various modifications of 
opinion must have been in agitation and in 
conflict at Spire. What results might not have 
been anticipated, had it been possible to execute 
the project of holding a peaceful and moderate 
discussion, — of endeavouring to sever the good 
from the bad ! 

It is true that another evangelical majority, 
like that with which the proposal originated, 
was fully to be expected ; but this was the in- 
evitable consequence of the present state of 
things ; the nation had no alternative ; it must 
resist the encroachments of Rome, or fall ; the 
religious movement could no longer be sup- 
pressed, it could only be guided. This was 
the part assigned to the national assembly ; nor 
can it be said that the unity of the nation was 
thus endangered ; on the contrary, had it at- 



* E.\'tracts from v. d. Lith Erläuterung der Frank. Re- 
formatiorisliist, p. 41. 

fRaupach Evangel. Oei?treich, ii. p. 29. Struve men- 
tions a similar exhortation from the elector palatineto 
the University of Heidelberg in his Pfälzische Kirchen- 
historie, p. 19. 



in spite of the Recesses by which they were 
counteracted. A vast variety of schemes were 
suggested ; such as, that Frederic of Saxony 
should be deprived of his electorate, — a mea- 
sure proposed by Aleander ; or that the kings 
of England and Spain should be prevailed on 
to threaten to put a stop to all commerce with 
the German towns, from which the pope anti-' 
cipated great results. The only conclusion 
they came to, however, Vv'as to oppose the 
meeting at Spire, both to the emperor and the 
States, whom the legate was instructed to use 
every means toprej udice against that assembly.^ 

The question for immediate decision — a 
question which we must here examine— was, 
whether there could be found estates in Ger- 
many who would prefer joining with the pope 
to awaiting the decisions of a general assembly. 

The papal court had already found means to 
secure to itself allies in Germany : it had won 
over one of the most powerful of the sovereign 
houses — that of the dukes of Bavaria. 

The government as well as the people of 
Bavaria had formerly shared the common 
aversion of the German nation to the ascen- 
dency of Rome; neither the bull of Leo X. 
had been carried into effect, nor the edict of 
Worms observed.§ The dukes had -been as 
much displeased at the encroachments made 
by the spiritual on the temporal jurisdiction, 
as any other princes; and Luther's doctrines 
spread among the learned, the clergy, and the 
commons, as rapidly and as widely as in other 
parts of the empire. 

Bu\ as early as the end of the year 1521 the 
dukes began to incline towards Rome, and had 
ever since been becoming miore and more de- 
cided partisans of the old faith. 

Contemporary writers ascribed this to the 
great power and extensive possessions of the 
regular clergy in Bavaria ;|| and certainly this 



I Pallavicini, lib. ii. c. x. p. 227. 

§ Winter, Geschichte der Schicksale der evangelischen 
Lehre in und durch Baiern, i. pp. 62, 76. 

If^ Pamphlet of Reckenhofer touching the affairs of See- 
hofer: "Denn sobald du für München herauskompst auf 
drey Meyl gegen Burg, und fragst Aves ist der Grund, 
Antwort : 1st meines gnedigen Herrn von Degernsee, 
Chiernsee, Saunersee, also dass mer denn der halb Teyi 
des Bayrlandes der Geistlichen ist." — "For as soon as 
you leave Munich, about three miles towards Burg, and 
ask whose is the land? the answer is, It belongs to my 
Lord of Degernsee, Chiemsee, Saunersee, so that more 
than half of Bavaria belongs to the clergy."— Pß7i2sr 
No. 2462. 



200 



CONNEXION OF THE POPE WITH BAVARIA. 



Book III 



had an influence, thouorh rather of a different 
kind from that supposed. 

The first symptom of an intimate connexion 
between Rome and Bavaria was a draft of a 
bull which Leo X. caused to be prepared on 
the 14th Nov. 1521, wherein he authorises a 
commission of prelates, before proposed by the 
dukes, to visit the convents and restore order 
and discipline in them.* He died before this 
bull was finished ; but not before he had thus 
pointed out to the Bavarian g'overnment what 
might be done in this direction. A standing- 
commission, independent of the bishopric, and 
under the influence of the sovereign, was 
charged with the superintendence of spiritual 
«affairs. 

About this time the university of Ingolstadt 
was almost broken up by a pestilential disease. 
When the contagion had ceased, and the pro- 
fessors re-assembled, they found that it would 
be impossible to maintain their strict catholic 
discipline without other support than that of 
the spiritual jurisdiction; and that a ducal 
mandate would be necessary to help them to 
withstand the innovations which threatened to 
invade even their own body. The three most 
resolute champions of the old system, Franz 
Burckhard, George Hauer, and Johann Eck, 
who had again been at Rome in the autumn, 
joined in urgent representations of the neces- 
sity of such a measure ;"[" of which Duke 
William's chancellor, Leonhard von Eck, one 
of the most active and influential statesmen of 
that time, was fully convinced.:}: 

The dukes were soon won over to the same 
opinion ; probably the report of the riots which 
liad just then broken out at Wittenberg (but 
which Luther so quickly tranquillised) made 
them anxious to prevent similar disturbances 
in their own territories. 

On Ash Wednesday, 5th of March, 1522, 
the dukes issued a mandate, § wherein they 
commanded their subjects, under heavy penal- 
ties, to adhere to the faith of their forefathers. 
That which had been considered necessary for 
the university, was thus extended to the whole 
nation. The duke's ofircers were directed to 
arrest all refractory persons, ecclesiastics as 
well as laymen, and to report upon their offences. 

In spite of the rigour which was used, these 
measures had not, at first, the anticipated effect. 
In Saxony the temporal power refused to lend 
its arm to support the episcopal authority ; in 
Bavaria, on the contrary, the bishops, who had 
a vague perception of the danger which must 
accrue to their independent authority from such 
an alliance, did not second the efforts of the 
temporal power with much zeal. The followers 
of Luther, arrested by the civil officers, often 
escaped free and unpunished, from the eccle- 
siastical courtwhich had jurisdiction over them. 

* Winter, ii. p. 325. 

t He could not have gone thither before October, as he 
was still at Polling during the months of August and 
September. Leben des berühmten Joh. Eckii in the Par- 
nassus Boicus, i. ii. p. 521. 

X Winter, passim, p. 81. 

§ " Erstes baierisches Religionsmandat, München am 
Eschermittiche angeender Vassten."— iözd p. 310. 



When Dr. Johann Eck returned to Rome in 
the summer of 1523, at the invitation of Pope 
Adrian, II he was commissioned by the dukes 
to make a formal complaint against the bishops 
on this head, and to request an extension of the 
ducal authority in the proceedings against he- 
retics.^ It was impossible to refuse the de- 
mand of the orthodox doctor, who took part in 
the most secret consultations on religious 
affairs. Pope Adrian therefore published a bull 
empowering a spiritual commission to degrade 
ecclesiastics who should be convicted of heresy, 
and to deliver them over to the temporal cri- 
minal tribunals, even without the concurrence 
of the bishops. Adrian added only the limit- 
ation, that the bishops v/ere to be once more 
admonished to perform their duties within a 
given term ; but this was subsequently disre- 
garded. 

Thus we see that it was not the independent 
authority of the great institutions of the church, 
I that the dukes took under their protection : they 
raised up a collateral authority, standing under 
their own immediate influence, and empowered 
to intervene in the most peculiar sphere of ec- 
clesiastical rights and duties. 

Dr; Eck is not to be regarded only as one of 
j Luther's theological opponents. He exercised 
an extraordinary influence on the state, as well 
as the church in Bavaria ; and to him princi- 
pally is to be attributed that alliance betvveen 
the ducal power, the university of Ingolstadt, 
and the papal authority, which checked the 
progress of the national movement in that 
country. 

Nor was it the authorit}?- alone of*the church 
that w^as assailed ; claims were soon advanced 
to her'possessions. 

Pope Adrian granted to the dukes one-fifth 
of all the revenues of the church throughout 
their territories; "for," said he, "the dukes 
have declared their readiness to take arms 
against the enemies of the true faith."** When 
Pope Clement VII. came to the tiara, he re- 
voked all grants of this nature ; nevertheless 
he saw reason to confirm this one for the three 
following 3"ears : since then, it has been re- 
newed from time to time, and has always re- 
mained one of the chief foundations of the 
Bavarian financial system. fj- 

On this occasion the university was not for- 
gotten. Adrian consented that in every chapter 
in Bavaria, at least one prebend might be con- 
ferred on a professor of theology, "for the 
improvement ofthat faculty, and for the better 



II " Er entbot denselben durch zwei Brevia nach Rom.'' 
— " He summoned him by two briefs to Rome." — Parnas- 
sus Boicus, ii. i. p. 206. 

TT "Fragmentum libelli supplicis, quem Bavariaj Ducis 
oratores, quorum caput Celebris ille Eckius, Adriano YI. 
Romse obtulerunt anno 1521," ap. CEfele, ii. 274. Tht3 
date is wrong,, as Adrian was not pope in 1521. The bull, 
which was prepared according to the words of the petition, 
is dated June, 1523. The Bavarian bishops first appealed 
against it in December, 1523, so that there can be no 
doubt that that is the proper date. 

** Bull of the 1st of June. It is there said of the dukes, 
"Ad arma contra perfidos orthodoxas fidei hostes sumenda 
sese obtulerunt."— J&id. 279. The Turks were also in- 
cluded in this. 

ft See Winter, ii. p. 321. 



Chap. V. 



CONNEXION OF THE POPE WITH BAVARIA. 



201 



extirpation of the heresies that had arisen in 
that, as well as in other German countries."* 

Thus, before any form of government con- 
stituted according to evangelical views, could 
be thought of, we find an opposing body orga- 
nised expressly for the purpose of supporting 
catholic principles, which gradually became 
of immense importance to the destinies of 
Germany. 

We have already shown that the disturbances 
of those times mainly arose out of the struggle 
between the spiritual and temporal power. 
The rising temporal sovereignties naturally 
sought to defend themselves against the en- 
croachments of their ecclesiastical neighbours. 
With this tendency, Luther's views of govern- 
ment exactly coincided ; he advocated a total 
separation of the two powers. The dukes of 
Bavaria, however, found that such a separation 
was not the only way to attain the desired end ; 
they took a directly opposite course, which was 
both shorter and more secure. What others 
were striving to wrest from the pope by hostile 
measures, they contrived to obtain with his 
concurrence. By this means they at once 
gained possession of a large share of the eccle- 
siastical revenues, and an authority, sanctioned 
by the papal see, over the surrounding bishops, 
even in the most important branch of the spirit- 
ual jurisdiction: an authority w^hich was very 
soon manifested in the proceedings of the Ba- 
varian council for religious affairs. These 
were advantages which the adherents of the 
new faith could not yet so much as contemplate. 

There was still, however, this immense 
distinction ; — that, while the latter were the 
representatives of the tendency of the nation 
to emancipate itself from Rome, Bavaria fell 
into much more absolute subjection to that 
pov/er, from whom she held all the privileges 
she now enjoyed. 

Under any circumstances, however, so de- 
cisive a step, taken by one of the most powerful 
houses of Germany, and the example of the 
advantages resulting from a renewed connexion 
with Rome, could not fail to have a great effect 
on all its neighbours. 

We find from a very authentic source, the 
transactions of the Archbishop of Salzburg 
with his states, that a compact had already 
heen entered into between Bavaria and Austria, 
" against the Lutheran sect."f 

It is certain that Archduke Ferdinand had 
likewise formed a closer connexion with the 
see of Rome, and had obtained thence, in be- 



* 30th of Aii2ust, CEfele.p. 277. In Mederer, Annales, 
Acad. Ino^olstadt, iv. 234, is to be found the bull of Clement 
VII. concerning this matter ; by this bull the dukes of 
Bavaria are entitled always to promote one of their 
professors of theologry at Ingolstadt to a prebendal stall 
in the chapters of Augsburg, Freisingen, Passau, Regens- 
burg, or Salzburg. Tliey gave out: "quod ecclesie pre- 
dicte a Ducibus Bavarie fundate vel donationibus aucte 
fuerunt." The reason assigned was, that they wished to 
have theologians "hoc tempore periculoso, quo Lutheri- 
ana et alie plurime hereses contra sedem apostolicam . . . 
propagantur, qui se murum pro Israel exponant et contra 
hereses predictas legendo predicando docendo et scribendo 
eas confutent dejiciant et exterminent." This is the 
more important, because in the years immediately after 
the plague, the university, as is mentioned by the statutes 
of the faculty of jurists, was almost entirely reconstituted. 

t Zauner, Salzburgher Chronik, iv. 359. 
26 



half of his defence against the Turks, the 
enormous grant of a full third of all the eccle- 
siastical revenues. 

Rome did not neglect to conciliate the more 
influential spiritual, as well as temporal princes. 
The long-contested appointments to the bishop- 
rics of Gurk, Chiemsee, Seckau, and Lavant, 
were granted to the Archbishop of Salzburg, 
even during the disputed months. 

By these m.eans the papal see succeeded in 
regaining a party in the States: no doubt it is 
to be attributed to these and similar causes^ 
that catholic opinions were more strongly re- 
presented at the diet of 1524 than they had 
been the year before. 

Still, as we have already seen, they were 
not triumphant at that diet. A number of 
bishops even, offended by the support given by 
the pope to the claims of the temporal sove- 
reigns, offered a determined resistance to every 
suggestion emanating from Rome. 

The legate Campeggi plainly saw that 
nothing could be gained from a general as- 
sembly in which Lutheran sympathies so 
greatly predominated. He complained that he 
could not here venture to speak freely. ij; 

On the other hand, as he saw around him a 
number of friends holding the same opinions, 
he hoped that he should be able to effect more 
completely all he wanted at a provincial meet- 
ing, where only these partisans would be 
present. 

Accordingly, even at Nürnberg, where the 
national assembly at Spire was resolved on, he 
proposed another which, in spirit, was directly 
at variance with it. He made no secret that 
I his object was to obviate the danger which 
I must ensue from an assembly convoked with 
[ the avowed intention of listening to the voice 
I of the people. § 

This proposal was first agreed to b}'' Arch- 
! duke Ferdinand and a few bishops, and then 
I by the dukes of Bavaria. At the end of June, 
I 1524, the meeting was held at Regensburg. 
I The dukes, the archduke, the legate, the Arch- 
I bishop of Salzburg, the Bishop of Trent, who 
I came in the retinue of the archduke, and the 
I administrator of Regensburg, were present. 
Delegates appeared for the bishops o£ Bamberg, 
Augsburg, Spire, Strasburg, Constance, Basle, 
Freising, Passau, and Brixen : thus not only 
Bavaria and Austria, but the Upper Rhine, 
and a considerable portion of Swabia and 
Franconia, took part in it. 

The legate opened the meeting with a dis- 
course on the perils with which the religious 
troubles threatened both estates : he exhorted 
them to abandon their disputes, and to unite in 
measures "for extirpating the heretical doc- 
trines, and making men live after the ordinances 
of the Christian church." Archduke Ferdi- 
nand supported the proposal, and strongly in- 
sisted to the assembly on the pecuniary grants 
he had obtained. 

The prelates then divided into three com- 



t From a letter of Ferdinand's, dated Stuttgard, 19th 
Blay, in Gemeiners Regensburger Chronik, iv. vi. p. 514. 

§ From the letter of the legate, dated Hh May. Winter, 
i. p. 156. 



202 



CONGRESS OF REGENSBÜRG. 



Book III, 



missions : the first of which was to consider 
the disputes between the clergy and laity ; the 
second, the reforms to be immediately under- 
taken, and the third, the measures to be taken 
with respect to doctrine.* 

The conference lasted for sixteen days in the 
town hall at Regensburg, and sittings were 
held before and after noon. The grave course 
of affairs vf as on one occasion interrupted by 
a festive dance. 

The affair of the pecuniary grant was the 
first settled. 

The bishops plainly perceived that the popular 
ferment, which, from its first origin, had been 
constantly increasing in strength and impetu- 
osity, must be far more dangerous to them, 
than any supremacy of the temporal sovereign. 
There were few among those we have named 
who had not had to struggle with a growing 
opposition in their own capitals. A year before. 
Cardinal Lang had found it necessary to bring 
six troops of veteran soldiers into Salzburg. 
He himself rode at their head habited in a red 
slashed siircoat, under which glittered a polished 
cuirass, and grasping his marshal's baton ; and 
thus compelled the corporation to sign fresh 
declarations of submission. Perhaps, too, a 
few such prelates may have been favoured 
with fresh concessions from the pope ; we find 
many decided partisans of Rome among their 
delegates, for example, Andreas Haniin of 
Bamberg, who was once himself vicerector at 
Ingolstadt;]" Eck and Faber also were present. 
The spiritual lords ended by making a virtue 
of necessity ; those of Bavaria consented to 
pay to the temporal power (as near as I can 
discover) a fifth part of their revenues, and 
those of Austria a fourth.:]: 

They next proceeded to consider the points 
of doctrine and life. 

The most important result of this consulta- 
tion v/as a decision which it had been found 
impossible to carry at the meeting of the States 
of 1523. The preachers were directed to refer 
principally to the Latin fathers of the church 
for the interpretation of difficult passages in 
Scripture; and (which could not be accom- 
plished on a former occasion) Ambrose, Jerome, 
Gregory and Augustin were specified as the 
patterns of faith. In former days, this might 



* Letter from Ebner and Nützel to the Elector Frerleric, 
wherein they inform him, " was eino Schrift enthält, die 
ihnen vom "Hofe fürstlicher Durchleuchtigkeit (Ferdi- 
nands) zugelcommen ist," — "of the contents of a letter 
Vviiich had reached them from the court of his Royal 
Highness (Ferdinand)," 8th July, 1524.— Weimar. A. . 

t Malier, Reformationsgesch. von Bamberg, p. 70. 

t Planitz, who had been at Esslingen, writes to the 
Elector Frederic, Nürnberg, 2tith July: "Die Geistlichen 
in des Erzherzogs Landen haben bewilligt, ihm den 
vierten Pfennig zu geben, 5 Jahr lang, und die Geistlichen 
unter den Herrn von Baiern geben ihren Fürsten den 
5ten Pfennijr 5 Jahr, allein dass sie in ihren Fürstenthu- 
men die lutherische Lehr nicht zulassen und vest über 
ihnen halten wollen." — "The ecclesiastics in the arch- 
duke's dominions have agreed to give him the fourth 
penny for 5 years, and the ecclesiastics under the lords of 
Bavaria will give to their princes the fifth penny for 5 
years, but on condition that they shall not suffer the Lu- 
theran doctrines in their dominions, and that they will 
keep them down with a strong hand." I have not" been 
able to discover whether Planitz was rightly informed as 
to the duration of this impost. According to Winter, ii. 
p. 322, it was continued for several years longer. 



have been looked upon as a concession to the 
literary tendencies of the time, since it relaxed 
the fetters of the scholastic system ; but now, 
it mainly betokened opposition to Luther and 
to the majority of the States of the empire, by 
sanctioning, at any rate, the authorities on 
which rested the later systems of the Latin 
church. It was resolved that divine service 
should be preserved unaltered according to the 
usages of former generations, and an attempt 
was made to put an end to Luther's influence. 
His books were once more forbidden, and all 
subjects of the allied princes were interdicted, 
under pain of forfeiture of their patrimonies, 
from studying at the university of Wittenberg. 

At the same time, steps were taken towards 
the removal of those abuses which, had occa- 
sioned 5uch a general ferment. All the ex- 
tortions of the inferior clergy which raised so 
much discontent among the common people, 
the enforcement of expensive ceremonies, the 
burdensome fees,« the refusal of absolution on 
account of debts, were abolished. The rela- 
tion of the clergy to their flocks was to be put 
on a fresh footing, by a commission composed 
of clerical and lay members. The reserved 
presentations were diminished, the number of 
holydays materially lessened, the practice of 
stations abolished. The assembly pledged it- 
self for the future to a more careful considera- 
tion of personal merit in the appointment of 
ecclesiastics. The preachers were admonished 
to show greater earnestness, and to avoid all 
fables and untenable assertions; and the priests, 
to follow a chaste and irreproachable course of 
life.§ 

"VVe are, I believe, warranted in looking on 
these resolutions as the first eff'ects of the prin- 
ciples of the reformation in reviving the pro- 
founder spirit of Catholicism. As the alliance 
of the sovereign princes with the papal see 
fulfilled the political demands, so this attempt 
supplied (at first indeed very inadequately) 
the religious wants, which had given birth to 
the reforming spirit. These attempts at re- 
generation were unquestionably more important 
and effective than has been supposed, even by 
the catholic party itself; and, indeed, modern 
Catholicism is in great measure based upon 
them ; but neither in depth of religious intuition, 
in the genius which produces a permanent im- 
pression on remote nations and ages, or in 
force and intensity of enthusiasm, could they 
be compared to those movements v/hich took 
their name from Luther, and of which he was 
the centre. His opponents offered nothing 
original; the m.eans they adopted, and by 
which they thought to keep their ground, were 
mere analogical imitations of what he had al- 
ready done. Thus, at Campeggi's suggestion, 
Dr. Eck published, as a corrective' to Melanch- 



§ "Constitutio ad removendos abusus et ordinafio ad 
vitam Cleri reformandam per Rev'""' D™ Laurentium," 
&:c. — Ratispona; JVonis Julii, in Goldast Constitutt. Impp-, 
iii. p. 487. What is given by Strobel (Miscel. ii. p. WJ, 
&c,), from an old prin^ted book, which is also before me, 
by no means embraces the whole contents of the Consti- 
tution. The abolition of a great number of holydays in 
the 21st article, which differs but little from the later 
protestani regulations, is very remarkable. 



Chap. V. 



ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



203 



thon's " Loci communes," a handbook of the 
same kind,* and Eraser made a translation of 
the Bible, as a rival to that of Luther. The 
works of the Wittenberg teachers had issued 
forth in the natural course of their own internal 
development: they were the product of minds 
goaded by a resistless impulse, pressing for- 
ward in their own peculiar path, and were filled 
with the vigour and originalit}'' that forces con- 
viction : the Catholic books, on the contrary, 
owed their existence to external motives ; — to 
the calculations of a system which looked 
about for any means of defence against the 
danger pressing upon it from every side. 

But those who adopted such a line of con- 
duct, thus cut themselves off from the great 
and vigorous expansion which the mind of the 
German nation was now undergoing. The 
questions which ought to have been discussed 
and determined at Spire, with a view to the 
unity and the wants of the nation, were dis- 
posed of by the allied powers in a narrow and 
one-sided manner. It was said that a single 
nation had no right to decide on the affairs of 
religion, and of Christendom generally : this 
was easily asserted ; but what was the nation 
to do if, from the peculiarities of its constitu- 
tion and character, it was the only one that 
had fallen into this state of ferment I At first 
it had petitioned for the immediate convocation 
of a council; but as the hope of this grew 
fainter and more remote, it felt the necessity 
of taking the matter into its own hands. This 
is sufficiently proved by the ordinances issued 
at Regensburg. The difference was this — at 
Spire, in all probability, resolutions would 
have been taken in opposition to the Pope of 
Rome ; whereas at Regensburg it was thought 
expedient, from a thousand considerations, to 
form a fresh alliance with him. This was the 
origin of the divisions in the riation. The 
national duty of awaiting the decisions of a 
general assembly which was already fixed ; of 
taking part in its deliberations ; and, let us 
add, of influencing them to wise ends, was 
sacrificed to the narrow and partial expediency 
of an alliance with Rome. 

One part of the projects of the congregation 
at Rome being thus executed with unhoped-for 
success, Campeggi next pointed out the neces- 
sity of endeavouring to accomplish the other ; 
which w.as, to induce the emperor to give the 
cause his cordial support. f 

Not a moment was lost at Rome in gaining 
over Charles V. Whilst the official proclama- 
tions from Regensburg dwelt only upon such 
points in the Recesses as were favourable to 
the papacy, and affected to consider them as 
mere confirmations of the edict of Worms, it 
w^as at the same time represented to the em- 
peror in Spain how greatly his authority must 

* "Enchiridion, seu Loci Communes contra Heereticos:" 
printed in 1525, and, accordinnr to Eck, composed, " Hor- 
tatu Cardinalis de Campegiis, ut simpliciores, quibus 
cortice natare opus est, summarium liaberent creden- 
dorum, ne a pseudoprophetis subverterentur." 

t He complained ; " non haver quella causa (Luterana) 
di costa (della Spa^na) il caldo che bisogneria, fa che 
d'ogni provisione che si faccia si trahe poco frutto." — 
Giberto Datari agli Oratoii Fiorentini in Spagna, Lettere 
di Princijpi, i. f. 133. 



suffer by his edict being limited by two follow- 
ing Recesses; nay, by an attempt having" actu- 
ally been made to revoke it,-— a measure which 
he himself could not have ventured upon : it 
was evident, they said, that the people of Ger- 
many were preparing to throw off all obedience, 
both to temporal and spiritual authority. And 
what insupportable insolence was there in 
fixing a meeting in that country, to decide on 
matters of faith, and the affairs of Christianity 
at large ; as if the Germans had a right to 
prescribe laws to his imperial majesty and to the 
whole world ! ^^ 

Similar arguments were vehemently pressed 
upon Charles's ally, Henry VIII., who had 
entered into a literary warfare w4th Luther, to 
induce him to use all his credit with Charles 
V. in support of the pope's exhortations. 

The state of political affairs generally was 
highly favourable for promoting the influence 
of the papal power over the emperor. War 
had been formally declared against Francis L, 
in May, 1524, and was now raging with the 
utmost violence. The emperor attacked the 
king in his own' territory, from the side of 
Italy. It would th-erefore have been extremely 
dangerous to offend the pope, who was in his 
rear, and who did not quite approve the inva- 
sion; or to refuse him a request which, more- 
over, was consonant to the Catholic education 
he had himself received in his youth. 

Charles V. did not hesitate a single moment. 
On the 27th of July, he despatched a proöla- 
mation to the empire entirely in favour of the 
pope, and expressed with unwonted vehemence. 
He complained that his mandate from Worms 
w^as disregarded,- and that a general council 
had been demanded, without even the due de- 
corum of consulting him. He declared, that 
he neither could nor would allow the intended 
assembly to take place ; that the German nation 
assumed to do what would be permitted to no 
other, even in conjunction with the pope, — to 
alter ordinances which had been so long held 
sacred. He pronounced Luther's doctrines to 
be inhuman, and, like his master, Adrian, he 
compared him to Mahomet. In short, he 
forbade the assembly, on pain of being found 
guilty of high treason, and incurring sentence 
of ban and reban.§ 

Thus did the court of Rome succeed in 

J We have not indeed the verj' letter from the pope to 
the emperor, but there is a sufficient account of it in the 
despatch from the papal datari us to the nuncio in Eng- 
land, Marchionne Lango, Lettere di Priucipi, i. 124. " N. 
Sr«'ha di cio scritto efficacemente alia M'^ Ces, accioche 
la consideri, che facendo quei popoli poco contp di dio 
tanto meno ne faranno alia giornata della M^^ S. e degli 
altri Signori temporaii :. ..I'absenza della M'a Cesarea ha 
accresciuta I'aiidacia loro tanto che ardiscono di ritrattar 
queir editto, cosa che Cesare proprio non faria." On 
the other hand, in the edict given at Regensburg, it is 
stated, "Darumb so haben wir auf des hochwürdigsten 
Herrn Lorenzen, etc. Ersuchen uns vergleycht, dass wir 
und unser Principal obgemelt Kaiserlich Edict zu Worms, 
auch die Abschied auf beyden Reichstagen zu Nürnberg 
deshalb beschlossen, .vollziehen."—" Wherefore we have, 
at the request of the most worshipful master Lorenzo, 
&c., agreed, that we and our principal should execute the 
above-named imperial edict of Worms, and the recesses 
of both diets at Nürnberg confirming the same." 

§ Frankf A. It appears from a letter from the Elector 
of Saxony to Ebner, dated Oct. 1524, Walch, xv. 2711 
that in the letter which had been sent to him, the ex 
pression, " bei Vermeidung criminis lese majestatis, unser 



204 



ORIGIIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



Book III 



gaining over to its cause not only several 
powerful members of the empire in Germany, 
but even its supreme head iri Spain, and by 
their means, inputting a stop to the dangerous 
resolutions of the diet : this was its first ener- 
getic interference with the ecclesiastical affairs 
of Germany. 

The main cause of this was, that the em- 
peror, residing in Spain, followed a line of 
policy, on which the character and the opinions 
of Germany had not the slightest effect, and 
suggested solely by his relations with other 
countries. His government during the first 
years of his reign exercised merely a negative, 
decomposing influence. Without taking any 
serious steps for the redress of the grievances 
charged upon Rome, he allowed himself to be 
induced by his political position to issue the 
edict of Worm^s, which, after all, could not be 
carried into effect; while on the one hand, it 
inflamed the antipathy of the nation to the 
utmost, and, on the other, put fresh" arms into 
the hands of the adherents of the curia. He 
first checked the growing consolidation of the 
Council of Regency, by rejecting the system 
of import duties to which he had at first con- 
sented, and then thought it advisable to over- 
throw that body entirely. Another Council of 
Regency was, it is true, formed at Esslingen ; 
but it took Vv^arning from the fate of the former, 
and neither enjoyed authority, nor even made 
the least attempt to acquire any ; — it was the 
mere shadow of a government. We have al- 
ready shown what prospects in favour of re- 
ligion and of national unity were connected 
with the projected assembly at Spire. This 
assembly was forbidden by the court of Spain, 
as if it w^ere criminal. 

The unity of Germany has ever depended, 
not so much on forms of government, or deci- 
sions of the diet, as on an intimate understand- 
ing among the more powerful sovereigns. 
Maximilian had found, during the latter half 
of his reign, what it was to have offended and 
alienated the Elector of Saxony ; and it was 
only by healing this breach, and entering into 
a close alliance with the Ernestine line of 
Saxony, that the election of Charles V. could 
be secured ; from that time the Elector Fre- 
deric had aUvays been treated, in externals at 
least, with the confidence and consideration 
due to a powerful and undoubted ally. This 
intimate connexion the emperor now broke off. 
He thought it more advantageous, and more 
suitable to his own station amongst the powers 
of Europe, to marry his sister Catharine to 
John III. of Portugal, than to the nephew of 
the Elector of Saxony, to whom he had be- 
trothed her. Hannart was commissioned to 
communicate this resolution to the court of 
Saxony.* We may remember how flattering 

und des Reichs Acht," &c.—" on pain of being found 
guilty of high treason, and of our ban and that of the 
empire," &;c., had been omitted. 

* Müller, Geschichte der Protestation, gives the parti- 
culars of this event. Hannart's letter to the emperor, 
dated 14th March, shows that the affair was to have come 
before the diet, which Ferdinand now purposely avoided. 
" II a semble ä mon dit S^ par plusieurs raisons que ne 
debvai parier ä M' de Saxen de la matiere secrete, que 
savez, que jusque apres la fin de cette journ6e imperiale." 



the proposal had been to Duke John, Frederic's 
brother, the objections which he raised from 
mere modesty, and his ultimate joyful acqui- 
escence. Hannart's communication was pro- 
portionally mortifying to him. The Saxon 
court was deeply offended. Such of the 
elector's friends as were about the archduke, 
wanted him to use his influence to prevent so 
offensive a proceeding ;f but as he had at first 
taken no personal share in the negotiation, 
neither did he now say one word, but sup- 
pressed his vexationT Duke John was less 
reserved. With wounded pride he rejected 
every communication, every offer, tendered to 
him on the subject; he expressed to those 
about him that nothing during the whole course 
of his life had ever hurt his feelings so deeply. 

With the other sovereign princes, too, Aus- 
tria stood but ill. The house of Brandenburg, 
which had supported the first Council of Re- 
gency for the sake of the interests both of 
Prussia and Mainz, was much disgusted by 
its overthrow, and concealed that feeling so 
little, that overtures were made to the Grand 
Master, Albert, by France, though, indeed, he 
did not accept them. In the month of August, 
the Rhenish electors held a congress, from 
which Archduke Ferdinand said he expected , 
no good either to himself or his brother.:^ The 
electoral councillors did notattempt to disguise 
from the imperial commissioner that people 
were extremely discontented with the emperor ; 
that his capitulation would be laid before the 
meeting; and as he had not fulfilled the con- 
ditions contained in it, they would proceed to 
the establishment of a new form of govern- 
ment, either under a lieutenant, the vicars of 
the empire, or a king of Rome, -vvTiom it was 
intended to elect.§ This project was discussed 
at a great croös-bow match at Heidelberg, 
where several princes were met together, and 
the palatine house of Bavaria was particularly 
busied with negotiations to that effect. The 
bond of Catholicism between Bavaria and 
Austria was not strong enough to prevent Duke 
William of Bavaria from conceiving the idea 
of obtaining the crown for himself. 

Thus the unity of the government of the 
empire was again dissolved, almost before it 
had felt its own purposes jor destinies. At a 
crisis so immeasurably eventful, in which all 
the energies of the nation were rushing v/ith 
boundless activity into untried regions, and 
eager for a new state of things, all directing 
power was wanting. 

Hence it happened that the local powers 



These letters altogether show a better understanding be- 
tween Hannart and the archduke than the Saxon docu- 
ments would lead one to imagine. 

t Among the secret correspondence between Frederic's 
and Ferdinand's councillors, there is a note in which one 
of them says', " S. Fiirstl. Durchlaucht begeren sonderlich, 
das der Heiratli vollzogen werd, damit S. F. Gn. desto 
mer Fug und Statt hab, S. Chf Gn. als irn angenora- 
menen Vattern urn Rath teglich anzusuchen."— "His 
princely highness greatly desires the consummation of 
the marriage, so that liis princely highness may have 
more excuse and reason for daily asking counsel of his 
electoral grace as his adopted father," — a wish which 
could scarcely have been shared by the whole court. 

X Letter from Ferdinand, Bucholtz, ii. p. 68. 

§ Letter from Hannartj ib. p. 70. 



CttAP. V. 



PERSECUTIONS. 



205 



proceeded to act upon the principles which 
severally predominated in them. 

Persecution began in those countries which 
had combined to pass the resolutions of Regens- 
burg. 

In Bavaria we find priests ejected or banished, 



confession and the mystery of the communion, 
was condemned to make a recantation. On a 
great holy day — the nativity of the Virgin 
Mary — two pulpits were erected for this pur- 
pose in the churchyard of St. Stephen's ; one 
of these was for the precentor, the other for 



and nobles driven from their estates, tillthey ! Tauber, to whom the form of recantation which 
consented to recant. The tempestuous, op- [ he was to read was given. But whether it was 
pressive atmosphere of the times is most strik- ; that he had never promised this, or that an 
ingly exemplified in the fate of an officer of the \ opposite conviction suddenly forced itself more 



duke, Bernhard Tichtehvon Tutzing. He was 
travelling towards Niirnberg on the duke's 
business, wiien he was joined on the road by 
Franz Burkhard, one of the orthodox profes- 
sors of Ingolstadt: they put up together at 
Pfafienhofen, and after supper, the conversation 
turned on religious matters. Tichtel perhaps 
knew who his companion was ; he reminded 
him that conversations of this kind were for- 
bidden by the new edict, to which Burkhard 
answered that that did not signify between 
them. Hereupon Tichtel did not conceal his 
opinion that the edict could not be carried into 
effect, and w^ould merely be a disgrace to the 
dukes ; he even vrent so far as to speak some- 
what equivocally of purgator}^ and of the obli- 
gation to fast; sanguinary punishments for 
differences of opinion he condemned altogether. 
On hearing these sentiments, Burkhard, who 
had advised the dukes to all the most odious 
measures, was seized with the savage fury of 
a persecutor : he said, in so many words, 
that decapitation was the proper punishment 
for Lutheran villains, and at the sam.e time 
called Tichtel himself a Lutheran. At parting 
he afi'ected to be reconciled to him, but he 
hurried to denounce the crime lie had detected. 
Tichtel was arrested and confined in the Lai- 
kenthurm, subjected to an inquisition, and 
compelled to recant : it was only b}^ dint of 
great exertions and powerful intercession, that 
he escaped a most degrading punishment which' 
had been suggested to the duke.* 

In the territory of Salzburg a priest arrested 
for Lutheranism v/as on his way under guard 
to Mittersill, where he w^as to remain impri- 
soned for life, and while the constables were 
carousing, was set free by two peasants' sons. 
For this offence the poor 3'ouths were, by order 
of the archbishop, secretl}^ beheaded without 
public trial, early in the morning, in a meadow 
in the Nonnthal outside the town — a place 
never used for execution. Even the executioner 
had scruples, because the condemned prisoners 
had not had lawful trial; but the bishop's 
officer said, "Do xAvat I command you, and 
let the princes answer for iV\ 

A citizen of Vienna, one Caspar Tauber, 



strongly than ever on his mind, he declared 
from the pulpit whence the assembled multi- 
tude was expecting to hear his recantation, 
that he did not consider himself to have been 
refuted, and that he appealed to the Holy 
Roman Empire. He must have been w-eil 
aware that this would not save him : he was 
beheaded shortly after, and his body burnt ; but 
his courage and firmness left a lasting impres- 
sion on the people.:^ 

There were some other people arrested with 
Tauber, who, terrified by his fate, made the 
recantation demanded of them, and escaped 
with banishment,§ 

The same severity was practised throughout 
the Austrian dominions. The three govern- 
ments of Insbruck, Stuttgart, and Ensisheim 
appointed a commission at Engen, whose 
especial business itv»-as to suppress the move- 
ment in their provinces. The people of V7ald- 
shut gained nothing by dismissing their 
preacher, Balthasar Hubmaier : the Engen 
commission declared that they should be 
punished, or, as it w^as coarsely expressed, 
" that the Gospel should be banged about their 
ears till the}- were fain to hold their liands over 
their heads." The weeds were to be pulled 
up by the roots ; and already the other tov/ns 
had been summoned to furnish subsidies of 
artillery and infantry for the attack on Y\"ald- 
shut, when a body of Swiss volunteers, princi- 
pally from Zürich, came to the assistance of the 
town, and caused the commission to pause 
awhile.]! 

Kenzingen did not escape so well ; the little 
town was actually taken and invested. 

Similar disturbances were going on in all 
parts of the country, though sometimes the 
measures taken stopped short of bloodshed ; 
Luther's books were forbidden, and his adher- 
ents were not endured in the pulpit or the 
councils of the princes, but were exiled from 
their country. The government of Würtem- 
berg wanted to break off all communication 
with Reutlingen, because it tolerated evange- 
lical preachers. Neither were the most barba-, 
reus executions wanting. We read of preachers 
nailed to the pillory by the tongue, so that in 



who had expressed anti-catholic opinions re- | order to get free they were forced to tear them- 
specting the intercession of saints, puroator}'. 



* Another of the same party, the Chancellor Leonhard 
V. Eck, had proposed that the duke should follow the 
merciful course ("den barmherzigen Weg"), viz. that 
Tichtel should only be placed in the pillory, his crimes be 
there read aloud, and then by him be orally confessed and 
renounced: he should then, as a mark of his heretical 
backsliding, be branded on both cheeks ; after this he was 
to be conveyed back again to the Falkenthurm, and kept 
there until further orders fom the duke. See the Extracts 
from the Acts, Winter, i. pp. 182—199. 

t Zauner, iv. p. 381. 



t Ein warhafilig Geschieht, wie Caspar Tawber, Burger 
zu Wien in Osterreich fürein Ketzer und zu dem Tori t 
verurtaylt und aussgefürt worden ist." 1524. — "The true 
History' how Caspai- Tawber, a burgher of Vienna in 
Austria, was condemned and executed as a heretic." The 
execution took place on nth Sept. 

§ Sententia contra Joannem Vagsel— one of the con- 
demned — ult. Septembr, 1524. Raupach Evangel. Oes- 
treich. Erste Fortsetzung ; Beilage, No. V. 

|j Letter from Balthasar Hubmaier in the Taschenbuch 
für Süddeutschland, 1839, p. 67, from the Archives of 
Switzerland and the Upper Rhine. 



9Q6 



DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



Book III 



selves away, and were thus mutilated for life. 
The fanaticism of monkish bigotry was awak- 
ened, and sought its victims in Lower as well 
as Upper Germany. The most awful example 
was made of the wretched Heinrich of Zütphen, 
at Meldorf in Ditmarsch. A small congrega- 
tion had formed itself there, v.'hich had invited 
this Augustine monk from Bremen to join them 
for a time : they had obtained permission from 
the governers of the country, the Forty-eight, 
that until the meeting of tlie expected ecclesi- 
astical assembly, the Gospel should be preached 
pure and unchanged. But their opponents, 
the prior of the Dominicans of Meldorf and the 
Älinorites of Lunden, were far more powerful ; 
and in combination with the vicar of the bishop's 
of^cial,they obtained a contrary sentence, which 
delivered t,he poor man into their hands, alleg- 
ing that he had preached against the Mother of 
God.^ A drunken mob, headed by monks 
bearing torches, went one night in January to 
the parsonage and dragged forth the preacher, 
whom they put to death by the most atrocious 
tortures, executed with equal cruelty and un- 
skilfulness. 

Meanwhile the other party was aroused to a 
sense of the necessity of taking more decisive 
measures.' 

Immediately after the congress at Regens- 
burg, the cities, seeing the danger that threat- 
ened them from the support which their bishops 
appeared to receive from the princes, held a 
great tov/n meeting at Spire, and resolved in 
direct opposition to that adherence to the Latin 
fathers of the church which had been enjoined, 
that their preachers should confine themselves 
wholly to the Gospel and the prophetic and 
apostolic Scriptures. f At that time they still 
expected that the assembly would' be held at 
Spire, and their intention was to propose some 
common resolution. When, however, this 
meeting was forbidden by the emperor, and it 
seemed as if another serious attempt would be 
made to carry into effect the edict of Worms, 
they assembled towards the end of the year at 
Ulm, in order to aid each other in resisting all 
measures proposed with that view. Weissen- 
burg. Landau, and Kaufbeuren, which had al- 
ready received some rebukes, were admonished 
as to their future conduct. 

The tow^ns were joined by a part of the 
nobility. Count Bernhard of Solms appeared 
at the meeting in the name of the counts on 
the Rhine and the Eifel, of the Wetterau, the 
Westerwald, and the Neiderland ; and asked 
the towns their opinion concerning a proposed 
levy and tax of the empire for an expedition 
against the Turks, and also concerning the 
Lutheran matter. The towns judged rightly 
that this combination with the nobles would be 



* Neocorus, edited by Dahlmann, ii. p. 24. The judg- 
ment of the raag;istrate runs thus: " Desse Bösewicht 
hefft gepredigt wedder de Moder Gadess und wedder den 
Christen Gloven, uth welkerer Orsake ick ehn verordele 
van wegen mines genedigen Herrn Bischops van Bremen 
thorn Vaere."— " This miscreant hath preached against 
the mother of God and the Christian faith, for which 
reason I condemn him to the fire, in the name of my 
gracious Lord Bishop of Bremen. 

t Town meeting at Spire, St. Margaret's day, 1524. 
Summary extract in Fels Zweiter Beitrag, p. 204. 



very advantageous to them ; and after inter- 
changing a few letters, the affair was concluded, 
and a resolution was taken on the spot at Ulm, 
" not to act separately in affairs of such weight, 
and during such perilous times. "ij: 

The most important event of all was, that a 
considerable number of the princes declared 
their complete dissent from the compact of 
Regensburg. 

Markgrave Casimir of Brandenburg, who 
had certainly never shown any great religious 
enthusiasm, could no longer withstand the 
aroused and declared convictions of his whole 
country: he rejected the proposal of becoming 
a party to that compact, alleging the general 
expectation of the assembly at Spire. When 
this meeting was forbidden by the emperor, he 
passed a decree in concert with his estates, that, 
in his own territories at least, nothing should 
be preached but the Gospel and the word of 
God of the Old and New Testament, pure and 
undefiled, and according to the right and true 
interpretation. Such was the tenour of the 
recess of the Brandenburg diet of the 1st of 
October, 1524. His brother George, who lived 
at the Hungarian court at Ofen, was not satis- 
fied even with this. He thought that the word 
of God ought not only to be preached, but to 
be implicitly obeyed, in defiance of all human 
ordinances. § 

A most unlooked-for change now took place 
in Hessen. It was expected that the three 
warlike princes who had conquered Sickingen 
and overthrown the Council of Regency, would 
also combat the reforming ideas which their 
enemies had supported. The most energetic 
of the three, however, very soon followed an 
exactly contrary course. 

In May, 1524, one day as Landgrave Philip 
of Hessen was riding to a cross-bow match at 
Heidelberg, he met, near Frankfurt, Melanch- 
thon, whose fame was well-known to hfm, and 
who was then returning from a visit to his 
home in the Palatinate, accompanied by a couple 
of intimate friends who had been there with 
him. The landgrave stopped him, made him 
ride some distance by his side, and asked him 
several questions which betrayed the deep in- 
terest he felt in the religious dissensions ; and, 
at last, he only dismissed the surprised and 
embarrassed professor, on condition that he 
should send him, in writing, his opinion on the 
most important points under discussion. || ■ Me- 
lanchthon executed this task with his usual 
mastery of his subject; his letter was short, 
logical, and convincing, and produced a strong 
impression. No^t long after his return from \J[\e 
festivities, on the 18th of July, the landgrave 
issued a mandate (also in manifest contradic- 
tion to the resolutions of Regensburg), wherein, 
among other things, he commanded that the 
Gospel should be preached pure and unadulte- 
rated. From day to day he became more 
deeply imbued with the peculiar opinions of 
the new creed : at the beginning_of the following 



J Fels Zweiter Beitrag, p. 206. Nicolai, 1524. 
§ Von der Lith, pp. 61—65. , 

iJCarnerarius Vita Melanchthonis, cap. 26. Strobel'S 
Neue Beiträge, iv. 2, p. 8& 



Chaf. V. 



ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION IN THE NATION. 



207 



year, he declared that he v/oiild sooner give 
up his body and life, his land and his people, 
than forsake the word of God. 

It appears as if some general understanding 
had been come to at Heidelberg on the subject 
of religion; for, at first, Philip of Hessen fully 
expected that the Elector Palatine would follow 
his example; and although it was not in the 
nature of that prince to take so decided a part 
as the landgrave, at least he did not allow 
himself to be hurried into any acts of persecu- 
tion. 

The banished Duke of Würtemberg, too, 
might already be regarded as a convert to the 
cause. Lutheran preachers resided with him 
at Mümpelgard, and in October, 1524, Zwingü 
expressed his wonder and joy that this Saul 
was become a Paul.* 

Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, the nephew of 
Frederic of Saxon}^ w^ho had studied at Wit- 
tenberg, showed a similar leaning to the doc- 
trines of the reformers and was strengthened 
in his opposition to Austria by the affair of 
Hildesheim. The first beginnings of the re- 
formation at Celle under his protection, date 
from the year 1524,f 

He was joined by Frederic I. of Dennlark, 
who, a year before, had become sole master of 
Silesia and Holstein. His son Christian had 
attended the Diet at Worms, with his tutor 
Johann Ranzau : they both returned home 
filled with admiration of Luther, and deeply 
imbued with his doctrines. They invited Peter 
Suave — the very man who had accompanied 
Luther on that journey — to Denmark ; by de- 
grees the duke himself v/as won over to the 
same cause. While bloody persecutions were 
set on foot in so many places, Frederic I. 
published an edict, dated the 7th August, 15-34, 
wherein he made it a capital offence to molest 
or injure any one on account of his religion: 
every one, he declared, ought so to arder his 
conduct in that behalf, as' he could best answer 
it to Almighty God.ij: 

A still more important circumstance for the 
prospects of Lutheranism was, the secession of 
a powerful spiritual prince, the Grand Master 
Albert of Prussia, from the doctrines of the 
papacy. At the diet of Nürnberg he had been 
much impressed by Osiander's preaching; and 
having examined the Scriptures himself,"heTe]t 
convinced that the order to which he belonged 
was not in accordance with the word of God,§ 
Another motive probably w^as, that the fall of 
the Council of Regency, and the depressed 
state of the nobility in general, deprived him 
of the last hope of obtaining assistance from. 
tbe empire against Poland. W'hat then must 
have been his feelings when no hope was left 



* Zwinglins CEcolampadio, Tiguri, 9th Oct. Epp.i 
Zwinglii, i. p. 163. 

t Hüne, Geschichte von Hannover, i. p. 747. 

% Munter, Kirchengeschichte von Dänemark, ii. p. 565. 

§ Meinoranduin of a conversation between Markgrave 
Albrechr and Achatius v. Zeraen. Beitrüge zur Kunde 



of successfully resisting his old enemies, while 
at the same time his mind was agitated by 
doubts of his own condition and calling. He 
returned to Saxony in the company of Planitz, 
the Saxon assessor to the Regency, witli whose 
sentiments we are well acquainted. Here he 
sav/ Luther. This intrepid and resolute man, 
who considered all things with relation to the 
intrinsic necessity rather than the outward 
pressure which enforced them, advised him to 
torsake the rules of his order, to rnarr}^ and to 
convert Prussia into an hereditaryprincipality. 
The Grand Pilaster had too much of the discre- 
tion and reserve befitting a prince, to express 
his assent to this suggestion : but it was easy 
to read in his countenance how strongly he 
inclined towards it.|| We shall see how, im- 
pelled by the situation of his country, and by 
the course which his negotiations took, he soon 
proceeded to the execution of this project. 

Such were the results of the prohibition of 
the national council, the announcement of which 
had excited such ardent hopes. 

It cannot be affirmed that violence was met 
by violer^ce, or that the tenacity with which 
the old doctrines were maintained was opposed 
by an equally resolute adoption of the new. 

How little such was the case, is shown by 
the example of the Elector of Saxony, who in 
spite of Luther's continual and violent expostu- 
lations, caused the mass to be celelsrated 
throughout the whole of the year 1521, in his 
chapel of All-Saints, and continually reminded 
the chapter of their clerical duties. 

The state of things may rather be summed 
up as follows. The empire had determined to 
I hold a general deliberation on the important 
affair which occupied the whole mind of the 
nation. The pope succeeded in preventing the 
execution of this project, and in -drawing a 
certain number of the German sovereigns into 
a partial combination in his own favour; but 
the others still pursued the path they had 
entered upon conformably with the laws of the 
empire. They were indeed forced to renounce 
the general assembly, since the emperor so pe- 
remptorily forbade it; but they were not so 
easily persuaded to relinquish the old decrees 
I of the empire. They determined to abide by 
j the provisions of the Recess of 1523, which, in 
spite of a few additions and amendments, had 
in the main been confirmed in 1524. Indeed 
all the various mandates of that year have 
: fundamentally the same character and purport. 

Such was the origin of a division which has 
I never since been healed ; which has constantly 
! been kept open by the same foreign influences 
that originally caused it. It is very remarkable 
; that all the different party leanings which have 
: lasted through successive centuries, manifested 
I themselves thus early. We have still to ob- 
serve their establishment and further progress ; 
but the first moment of their existence revealed 
the incalculable amount of the danger with 
which they were pregnant. 



Preussens, vol. iv. 



Letter from Lutlier to Brismann in de W., ii. 526. 



208 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



Book. III. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PEASANTS WAR. 



Public order rests on two foundations— first, 
tlie stability of the governing body ; secondly, 
trie consent and accordance of public opinion 
with the established government ; not, indeed, 
in every particular, which is neither possible 
nor even desirable, but with its general tenour. 

In every age and country there must be 
disputes concerning the administration of the 
government ; but so long as the foundations of 
public confidence remain unshaken, the danger 
is rot great. Opinions are in perpetual flux 
and perpetual progress; so long as a strong 
government is actuated by the same general 
spirit, and feels the necessity of moving in the 
same direction, no violent convulsion need be 
feared. "* 

But when the constituted powers doubt, va- 
cillate, and conflict with one another, v/hilst at 
the same moment opinions essentially hostile 
to the existing order of things become predomi- 
nant, then, indeed, is the peril imminent. 

The first glance will suffice to show us that 
such was now the state of Germany. 

The government of the empire, which it had 
cost so much labour to constitute, and which 
certainly enjoyed the general confidence of the 
nation, was now broken up, and its place filled 
by the mere shadow of a name. The emperor 
was at a distance, and recently the authority he 
had exercised was merely negative; he had 
only prevented the execution of whatever was 
resolved on. The two hierarchies, the spiritual 
and the temporal, which had been the work of 
past centuries, were now separated by a deep 
and vvide chasm. The good understanding of 
the more powerful sovereigns, on which the 
unity of the empire had always depended, was 
destroyed. On the most important aflair that 
had ever presented itself, all hope of framing 
measures in concert was at an end.' 

This, of course, reacted very powerfully on 
the state of opinion. A sort of understanding, 
with regard to which it was .unnecessary to fix 
? any precise terras, had hitherto been evinced 
in 'the tendencies of the imperial government, 
and the moderated tone adopted by Luther ; 
and this it was that had enabled them to crush 
the destructive opinions which arose in 1522. 
iBut now that all hop^ of further change being 
effected by a decree of the empire was over, 
Luther could no longer maintain the authorita- 
tive position he had assumed, and the anarchical 
theories he had helped to stifle broke out afresh : 
they had found an asylum in the territory of 
his ovv'n sovereign — in electoral Saxony. 

In riamünde, one of the cures which had 
been incorporated w\ith the endowments of 
Wittenberg for the benefit of that University, 
Carlstadt now preached. He had entered into 
possession of the cure in an irregular manner, 
in opposition to the proper patrons of it, partly 
by means of a certain claim which he raised 
as belonging to the chapter, but mainly, by the 



election of the parishioners. He now removed 
the pictures, performed divine service after his 
own fashion, and promulgated the most extra- 
ordinary opinions concerning the doctrines of 
the church, and especially the obligations of 
the Mosaic law. We find mention of a man 
who, by Carlstadt's advice, u'cinted to marry 
two wives.* His rash and confused mind led 
him entirely to confound the national with the 
religious element of the Old Testament. Lu- 
ther expected that before long circumcision 
would be introduced at Orlamünde, and thought 
it necessary seriously to warn the elector against 
attempts of this nature. 

« At Eisenach, Johann Strauss had already 
struck into a like crooked path. He was par- 
ticularly violent against the practice of receiv'- 
ing interest on a loan. He declared that the 
heathenish laws of the jurists were not binding, 
; and that the ^Mosaic institution of the year of 
jubilee, " wherein every man shall return unto 
' ti'.e inheritance he had sold," still continued to 
be a valid commandment from God ; thus call- 
: ing all vested rights of property in question. | 
I 'Not far from thence, Thomas Münzer had 
j founded a church on the doctrines which had 
j been suppressed at Zwickau and Wittenberg. 
Like the former propagators of those doctrines, 
he assumed as its sole basis, those inward re- 
velations to which alone he attached any im- 
portance ; and he far surpassed them in the 
vehemence with w^hich he preached theTaborite 
doctrine, that unbelievers were to be extermi- 
nated with the sword, and that a kingdom 
should be established, composed of the faithful 
only. 

These doctrines could not fail to find a 
welcome and an echo in allparts of German3^ 
In Würtemberg, too, the Israelitish year of 
jubilee was preached to the peasants. " Oh, 
beloved brethren!" said Dr. IMantel, "oh, ye 
poor christian men, were these yccirs of jubilee 
to arrive, they would indeed be blessed years V^ 
Otto Brunfels, Vv'ho had previouslybeen very 
moderate in his language, in 1524 published at 
Strasburg a series of essays on tithes, wherein 
he declared them to be an institution of the 
Old Testament, which was abrogated by the 
New, and entirely denied the right of the clergy 
to them.§ 

While new. champions of these opinions 
started in various parts of German}', Nicolas 
Storch re-appeared at Hof, where he found 
believers in his revelations, and gathered round 



I .. 



* Letter of Luther to Brück, 13th Jan. 1524. (De W., 
ii. No. 572.) 

t"Dasswucherzu nemen und geben unserm christlichen 
Glauben entgegen ist, 1524." — "To give and take usurious 
interest is against our Christian faitli." C. iii. it is said : 
" So dann in' der Ordnung des Jubel Jars im Text offen- 
barlich aussgedruckt wirt das Gebot, das die notürlftig 
bruderlich Lieb fordert, muss alle Einrede still halten und 
allen Christen desgleychen zu thun gebotien ungezvA'efielt 
seyn." — " Seeing, then, in the text, ordaining the year of - 
jubilee, the command requiring brotherly love is clearly 
expre^^reu, ?o all disputes miisf cease ; and there can be 
no doubt that all Christians are commanded to do like- 
wise." 

t Sattler, Würtenbergische Geschichte, Herz, ii. p. 105. 

§ "De Ratione Decimarum Ottonis Brunfelsii Proposi- 
tiones." Among others, prop. 1J5: "Proditores Christi 
sunt Juda jiejores et sacerdotihns Baal, qui pro missis Pa- 
pisticis et Canonicis preculis decimas recipiunt." 



Cflxp. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



209 



him twelve apostles who were to disseminate 
his doctrine throughout the nation.* 

The exile of Münzer and Carlstadt from 
Saxony, which was partly effected b)'- Luther's 
influence, f greatly contributed to the spread , 
and the force of the agitation. They both went i 
to the Upper Rhine, wl>ere Carlstadt began I 
by unreservedly proclaiming his doctrine of j 
the Lord's Supper; and, however untenable! 
was his own exposition of it, the excitement j 
he thus occasioned was most violent, and pro- : 
ductive of incalculable results. ]Miinzer pro- i 
ceeded through Nürtiberg; to Basle and the ! 
frontier of Switzerland, where he was soon | 
surrounded by fanatics who called themselves 
"the 3'oung Münzers," as Carlstadt was by 
men of learning. He confirmed them in tiie 
rejection of infant baptism, which by degi'ees 
was become the watchword of the part}" that 
meditated a universal revolution. 

Thus, to the disorganisation of the supreme 
authorities, was added the general revolt of 
opinion against all existing institutions ; a 
state of the public mind, which opened a 
boundless vista of possible changes in the 
order of things. 

The result was inevitable. 

We have already seen in what a state of 
ferment the peasantry of all parts of the em- 
pire had been for more than thirty years ; how^ 
many attempts they had made to rise; hov/ 
violent was their hatred to all constituted autho- 
rities. Long, however, before the Reformation 
had been even thought of, their political schemies 
were tinged with a' religious character; this 
■was shown in the case of the Capuchins at 
Eichstadt, in that of Hans Behaim in the 
Würzbürg dominions, and of the peasantr}'' in 
Untergrumbach. Joss Fritz, vrho in 1513 re- 
nevv'ed the Bundschuh at Lehen, in the Brisgau, 
Vf'as encouraged in his purpose by the parish 
priest, "because justice would be furthered 
by it : God approved the Bundschuh, as might 
be shown from the Scriptures ; it Vv'as, there- 
fore, a godly thing.":|: Poor Kunz of Vv ürtem- 
berg declared, in 1514, "that he vrould stand 
up for righteousness and divine justice." It 
was immediately after a sermon of a former 
very orthodox professor of catholic theology, 
Br. Gaislin, that the tumult first broke out on 
the banks of the Glems.§ j 

It was the manifest and inevitable tendency | 
of the reforming movement, which shook the i 
authority of the clergy from its very founda- 
tions, to foster ideas of this kind ; but it is not 
less clear that the evangelical preaching-, which 
was undertaken with far different views and j 
aims, was likely to be affected by an excitem.ent | 
* Wideruann, Chron. Ciiriense: Mencken, iii. p. 744. 

t Who has not read the scenes in Jena, where Luther 
is said to have given Carlstadt a gulden to write a-rainst 
him, and to be his enemy? Acta Jenensia, Walch, xv. 
24a;2. Luther always complained of the malignity of 
tli^e stories. That they are received in Luther's works 
does not prove their truth, as Fuessli says in his Life of 
Carlstadt, p. 65. Luther was placed in ä false position by 
hinting that Carlstadt's opinions were seditious, like 
those of Mii-izer, which could not be clearly proved. 

1 Confession of Hans Hummel; Schneider, Bundschuh 
zu Lehen, p. 99. 

§ Heyd Herzog Ulrich von Würtenberf, i. u. 243 
27 s* 



already so powerful. The political excitement 
was not produced by the preaching, but the 
religious enthusiasts caught the political fevei. 
For all had not the sound sense and the pene- 
tration of Luther. It was now taught that as 
all were the children of one father, and all 
equally redeemed by the blood of Christ, there 
should no longer be any inequality of wealth 
or station. !| To the complaints of the miscon- 
duct of the clergy, were added the old accusa- 
tions against lords and rulers : their wars ; the 
harsh, and often unjust administration of their 
ministers and subordinates, and the oppressions 
under which the poor groaned ; in short, it was 
asserted that if the spiritual power was anti- 
christian, the temporal was no less so. Both 
were accused of heathenism and tyranny. 
" Things cannot go on as they have done," 
concludes one of these writings ; " the game 
has been carried on long enough, and both 
citizens and peasants are tired of it ; everj' 
thing will alter — omnium rerum vicissitude."^ 
The first disturbances broke out in the same 
district in which most of the former commotions 
had begun, — in that part of the Schwarzwald 
which divides the sources of the Danube from 
the upper valley of the Rhine. Several causes 
concurred to render this the scene of peculiar 
discontent : — the vicinity of Switzerland, with 
which that part of Germany stood in various 
and close relation ; the peculiar severity with 
which the Austrian government at Ensisheim 
and the commission at Engen pursued even the 
i most blameless preachers of the new doctrine; 
I the personal share taken in these measures by 
I the Count of Sulz, governor of Insbruck, and 
j hereditary judge at Rothweil, who, as v/ell as 
! the Counts of Lupfen and Fürstenberg, was 
I distinguished for his hatred of Lutherans and 
I peasants ; the presence of Duke Ulrich of 
j Würtenberg at Hohentweil, who beheld his 
; most formidable enemies in these noble parti- 
I sans of Austria, and used every means to irritate 
I the people against them. ; lastly, perhaps, the 
I consequences of a hail-storm which, in the 
■ sunimer of 1524, destroyed all hopes of the 
\ harvest in the Kletgau. The insurrection broke 
j out in the Stühlinger district, the domain of 
I Count Sigismund of Lupfen. If it be true, as 
i the contemporar}^ chronicles affirm, that the 
I immediate cause of the revolt was a strange 
i whim of the Countess of Lupfen, for winding 
i yarn upon snail-shells which her subjects were 
forced to collect, it is certain that never did a 

\i " Kurz das e zugang aufF Erden, wie mir Theutschen 

von Schlaurafteniand, die Poeten de Insulis fortunatis, 

I umf die Juden von ihres Messias Zeytten dichten, also 

I auch zum Tayl die Junger Christi gedachten vom Re)-ch 

I Christi.''— " In short, that it should be on earth, as we: 

I Germans romance of the Schlaurafferfland (a sort of pays 

j de Cocaigne), poets, de Insulis fortunatis, and the Jews 

of the times of their Messiah; so some of the disciples 

of Christ thought about the kingdom of Christ." — Eberlin 

von Günzberg, Ein Getrewc Warnung an die Christen in 

der Burgau. 

IF Ein ungewonlicher und der ander Sendtbrieff dess 
Bauernfeyndts zu Karsthannsen."— "An uncommon and 
another missive of the peasants' enemj'- to Karsthann- 
sen," towards the end : printed by Johann Locher of 
I Munich. Panzer (ii. No. 2777.) mentions a previous 
i letter of Karsthannsen, dated 1525. In the second, I find 
! no mention of the peasants' war, and it must have been 
1 %vritten, at latest, during the latter half of the year 1524. 



210 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



Book III. 



more trifling and faiitastic cause produce more 
serious and violent effects.* 

On the 24th of August, 1524, Hans Müller 
of Bülgenbach, a Stiihlinger peasant and 
soldier, went to the anniversary of the conse- 
cration of the church at Waldshut, followed by 
a considerable troop of insurgent peasants, 
bearing a black, red, and white flag: but re- 
sistance to a single count was, far too mean 
and trifling an object for him ; he announced 
his intention of founding an evangelical brother- 
hood for the purpose of emancipating the 
peasantry throughout the German empire. j- A 
small contribution paid by the members was 
destined to pay emissaries who were to extend 
the confederation over all parts of Germany. 
This project did not originate with himself. It 
was suggested by Thomas IMünzer, who had 
long kept up a correspondence with this district, 
and now arrived there in person. ?Ie stayed a 
few wrecks in Griesheim, and then traversed 
the Hegau and the Kletgau, — for he could find 
no permanent resting-place, — :|: preaching 
wherever he went the deliverance of Israel, 
and the establishment of a heavenly kingdom 
upon earth. The subjects of the Counts of 
Werdenberg, Montfort, Lupfen, and Sulz, of 
the Abbot of Reichenau and the Bishop of 
Constance, gradually joined the Stühlingers. 
Those of Sulz previously consulted the inha- 
bitants of Zürich, in which town their lord 
possessed the rights of citizenship; and al- 
though the latter did not, as they assured the 
count, approve the insurrection, they did not 
hesitate to make the toleration of evangelical 
preachers one of the conditions of their obe- 
dience. § It would be Vv'ell worth while to ex- 
amine the course of these movem.ents more 
narrowly than has yet been done. The various 
motives which concurred to produce the pea- 
sants' war were more distinguishable at this, 
than at any other period ; for this was the 
moment at which they assumed the form of 
those general ideas, which from that time to 
this have possessed such ä singular power of 
inflaming and attaching the minds of men. 

The lords vainly called upon the Swabian 
League for aid in their peril. Here and there 
a band of insurgents was induced by its per- 
suasions and promises to return home ; but 
wherever a serious engagement took place, the 
peasants maintained their ground. 



* Extract from the Villinger Clironik; VValchner, Ra- 
tolphzell, p. 89. According to Anshelni, vi. p. 298, the 
subjects of the Counts von Lupfen and Fürstenberg com- 
plained, " Dass sie am Fyrtag müpsten Schneggenhüssli 
suchen, garn winden, Erdbeer, Kriesen, Schlehen ge- 
winnen, und ander dergleichen thun, den Herren und 
Frouwen werken bei gutem Wettei-, ihnen selbs im Un- 
gewetter: das gejägd und d'hund lüftent ohne Achtung 
einigs Schadens."— "That on hölydays they were obliged 
to hunt for snails, wind yarn, gather strawberries, cherries, 
and sloes, and do other such like things ; they had to 
work for their lords and ladies in fine weather, and for 
themselves in the rain. Their huntsmen and hounds ran 
about without resrarding the damage they did." The 
matter v.-aslaid before the Kammergericht, but the people 
did not wait for the decision. 

t Schreiber, Taschenbuch für Süddeutschland, i. p. 72. 

J " Certis de causis." Bullinger adversus Anabaptistas, 
and his Reformations-geschichte, p. 224. 

§ Füesslins Beiträge zur Historie der Kirchenreforma- 
tion, vol. ij. p. 68. 



Hearing that a body of the infantry and 
cavalry of the League was advancing against 
them under Jacob von Landau, they took up a 
strong position, from which it was impossible 
to dislodge them,|J Nor could the most zealous 
efforts of well-intentioned mediators bring 
about any reconciliation. The peasants drew 
up a statement of their grievances in twelve 
articles, which they did not hesitate to lay 
before the Council of Regency at Esslingen. 
If, however, the lords refused to enter on°the 
discussion of the whole of these collectively, 
the peasants were equally determined not to 
concede any point : they had indeed far more 
extensive schemes in reserve. At the end of 
the year 1524, and the beginning of 1525, the 
peasants were masters of the whole land.*^ 
The lords and their ministers were at length 
compelled to seek safety behind the massive 
walls of Ratolphzell, defended by its devoted 
townsmen. 

Meanwhile, however, similar disturbances 
had broken out in larger districts. 

Nowhere were the complaints of the people 
better grounded than in the dominions of the 
Abbots of Kempten. These ecclesiastical 
rulers continually vexed their subjects with, 
fresh taxes, which they spent in building or 
travelling. A's long ago as the year 1492, 
riots had broken out in consequence, but had 
led to no redress of the peoj)le's wrongs. The 
free peasants, who were very numerous in the 
Abbacy, were continually ground down to the 
station of Zinsers,** and those again to that 
of villeins; II while the latter were compelled 
to perform services that rendered their condi- 
tion more intolerable. Free lands were taken 
possession of; tithe-free estates subjected to 
tithe^; the money paid by the peasants for 
protection and defence v/as raised twenty-fold ; 
the popular courts of justice held at markets 
or fairs were suppressed ; the revenues of the 
communes or villages were seized ; occasionally, 
even, the spiritual power was applied to carry 
through these oppressions. It was not sur- 
prising, therefore, that, in th&year 1523. when 
a new Abbot, Sebastian von Breitenstein, 
entered on the government, the peasants re- 
fused to do homage, except on condition that 
he would redress their grievances. At first he 
held out the hope that he would comply with 
their demands; thirteen sittings were held to 
consider of them, but all in vain ; the Abbot at 
length exclaimed that he would leave things as 
he found them; if his subjects would not obey 



11 VValchner, Geschichte von Ratolphzell, p. 92. 

IT The instruction given by Archduke Ferdinand to 
Veit Suiter (Walchner and Bensen, p. 558,) shows the 
state of lawless violence produced under these circum- 
stances. 

** The Zinser, or Zinsmann, occupied, as the context 
shows, an intermediate station between the free peasant 
and the villein. As the idea is a very complex one, and 
involves a number of conditions to which we have no- 
thing analogous, any attempt to translate the word could 
only mislead. Grimm (D. R. A. p. 358) says, ''Zins is 
the Latin census." The word which seems most nearly 
to express its meaning, in the cases he cites, is dues. — 
Transl. 

tt Haggenmüller, Geschichte der Stadt und Grafschaft 
Kempten, p. 505, says that four hundred cases of this kind 
are recorded in the Rotula of the Provincial Acts. 



Chap. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



211 



him, George von Frundsberg' should come and 
teach them. This was assuredly a most ill- 
timed stretch of the spiritual rights of supre- 
macy, just when all men were refusing their 
belief in the basis on which those rights were 
founded — the divine authority of the clergy. 
As the Abbot made this appeal to force, his 
subjects thought it time to prepare for defence. 
On the 23d of January, 1525, the seceders, 
{Gotteshauskuie — God's house people) held a 
meeting at their old place on the Luibas. They 
determined to pursue the matter legally before 
the judges and councillors of the League, and 
if they could get no redress, to sound the tocsin, 
and repel force by force. 

Already they beheld allies rising around them 
on every side. Similar, if not equal wrongs ; 
the force of example, and the hope of success, 
set the peasantry all over Swabia in motion. 

In February, the people of the Allgau, led 
by Dietrich Hurlewagen of Lindau, rose against 
the Bishop of Augsburg, and formied a strict 
alliance with the villages of Kempten. On 
the 27th of February, the two districts held a 
meeting on the Luibas. If any inhabitant of 
them refused to join the association, a stake 
was driven into the ground before his door, as 
a token that he was a public enemy. At their 
call, the peasants all along the Lake of Con- 
stance, and across the Alps to Pfullendorf, 
joined them, led by Eitelhans of Theuringen, 
whom his followers celebrate as "a good cap- 
tain' of the Lord, who kept a faithful hand 
over them." No bells could be tolled for 
divine service ; the sound of them instantly 
gave the alarm, and all the people rushed to 
the place of meeting at Bermatingen.* A 
third party, consisting of the subjects of the 
Abbot of Ochsenhausen, the Baron of Wald- 
burg, and many other lords and cities, rose on 
the Ried. The villages that refused to join 
them were threatened with fire and sword ;f 
the people on the Iller hastened to unite with 
them. Their centre of operations was at Bald- 
ringen. 

Thus united, and grown to a formidable 
force, the peasantry now again laid their griev- 
ances before the Swabian League. In the j 
course of March, negotiations were again set ' 
on foot in Ulm with the three insurgent bands. : 
But it may be doubted u-hether it was not the ! 
character of the League itself which caused ! 
these discontents; — the incessant wars, the j 
expenses of which were either thrown directly 
on the subjects, or raised by an increase of all I 
the established burthens ; the support it gave \ 
to the several lords individually; being itself 

* Saliiiansweiler's description in Oeclisle, Beiträge zur 
Geschichte des Bauernkriegs, p. 485. 

t See the account of the treaty of Heaöwisch, Walchner, 
p. 238: " Wie wol es den Frommen und Eibaren nil Jieb, 
sonder ein gros beschwärd was. Nütt dester minder so j 
was der Jungen und auch deren die nienien nutz.; so vil j 
das die Allten und auch die Frommen mit innen müsten [ 
ziichen, oder sy im der nit ziechen wollt ein Pfal für sin | 
hus schlugen!, unnd im darby tröwtend." — "Although, | 
indeed, to^the honest and godly it was not welcome, but I 
rather a grievous burthen ; nevertheless, not only the 
young, and those who were of no use to any man, but j 
also the old and godly men even were forced to go along \ 
with them. And if any man would not, they thrust a i 
stake into the earth before his door, and threatened him I 
thereat." 1 



I composed of the very sovereigns against whom 
I the complaints were made. It now clearly 
! appeared how great a calamity it was for the 
' country that the Council of Regency had re- 
cently lost so immensely in power and con- 
I sideration. It sent, indeed, two of its mem- 
j bers to comxmand peace, and to try to bring 
I about a reconciliation ; and they proposed to 
erect a court of arbitration, — each party to 
' nominate one prince and three cities, who 
I should hear the complaints and adjudge the 
I remedy. But the Council of Regency v°as far 
too weak to obtain a hearing for even these 
moderate proposals. For a mxoment (in Feb- 
ruary and iMarch) the invasion of his own 
land by the Duke of ^Yürtenbe^g had occupied 
the attention of the League. It is difficult to 
^ay what would have happened if the Con- 
: federation, on vrhom this prince again relied, 
had adhered firmly to his cause, as it appeared 
its interest to do. For it seemed consistent 
enough that the Swiss, in opposition to whom 
the Swabian League was originally formed, 
should support the duke who attacked, and the 
I peasants who revolted against it ; and it was 
this danger which had induced the councillors 
; of the League to enter into negotiations. But 
on this occasion, as on formier ones, other con- 
siderations preponderated with the Swiss diet ; 
and when the duke had already forced his way 
into the outskirts of Stuttgart, they recalled 
their troops from him with the greatest urgency, + 
and he was compelled to retreat without gain- 
ing any solid advantage. 

The League was thus at liberty" to act against 
the peasantry. Without further hesitation, it 
required them first to lay down their arms, 
after which it would treat with them.§ As 
the peasants had gone much too far to agree to 
these conditions, the League, well prepared for 
war, determined on an immediate resort to 
force. But it was destined again to find a 
Vv'holly unexpected resistance. Detached bands 
Vv^ere easily routed and dispersed, and a fev/ 
small places quickly reduced ; but this had no 
effect on the main body. The duke's enter- 
prise had so far been o-^ use to the peasants,' 
that it had given them time to assemble in 
masses which kept even such a commander as 
George Truchsess in check. Many of these 
men had borne arms in the field. While the 
League had excited the insurrection by grinding 

J Hans Stockar's Heimfahrt und Tagebuch, p. ].3i: 
"und dye Botten, die miantend uns ab, das wier hiam 
zugend mit Mund und mit Brieffen, by Lib und by Leben, 
aiü Eren und Gutt, by Verlürn unser Vatters-land, und 
ckemend wier, so wettind sy uns aller Straff ledyg Ion, 
und erzalttend uns von dem" Schaden, den wier zu Mia- 
land und der Frantzoss Küng hatt aimpfangen. Und 
also warend v,-ir unseren Heren und Oberen gehorsam, 
und brachen in der Nacht uff."— "And the messengers 
warned us to depart to our homes by word of mouth and 
by letter, as we loved our lives and limbs, our honour 
and goods, and feared to lose our country; and if we 
went there they v\-ouId forgive us all punishment. And 
they told us of"the losses we had suffered in Milan, and 
those of the French king. And accordingly we obeyed 
our lords and masters, and set out that same night." 
~ § Haggenmüller, Kempten, p. 522. A book which I 
have constantly found very useful. I am surprised to 
find the movement at Kempten so falsely represented, 
even in contemporary works, and hence, of course, in all 
subsequent ones. Cochläus seems to be the originator 
of the errors. 



212 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



Book III. 



taxes and religious persecutions, it had also 
made the insurgents capable of self-defence, 
by its continual wars. The feeling of their 
own power of defending themselves was, in- 
deed, one chief motive to the revolt. The foot- 
soldiers of the League, who had not unfre- 
(juently served under the same banners with 
these peasants, had a natural fellow-feeling 
with them. And now, from the time that the 
last negotiations had proved abortive, the dis- 
order began to assume' a really serious cha- 
racter. 

The twelve articles had appeared, and every 
one knew what he had to expect, and why he 
had taken arms. These articles contained three 
diflWent kinds of demands : first of all, the 
liberty of the chase, of fishing, and of hevi^ing 
wood, and the prevention of or compensation 
for the damage done by the game : — demands 
and complaints reiterated by the peasantry of 
all countries ever since the rise of feudal so- 
cieties : as early as the year 997, we find them 
urged in Normandy.* Secondly, the peasants 
pressed for relief from some newly-imposed 
burthens, new laws and penalties, and for re- 
storation of the property of the parishes which 
had been abstracted, as we remarked in speak- 
ing of the usurpations of the lords. Lastly, 
the desire for religious reform was mingled 
with _ these secular motives. The peasants 
were determined no longer to be serfs, for 
Christ had redeemed them also with his pre- 
cious blood ; they would no longer pay the 
small tithe, but only the great one,j- for God 
had ordained that alone in the Old Testament. 
Above all, they demanded the right to choose 
their own preachers, in order to be instructed 
by them in the true faith, " without which 
they were mere flesh and blood, and good for 
nothing." The characteristic feature of these 
articles is a mixture of spiritual and temporal 
demands, a derivation of the latter from the 
former, v,^hich is certainly at variance with the 
sentiments of Luther, and with the pure and 
unmingled tendencies of the reformation; but 
which is also far removed from all schemes of 
general convulsion, and not at variance with 
common sense and humanity. As to the po- 
litical demands, the local and particular inte- 
rests are far less prominent than those of a 
general or a universal character, — as was in- 
dispensable where various bands of men were 
to combine : the author of them, be he who he 



*GulielmijsGemeticensis, Hist. Norm., lib. v. 2: " Juxta 
8i]os libitus vivere decernebant, quatenus tain in sylvarum 
compendiis quam in aquarnra coninierciis nullo obsistente 
ante statuti juris obice legibus uterentur suis," 

t This is shown in the following passage from Müllner's 
Annals. The council at Nürnberg caused it to he pro- 
claimed from all pulpits, " dass aller lebendige Zehent, 
ails Füllen Kälber Lämmer, &c., desgleichen der kleine 
Zehent, den man nennt dan todten Zehent, als Heidel 
Erbeiss Heu Hopfen, &c., ganz todtund abseyn solle, aber 
den grossen harten Zehenten von hernach benanntem 
Getreide, so man die fünf Brand nennt, nemlich von 
Korn Dünkel Waitzen Gerste Jiabern, sollte man zu 
geben schuldig seyn."— "That all tithes on living things, 
such as. foals, calves, lambs, &c., likewise the small 
tithes called the dead tithes, such as buck-wheat, pasture, 
liay, hops, &c., should he entirely abolished; but the 
people should be bound to pay the great hard tithes on the 
following sorts of grain, viz. rye, spelt, wheat, barley and 
oats." (According to custorfi, the fifteenth, twentieth, or 
tJjirtietli sheaf,) 



may, gave evidence of sagacity and address. 
For thus alone could the articles obtain general 
approbation, and be regarded as the manifesto 
of the whole body of the peasantry. ij: But 
further demands were by no means withdrawn 
in consequence. \ 

All the people of the Black Forest, from 
Wutachthai to Dreisamthal, now flocked to- 
gether under Hans Müller of Bulgenbach. 
This leader journeyed from place to place, 
brilliantly attired in a red cloak and cap, at 
the head of his adherents ; the great standard 
and the battle-flag followed him in a cart deco- 
rated with leaves and ribbons—a sort of car- 
roccio.§ A herald, or mess&nger, summoned 
all the parishes, and read the twelve articles 
aloud. Nor did their commander stop here ; 
he declared them the symbol of the evangelical 
brotherhood, which he intended to found; 
whoever refused to accept them should be put 
under temporal ban by the union. Already 
had this been declared against the lords of 
castles, the monks and priests in convents and 
.chapters : though even these men might be 
admitted into the association, if they chose to 
enter it, and to live for the future in common 
houses like other people ; every thing should 
then be granted them which was their due ac- 
cording to the laws of God. MüUer's first 
vague idea of an evangelical brotherhood thus 
assumed a very distinct form. A radical 
change in political and even in social relations 
was the object now clearly aimed at. 

In the course of April, 1525, it really ap- 
peared likely to come to this. 

It is a very remarkable . circumstance that 
while Münzer was fomenting the disorders in 
Upper Swabia, Dr. Carlstadt, a Franconian by 
birth, was equally active in Franconia. Com- 
pelled to quit Strasburg and to return home, 
but there subject to incessant persecution, and 
regarded with double horror in consequence of 
the notoriety of his doubts as to the sacrament, 
he at' length found an asylum at Rothenburg 
on the Tauber, where his opinions were re- 
garded with sympathy. The citizens of the 
guilds demanded that the church reform which 
had just been begun should be carried through, 
which the patrician families {die GeschlecJder^) 
whose domination was, moreover, not wholly 

X "Dye grünlichen und rechten Hauptartikel allei 
Bauerschafft und Uyndersessen :" printed among others 
in Ptrüt)ers Beiträge, ii. p. 9. Among the editions, one 
in Panzer, No. 2705, has this addition; "des monadts 
Martii." According to Haggenmüller, p. 513, their first 
appearance in the form of a document was during the 
negotiation between the three united bodies of peasants 
and the Swabian l^eague, in February and March, 1525. 
in which case theymust have been drawn up by a preacher 
who had joinc^d the peasants. According to the unani- 
mous opinion of contemporaries, among whom was Me- 
lanchthon, Christopher Schappeler was the author. Even 
in the Florentine History of Nardii (viii.p. 187,) he is called 
" uno scelierato rinnovatore della setta degli anabattisti 
chiamato Scaflere." Schappeler, hov.'ever, always denied 
this (Bullinger, p. 245); and, indeed, it seems to have 
been an error. It was afterwards supposed, and from his 
own confession (see Strobel, ib. p. 76), that Joh, Heughlin 
of Lindau was the real author, yet his confession relates 
only to the articles which were granted to the peasants 
of Sernatingen, to prevent their joining the other pea- 
sants: the famous twelve articles would have been men- 
tioned in another manner. 

§ Schreiber der Breisgau im Bauernkriege, Taschenb. 
für Süddeulschland, i. p. 235. 



Chap. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



213 



legal, opposed. The guilds had a most power- 
ful ally on their side, in the sturdy warlike pea- 
sants of the Landwehr, who were also vexed 
with exorbitant and illegal charges, and who 
claimed the liberty of the Gospel. We are too 
well acquainted with the character of Carl- 
stadt, not to know that he would approve all 
the objects of the people. Already banished 
by the council, but secretly protected by cer- 
tain powerful members of it, he suddenly ap- 
peared near the crucifix in the great burial- 
ground, in his peasant's coat and hat of rough 
white felt, and exhorted the country people 
not to desist from their endeavours.* It may 
easily be imagined, however, that the move- 
ment was not confined to religious innovations. 
In the last week of March, disturbances broke 
out, first in the country, and then in the town, 
in which a committee of the guilds seized on 
all the power; while the rural communes 
formed themselves into a great association, set 
forth their grievances — which had indeed spi- 
ritual grounds, but were by no means of an 
exclusively spiritual nature — and took up arms 
to compel redress. 

In Franconia the slumbering fires of discon- 
tent burst forth with still greater rapidity than 
in Swabia; either in consequence of the com- 
binations formed by the emissaries sent by 
Hans Müller, or by the excitement produced 
in the minds of the disaffected ringleaders by 
the example of their neighbours. A few thou- 
sand peasants, excited by the twelve articles, 
which had fallen into their hands, assembled 
in a valley of the Odenwald, called the Schüp- 
fergrund, and chose for their leader George 
Metzler, the inn-keeper at Ballenburg, in 
whose house the first arrangements had been 
made, — a bold man, whose life had been 
passed in the noisy revels of a frequented 
tavern. f Similar meetings were held at Böck- 
ingen, Mergentheim, and many other places. 
The first thing usually was to break the fasts ; 
a banquet was held, at which the most eloquent 
and the most disaffected spoke ; the twelve 
articles were brought out, read, and approved ; 
a leader was chosen, and the alarm bell 
sounded. Such was the beginning of the riot, 
the first act of which, in almost every case, 
was to seize upon a flour-store or a wine- 
cellar, or to drag a seigneurial fish-pond. 
The newly chosen commanders might be seen 
riding about with an air of authority, mounted 
upon the priest's pony. But though these 
tumults seemed contemptible enough in their 
beginnings, they became more and more formi- 
dable as they advanced. On an appointed 
day the several bands repaired together from 
every side, not exactly at the customary meet- 
ing-place, but at some convent the)^ had doomed 
to destruction, as, for example, at Schefler- 
sheim, where they swore to pay neither tax, 

* Bensen der Bauernkrieg in Ostfranken, p. 79. Ac- 
cording to the sentence passed on Stephan von Menzin- 
gen, this leader of the town movements, an adherent of 
Duke Ulrich of VViirtenberg, associated frequently with 
Carlstadt. See Aufang und Ende des Bauernkriegs zu 
Rothenburg, Walch, L. W. xvi. ItO. 

t According to Hubert Thomas Leodius, this occurred 
about the middle of Lent, at Lätare, 26lh March. 



rent, nor tithe, to any lord, temporal or spi- 
ritual, till they would come to some terms ; 
and in future, as they had only one God, to 
acknowledge only one master. It was as if 
the insurgents were led by some secret guid- 
ance to one predetermined end. Their object 
was in the first place to emancipate themselves 
from their lords, but then to unite with thnm 
and take measures in concert against the clergy, 
and, above all, against the spiritual princes. 

To accomplish this work by forcible m.eans, 
two troops marched into the field, one called 
the Black, from Rothenburg, under Hans Kol- 
benschlag, the other, the White, from the 
Odenwald, under George Metzler. The lords 
were compelled to accept the twelve articles, 
of which the Odenwald band published a dis- 
tinct declaration, wherein the abolition of the 
punishment of death, of the lesser tithes, and 
of villeinage were especially insisted on, v/ith- 
out omitting such local modifications as should 
seem necessary, and holding cut the prospect 
of further reforms.:|: This band had not, like 
the Swabian, the forces of the League to deal 
with ; there was nobody capable of resisting 
them. The Counts of Hchenlohe and Löwen- 
stein, the commander of the Teutonic Order at 
Mergentheim, and the Junker of Rosenberg, 
were forced in succession to subscribe to the 
conditions laid before them by the peasants, 
and to submit beforehand to the reforms they 
purposed to introduce. The Counts George 
and Albert, of Hohenlohe, consented to appear 
before the peasants' army at Grünbühl. *" Bro- 
ther George and brother Albert," said a tinker 
of Öhringen to them, "come hither and swear 
to the peasants to be as brothers to them, for 
ye are now no longer lords, but peasants. "§ 
Terrible, indeed, was the fate of those who 
ventured to resist, like Count Helfenstein at 
Weinsberg. The natural rudeness of peasants 
was inflamed by the first opposition into the 
wildest and most wanton blood-thirstiness : 
they swore that they would kill every man 
that wore spurs ; and when Helfenstein had 
fallen into their power, it was in vain that his 
wife, a natural daughter of Emperor Llaximi- 
lian, threw herself at the feet of the leaders 
with her little son in her arms : a lane was 
formed, and the victim brought out, preceded 
by a peasant playing on a pipe ; Helfenstein 
was then driven on the spears of his peasants, 
amidst the sound of trumpets and horns. 
Hereupon, every one gave way : all the no- 
bility, from the Odenwald to the Swabian 
frontier, submitted to the laws of the peasants, 
— those of Winterstetten, Stettenfels, Zobel, 
Gemmingen, Frauenberg, and the Counts of 
Wertheim and Rheineck; these of Hohenlohe 
now even gave up th.eir artillery to the pea- 
sants. || In order to bring the matter to a con- 
clusion, both bodies now marched against the 
most powerful lord in Franconia, who bore the 
title of Duke there, — the Bishop of Würz- 



X Explanation of the 12 articles. Oechsle, p. 572, and 
Bensen, p. 526. 

§ Letter from Count George to the city of Hall. Tues- 
day after Palm Sunday. Oechsle, p. 27L 

II Chronik der Truchsessen, ii. p. 195, 



214 



PEASANTS' AVAR. 



Book III. 



barg. On their way, they had not alone en- 
riched and strengthened themselves, but had 
also secured distinguished commanders of the 
knightly class. Götz von Berlichingen had 
undertaken the command of the Odenwald 
troop ; partly because it would have been dan- 
gerous to refuse; partly attracted by the pros- 
pect of active war, which was the sole object 
and passion of his life, and in which he was 
the more ready to engage, as it was directed 
against his old enemies of the Swabian 
League.* Florian Geier led the Rothenbur- 
gers. On the 6th and 7th of May these bands 
approached Würzburg in opposite directions, 
and were joyfully received by the inhabitants 
of the town, who hoped to gain the privileges 
of a free imperial city ;f the citizens and the 
peasants swore not to forsake each other till 
they had conquered the Frauenberg, in which 
the last remaining forces of the princes and 
knights of Franconia,^ who were now united, 
had assembled. 

At the same moment (the end of April and 
beginning of May, 1525) a similar state of 
things began throughout Upper German5^ 
Disturbances broke out in all directions, and 
eveirywhere they were in effect successful. 

The Bishop of Spire had been forced to 
submit to the conditions imposed by the pea- 
sants;:!: the Elector Palatine had met them in 
an open field near the village of Horst, and 
promised to redress their grievances on the 
conditions laid down in the twelve articles. § 
In Alsatia, Zabern, the residence of the bishop 
himself, had fallen into the hands of the insur- 
gents ; the inhabitants of the small towns de- 
clared that they had no spears wherewith to 
pierce the peasants ; for a time their leaders, 
Schlemmerhans and Deckerhans, [) were all- 
powerful. On Markgrave Ernest of Baden 
refusing to accept the terms offered by the 
peasants, his castle was taken and he was 
forced to fly. The knights of the Hegau were 
surrounded and besieged by them in the town 
of Zell on the Untersee. Even the powerful 
Truchsess, at the head of the forces of the 
Swabian League, was compelled to come to 
terms with the peasants of the Allgau, See 
and Ried, and, with the mediation of the cities, 
to promise them relief from their oppressions, 
before they would submit. It was unusual 
good fortune when they would thus consent to 
wait for future arrangements. In Würtemberg 



* Lebensbeschreibung des Götz, p. 201. See his Apology 
in the Materialien^ p. 156. 

t Johann Reinhards Würzburgische Chronik in Lud- 
^vig, Würzb. Geschichtschr., p. 886. 

t Gnodaiius, ii. p. 142. 

§ Letter from the Elector to Melanchthon ; "Haben uns 
mit ihnen den 12 Artikel wegen eines Landtags vereinigt, 
dergestalt wes wir uns derselben mit ihnen vergleichen 
möchten, das hat seine wege, wes wir uns aber nicht ver- 
tragen können, das seit stehen zu Thürfursten Fürsten 
und Ständen des Reichs."— "We have agreed with them 
about a diet to consider the 12 articles; in such wise that 
whatever we could arrange with them was to stand, but 
what we cannot settle was to be referred to the electors, 
princes, and states of the empire." This was the prin- 
ciple of most of the arrangements that were made. 
(Mel. Epp. i. p. 743.) 

II Two names, equivalent to Jack the Guttler and Jack 
the Tiler.— Transl. 



they would not hear of any more diets of the 
duchy (Landtage)^ but insisted on instantly 
placing everything in the hands-of their Chris- 
tian brotherhood, which had already spread 
over the chief part of the country. Each place 
sent a certain number of people into the field. 

The Bishop of Bamberg, the Abbot of Hers- 
feld, and the coadjutor of Fulda, had already 
made concessions of a spiritual, as well as 
temporal kind. The last-named of the three 
agreed to these changes with peculiar readi- 
ness, and immediately allowed himself to be 
saluted Prince von der Buchen ; his brother, 
the old Count William of Henneberg, also 
entered into the peasants' league, and promised 
to leave in freedom " all whom God Almighty 
had made free in Christ his Son."^ The 
boldest attempt at a complete change in all the 
relations of life was perhaps that made by the 
inhabitants of the Rlieingau. They once more 
assembled on the old traditional meeting-place, 
the Lützelau, at Bartholcmewtide,** and 
agreed to demand, above all, the restoration 
of their ancient constitution, the Haingericht 
(Bush Court)[f subsisting under their old 
law, and the Gebick, which converted the 
country into a sort of fortress : besides this 
they insisted on the participation of the lords, 
both spiritual and temporal, in the. burthens 
borne by the community at large, and the ap- 
plication of conventual property to the use of 
the country. They encamped on the Wach- 
holder at Erbach, and actually in open rebel- 
lion, compelled the governor, dean and chapter 
to grant their demands. :|::|: At Aschaffenburg 
too, the governor for the Archbishop of Mainz 
was forced to submit to the conditions of the 
peasants. 

The whole Swabian and Franconian branch 
of the German nation was thus in a state of 
agitation which seemed likely to end in a com- 
plete overthrow of all the existing relations of 
society ; a great number of towns were already 
infected with the prevailing spirit. 

The small towns were the first to join the 
cause of the peasantry, — Kempten, Leipheim, 
and Günzburg on the Danube (which, indeed, 
soon received severe chastisement) ; the nine 
Odenwald towns in the see of Mainz, and the 
towns in the Breisgau, in some of which the 
town clerk himself opened the gates to the 



IF The formula of the League. Ludwig, p. 879. 

** According to Bodmann's Rheingauischen Alterthü- 
mern, p. 461, Vogt's assertion, that the juniper-tree was 
the ancient place of meeting, is erroneous. 

tt Grimm, in his Deutsche Rechtsalthümer, p. 793, says, 
"The ancient OerichUw^s invariably held iti the open 
air, in a wood, under shady trees, on a hillock, or near a 
spring; the assembled multitude could not have been 
contained in any moderate building, and pagan ideas re- 
quired that the Gericht should be holden in a holy spot, 
on which sacrifices were offered, and the judgment of 
heaven appealed to. Christianity abolished the sacri- 
fices, but left the old Oerichtstatten undisturbed." I have 
sought in vain for any explanation of the word Gebick. 
It has been suggested to me that it is something like a 
Mark (district), or rather the lines by which each Mark 
was enclosed. These were chiefly formed by forest, and 
also by rivers, ditches, and other natural boundaries. See 
Grimm's account of the primitive territorial divisions of 
Germany (book iii. p. 491). — Transl. 

XX Artikel gemeiner Landschaft; Schunk, Beiträge zur 
Mainze Gesch. i. p. 191. ' 



Chap. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



215 



peasants; none of these, indeed, were in a 
condition to resist, and most of them groaned 
under the same oppressions as the peasantry. 
The people of Bamberg conceived the bold 
project of compelling the surrounding nobles 
to come and live within the walls of their 
town and become burghers; nearly fifty castles 
w"ere stormed in this neighbourhood.* The 
Abbot of Kempten being forced' to surrender 
his castle of Liebenthann to the peasants, and 
to seek refuge in the town, the burghers took 
advantage of the favourable moment to bring 
him to an agreement the}" had long desired, 
for the release of all his rights of sovereignty. 
Some of the free imperial towns of the second 
and third classes were next drawn into the 
league by persuasion or by force : these were 
Heilbronn, Memmingen, Dünkelspiel, and 
Wimpfen ; Rothenburg entered into an alli- 
ance with the peasantry for a hundred and 
one years, which was ratified at a solemn as- 
sembly held in the parish church : \Yindsheim 
was only restrained from the same course by 
the dissuasions of Nürnberg. Even in the 
great cities a similar spirit manifested itself, 
Mainz claimed the restitution of its rights as 
an imperial city, of which it had been deprived 
since the last disturbances. The council of 
Treves not only demanded that the clergy 
should be called upon to bear their share in 
the burthens of the citizens, but even laid 
claim to a part of the spiritual revenues accru- 
ing from the relics in the cathedral. j- The 
council of Frankfurt was forced to agree to 
the articles laid before it by the commonalty, 
word by word ;-\: alleging as an excuse that 
the same thing had happened in several other 
imperial cities. "■ It was remarked that Strasburg 
received the insurgents as citizens, and that 
Ulm supplied them with arms, and NiJrnberg 
with provisions. A learned writer of this pe- 
riod states it as his opinion, that the move- 
ment had originated even more with the towns 
than with the peasantry, and that the former 
had been originally stirred up by Jewish 
emissaries : he believes that the intention of 
the towns was to shake off the authority of 
the princes altogether, and to live like Veajce, 
or the republics of antiquity. § 

Unfounded as was this opinion — for we 
know hovv' zealously many of the imperial 
towns, Nürnberg for example, strove to sup- 
press the rising disorders in their own domi- 
nions, and we have seen that the disturbances 
in the towns which corresponded to those of 
the peasants Were only called forth by circum- 
stances, — yet w^e cannot but perceive what 
force and extension must have , been given to 
the rebellion by the addition of this second 
element, and how wide and threatening the 
danger was become. 



* Lang's Geschichte von Baireuth, i. p. 187. Heller, 
p. 88. 

t Scheckmann: Aflditamentiim ad Gesta Trevirorurn in 
Wyttenbach's edition of the Gesta, ii. Animadv. p. 51. 

T Lersner's Frankfurter Chronik. 

5 Conrad! Mutiani Literse ad Fridericuin Electorem, 
57th April. 1525, in Köhler's Beiträge, i. 270. 



The ideas to which this crisis gave birth 
w'ere most remarkable. 

The Franconian peasants formed projects 
for the reform of the whole empire. 

So deeply rooted w^as this purpose in the 
very heart of the nation. That which the 
princes had vamly endeavoured to accomplish 
at so many diets, — which Sickingen and his 
knights had attempted three years before to 
execute aiter their fashion, — the peasants now 
believed they could effect ; — of course in the 
manner most calculated to raise their own 
condition. 

The first object was to give a general direc- 
tion and guidance to the present tumultuous 
movement. A common olhce for the business 
of all the separate bands, in fact a sort of 
central government, was to be established at 
Heilbronn. The masses were to be ordered 
to return home to their daily work, leaving 
only a certain levy in the field, whose duty it 
w'ould be to compel all who still remained un- 
subdued to accept the twelve articles. 

In the further attempts to create some posi- 
tive institutions, the predominant idea was that 
of freeing the peasantry from the burthen of all 
the oppressive privileges of the lords, both 
spiritual and temporal. To accomplish this, 
it was determined to proceed at once to a gene- 
ral secularisation of the ecclesiastical property. 
As this w^ould involve the abolition of the spi- 
ritual principalities, means would thus be ob- 
tained for giving compensation to the .temporal 
sovereigns for the loss of their rights, for 
which some indemnity was thought due. The 
amount of church property was so enormous, 
that the people hoped still to have enough left 
to satisfy all the public exigencies of the em- 
pire. All duties and tolls were to be taken 
off, and all charges for safe conduct ; and only 
every tenth year a tax was to be levied for the 
Roman emperor,|| who was in future to be the 
sole protector and ruler of the country, and to 
whom alone the people were to owe duty and 
allegiance. The courts of law were to be re- 
modelled and popularised on one comprehen- 
sive principle. There w^ere to be sixty-four 
free courts {Freigerichte^) in the empire, with 
assessors of all classes, even the lowest ; be- 
sides these, sixteen district courts {Landge- 
richte)^ four courts of appeal {Hnfgerichte), and 
one suprem^e court (Kammer gerichf) ; all or- 
ganised in the same manner. The members 
of the Kam me'rgeripht were to be as follows : — 

II They refused to acknowledge Margrave Ernest of 
Baden as their sovereign, and were determined to be go- 
verned in future by the Emperor and his deputy alone. 
They also meant something similar by the divine right 
which they conceded to the Duke of Wiirtenberg. The 
chief ground of their recognition of the Emperor (Kaiser 
—Cmsar) was that he was named in the New Testament. 

IT Grimm says, in his Deutsche Rechts Aitertliümer 
(p. 829), "Originally almost every Gau or Merkgericht 
might be called a Freigericht. Later, however, when the 
sovereignty of the princes gained force and consistency-, 
this term acquired a peculiar meaning. Particular dis- 
tricts which maintained their independence, and re- 
mained immediately subject to the empire, bore the name 
of Freigerichte, just as immediate cities were called 
Freistädiey (öee further, note at p. 225.) Courts called 
Freigerichte, of which the lord of the soil appoints the 
president, and the peasants the assessors, exist, lam told, 
in the Germ.an provinces of Russia.— Transl. 



216 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



Book III. 



two princes, two reigning counts, two knights, 
three burghers of the imperial towns, three 
^rom the princely residencies, and four from 
all the communes of the empire. These were 
plans which had often been suggested, and 
are, for instance, to be found in a work which 
appeared as early as 1523, calFed "Need of the 
German nation" {^'-Nothdurft deutscher Nation'''') 
— they were now adopted and developed by 
two clever and daring peasant leaders. Fried- 
rich Weigant of Miltenberg, and Wendel Hip- 
ler, formerly chancellor of Hohenlohe.* The 
doctors of the Roman law were especially 
hated by the peasantry ; they were not to be 
admitted into any court of law, and only to be 
tolerated at the universities, in order that their 
advice might be taken in urgent cases. All 
classes, too, were to be made to return to their 
original vocation ; the clergy were to be only 
the shepherds of their flocks ; the princes and 
knights were to occupy themselves in defend- 
ing the weak, and to live in brotherly lovg 
one with another. All the commons were to 
undergo a reformation consonant to the laws 
of God and of nature ; only one sort of coin 
was to be current, and uniform weights and 
measures were to be introduced. 

Ideas more radically subversive than were 
ever again proclaimed till the time of the 
French Revolution. 

But bold and anarchical as they were, they 
were not without a considerable prospect of 
being realised. , The contagion spread every 
instant : it had already seized on Hessen, 
whence it threatened to extend its conquests 
over the Saxon race ; as from upper Swabia 
over the Bavarian, and from Alsatia over that 
of Lorraine. Corresponding disturbances took 
place in Westphalia; for example, at Mün- 
ster, where the town demanded the same con- 
cessions from its chapter as at Treves, and the 
bishop already feared that he should see the 
Vv^hole country hurried away by the storm. f 

*See the plans of the peasants in Ochsle, p. ]G3, and 
in the Appendix. It has already been remarked by Eich- 
horn (Deutsche Staats und ßechtsgesch. iii. p. ]]9, 4th ed.) 
that these designs throw a new liglit on the so-called Re- 
formation of Frederick III. Goidast does not indeed de- 
serve the blame which Eichhorn attributes to him : he 
has not given this little work as a reforniHlion of the 
Emperor's. The old work lie quotes bears the title 
" Teutscher Nation Notturft : die Ordnung und Reforma- 
tion aller Stend in Rom. Reych, durch Kayser Friedrich 
III. Gott zu Lob, der ganzen Christenheit zu Nutz und 
Seligkait fürgenommen." {Panier, ii. p. 2-26.) — "The 
Needs of the German N^ation: the ordering and reforma- 
tion of all tlie classes of the Roman empire by the Em- 
peror Frederick III., undertaken for the glory of God, 
and for the benefit and salvation of all Christendom." 
But this, no doubt, is a mere author's fiction. The paper 
breathes throughout the spirit of the first years of the re- 
formation. The calamity at Erfurt, which is there men- 
tioned among those communes which owed their ruin to 
self-interest, refers, n5 doubt, to the destructive riots of 
1510, and not to any previous and less remarkable 
events. 

t "Alle und semptliche Artikel durch die van Munster 
by sick sol vest upgericht."— " All and every article drav.?n 
up for themselves by those of Munster," and especially 
the letter of the Bishop Frederic, dated 8lh of May, in 
Niesert, Beiträge zu einem Münsterschen Urkundenbuch, 
i. p. 113. "So juvv vorgekommen, was grotes uprores 
jtzont im hylligen Ryke und daitscher nation weder alle 
Christliche Ordenunge Obericheit geistlich und weltlich 
vorhanden is — werden wy berichtet — das sulchs allhier 
in unserm Gestichte unser Obericheit und insonderheit 
dem geistlichen Stande zu gyner geringen Verhonynge 



It also broke out on the Austrian frontiers, 
where all that offered resistance were put 
under ban by the peasantry ; all the Alpine 
districts were in the same state : in Tyrol, 
Archduke Ferdinand found himself compelled, 
in manifest contravention of the decrees of 
Regensburg, to concede to the committees of 
the states of Inn and W^ippthal that the Gospel 
should in future be preached " pm-e and plain, 
according to the sense borne by the text;"^: 
in the see of Brixen, the bishop's secretary, 
Michael Geissmayr, headed the insurgents; at 
Salzburg, the miners flocked to the churches 
at the sound of the alarm-bell ; even between 
Vienna and Neustadt the labourers in the vine- 
yards talked of a combination which would 
enable them to send abont ten thousand n!en 
into the field v/ithin a few hours.§ 

Meanwhile, the rebellion had broken out 
in Thuringia, and had there assumed another 
character. 

It appears probable that in ThuAngia and 
the Harz, traditions of the fanaticism of the 
flagellants, the eflects of which may be traced 
down even to the end of the 15lh century,!) 
had prepared the ground for the insurrection 
of the peasantry. At all events, motives arising 
out of religious enthusiasm were much more 
powerful there than political causes. The 
opinions which Luther had overcome at Wit- 
tenberg, and which he had warned his prince 
not to suffer to take root in Thuringia, were 
now eagerly listened to by a numerous and 
excited population. Münzer had returned to 
Thuringia; he had been received at Mühl- 
hausen, Vv^here, as at Rothenburg, a change of 
the constitution and of the council had been 
I brought about by the co-operation of the lower 
class of burghers with the country people ; 
and from hence lie soon spread the ferment 
far and wide around him. He scorned, as 
we are already aware, the " fabulous gospel'' 
preached by Luther, his "honey-sweet Christ," 
and his doctrine that antichrist must be de- 
stroyed by the Word alone, without violence : 
he maintained that the tares must be rooted 
out, at the time of harvest; that the example 
of Joshua, who smote the people of the pro- 
mised land with the edge of the sword, must 

Inbrock und Besweriuire im Deile och vorgenommen und 
beteiiget." — "And it h;'.s come to our knowledge what 
great uproar there now is throughout tlie holy empire and 
German nation, against all Christian order and all rulers,' 
both spiritual and temporal ; and we are informed that, 
in our diocese, this has been tlie cause of no little con- 
tempt, resistance, and complaining against our magis- 
trates, and especially against those of the ecclesiastical 
order." 

X Excerpts in Bucholtz, viii. p. 330. Bucholtz shows a 
want of knowledge of the language of this period in as- 
suming that by these concessions the difficulties were 
avoided. 

§ Schreiben von Hofrath und Rennlkarnme'r, Bucholtz, 
viii. p. 88. 

KAccordingto Johann Lindner's Onomasticon (Mencken, 
ii. p. 1521,) this sect prevailed chiefly in Aschersleben and 
Sangerhausen. In a document which is quoted by Forste- 
mann in his Provincialblättern für Sachsen (18.38, No. 
I 232), we find an inquisition at Castle Hoym against one 
of these flagellants, in the year 1481. It was perhaps a 
point of union that they too looked upon their preacher 
as a prophet, and thought that in him they beheld the 
judge at the day of judgment. But, indeed the whole i3 
dressed up with metaphor. 



Chap. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR— MÜNZER. 



217 



he followed * ' He was moreover dissatisfied 
with the compacts made b}'- the peasants of 
Swabia and Franconia. His views went much 
farther; he deemed it impossible to speak the 
truth to the people so long as they were go- 
verned by princes. He declared it intolerable 
that all creatures had been converted into pro- 
perty, — the fish in the water, the birds in the 
air, and the plants on the earth; these crea- 
tures must be free to all before the pure Word 
of God could be revealed. He utterly rejected 
all the principles on which the idea of the 
State rests, and acknowledged nothing but 
revelation; "but this," he said, "must be ex- 
pounded by a second Daniel, who will lead 
the people like Moses." At Mühlhausen he 
was regarded as a master and a prophet ; he 
had a seat in the council, and gave judgment 
in the court of law according to revelation ; 
under his direction convents were suppressed, 
and their property confiscated ; cannon of pro- 
digious calibre founded, and warlike enter- 
prises executed. The priests' houses in the 
territory of Duke George were first attacked, 
and then the convents stormed, with tha assist- 
ance of the enraged populace; in the Harz and 
throughout the great plain of Thuringia, up to 
the edge of the forest. The monuments of the 
old Landgraves at Reinhardsbrunn were de- 
faced, and the library destroyed. f The next 
step was to attack the castles and farms of the 
lords, both in Eichsfeld and in Thuringia. 
We no longer find any mention of conditions 
and treaties, or of a future reformation ; the 
object of these fanatics was a general and piti- 
less destruction. " Beloved brethren," writes 
Münzer to the miners at ?.Iansfeld, "do not 
relent if Esau gives you fair words ; give no 
heed to the wailings of the ungodly. Let not 
the blood cool on your swords ; lay Nimrod 
on the anvil, and let it ring lustily vv'ith your 
blows; cast his strong tower to the earth while 
it is yet day." "Know then," he writes to 
Count Ernest of Heldrungen, " that God has 
commanded us to cast thee from thy seat with 

* Ausleguns; des andern unterscliyds Danielis dess prn- 
' pheten gepredigt aufm Schloss zii Alstedt vor den tetisen 
thewren Herzogen und Vorstehern zu Sachsen durch 
Thomas Münzer, 1524."—'- Explanation of the other dis- 
tinction of the Prophet Daniel, preached at the Castle of 
Alsted, before the active and beloved dukes and governors 
of Saxony, bj' Thomas Miintzer." Certainly one of his 
most remarkable productions. He takes great pains to 
prove the diöerence between genuine revelations and 
false visions, e. ff. that the former descends on a man in 
a joyful amazement (" in eyner frohen Verwunderung"). 
A man must be free from all temporal comforts of\he 
flesh ("abgeschieden sein von allem zeitlichen Trost 
seines Fleisches"). The work of visions should flow not 
from human endeavours, but simply from the unchange- 
able will of God ^"nit rausser quellen durch menschliche 
anschlege, sondern einfaltiar herfliessen nach Gottes- un- 
vorrucklichen Willen"). It is clear that he does not go 
nearly so far as Ignatius Loyola ; at the same time he 
combats Luther's more moderate theory, which he as- 
pcribes to " imaginary goodness" (" einer getichten Güte") 
He sa\-s quite openly, that the ungodly should not be suf-" 
fered to live. " I say with Christ that ungodly rulers, 
more e.«pecially priests and monks, should be put to 
death" (" Ich sage mit Christo. &c. das man die gotlosen 
regenten, sunderlich pfaffen und mönche tödten sol"). 
Princes are to exterminate the ungodly, «r God will take 
the sword from them. " Oh, my dear masters, how finely 
will the Lord smite the old pots with an iron rod !" 
(" Ah, lieben Herren, wie hübsch wirt der Herr unter die 
alten Topf schmeissen mit einer eysern Stangen.") 
f Thuringia Sacra, i. p. 173. 
28 T 



the might that is given to us.":|: When the 
country people of Schwarzburg, also in league 
with the small towns, rose against the count, 
and assembled in considerable force at Frank- 
enhausen, jMünzer feared nothing but the con- 
clusion of a treaty; "a fraud," he calls it, 
"under colour of justice :" he left his strong- 
hold of Mühlhausen in order to prevent this 
and to attack "the eagle's nest" in person. 
He proved from the Apocalypse that the power 
was to be given to the common people. 
" Come and join in our measure," he writes to 
his friends at Erfurt, "it shall be right fairly 
trod ; we will pay the blasphemers back all 
that they have done to poor Christendom." 
He signed himself " Thomas Münzer, with 
the sw"ord of Gideon." 

Fanatic as he was. Münzer still occupied a 
most formidable position. In him the mystical 
notions of former ages were blended with the 
tendencies toward ecclesiastical and temporal 
reform which had just arisen. Out of this 
combination he formed a set of opinions which 
addressed themselves immediately to the com- 
mon people ; incited them to rise an^ annihi- ' 
late the whole existing order of things, and 
prepared the way to the absolute sway of a 
prophet. The people assembled in troops all 
around on the hills of Meissen and Thuringia,§ 
awaiting the first decisive result of his enter- 
prize, in order to join him imim.ediately after it. 
The popular current would then have flowed 
in this direction from all parts of Geri:nany. 

At length, therefore, the results which might 
long have been anticipated, appeared. No 
sooner were the authorities which constituted 
the State in Germany at variance with them- 

I selves and each other, than the elem.entary 
forces on which it rested arose. The lightnings 

I flashed from the ground, and the streams of 
public life left their accustomed channels : the 
storm which had so long been muttering under- 
ground nov\^ poured out all its fury on the upper 
regions, and everything seemed to threaten a 

I complete convulsion. 

I If we examine more closely this great ele- 
mental strife of the German State in all its 

I bearings, we. shall be able to distinguish seve- 

iral different steps in its progress. 

I Its origin was, no doubt, to be found in the 
oppression of the peasantry, which hac^ been 
gradually increasing during the preceding years, 
in the imposition of fresh taxes, and, at the same 
time, the persecution of the evangelical doc- 

! trines which had seized on the minds of the 
common people more strongly than any intel- 
lectual influence before oi since, and had more 
effectually stimulated them to individual exer- 
tion. Had the peasants been content with 
resisting all arbitrary claims, and securing the 
liberty of hearing their own doctrine preached, 
they would have avoided calling up against 
them the whole strength of the existing order 
of things, and might have secured to them- 

t Letter in Strobel : Leben, Scliriften und Lehren 
Thomse Münzer, p. 95. 

§ Pauli Langii Chronica Nurnburgensia, in Mencken, 
ii. p. 67. 



21S 



PEASANTS' WAR— LUTHER. 



Book IIL 



selves a long course of peaceful and lawful 
improvement. 

Nay, even more might have been obtained ; 
in many places, treaties were concluded by 
which the lords gave up the most oppressive 
of the rights they had formerly acquired ; it 
was probable that these would be observed on 
both sides, and that a lawful and w-ell-defined 
relation would thus be established between the 
classes. 

But it is not in human nature to rest content 
with moderate success ; it is vain to expect 
reason or forbearance from a conquering mul- 
titude. Here and there a confused tradition of 
some ancient rights of the commons was re- 
vived, or the people found themselves a match 
for the knights in the field ; — indeed the rebel- 
lion must be considered partly as a symptom 
of the revived importance of infantry; — but 
for the most part, they were goaded by long- 
cherished hatred and lust of revenge, which 
now found vent. While some of their chiefs 
boasted that they would introduce a better order 
of government into the empire, the wildest de- 
struction was carried from castle to castle, from 
convent to convent, and even threatened the 
towns which had refused to join the rebellion. 
The peasants thought they ought not to rest 
while a dwelling was left standing in Germany 
superior to a peasant's cottage.* Their fury 
was inflamed by the ravings of fanatical preach- 
ers, who justified the work of destruction, and 
thought it a duty to shed blood ; and, following 
the inspiration of the moment, which they called 
divine, to erect a new kingdom of heaven. Had 
this movement been successful, there must of 
course have been an end of all peaceful pro- 
gress, according to the laws which have ever 
governed the human race. Happily, it could 
not succeed ; Münzer was far indeed from be- 
ing the prophet and hero required to execute 
so gigantic an enterprise ; besides which, the 
existintr order of things- was too firm to be so 
completely overthrown. Moreover, the strong- 
est and most genuine element of the reforming 
party was opposed to it. 

Luther had not allowed himself to be hurried 
into any political enterprise by Sickingen and 
the knights ; nor had the insurrection of the 
peasantry any attractions for him. At the be- 

* According to Milliner's Annalen, the peasants, in 
an^er at receiving some refusal, declared to the council 
of Nürnberg, that the council mieht stand in greater need 
of the peasants than the peasants of the council : "dar- 
auf sind sie mit einem solchen Trutz und Hochmuth ab- 
ffescheiden, als wann die Welt ihr eigen wäre; haben 
sich auch ingeheim gegen etliche vernehmen lassen, sie 
gedenken kein Hauss in ganzen land zu gedulden, das 
besser sey denn ein Bauernhaus ;"—" thereupon they de- 
parted with such insolence and pride, as though the world 
were their own ; they also in private crave many to under- 
stand that they were resolved to sufier no house to stand 
which was better than a peasant's hut." In the ordinance 
made by Michel Geismair in 152b (" Lanndsordnung, so 
Michel Geismair gemacht hat, im 1526 Jar," Buchoiz, ix. 
C51.), the fifth article is, " alle Rinkmauern an den Stel- 
len, dergl. alle Geschlösser und Bevestigung im I>annd 
riiedergeprochen werden und hinfur nimmer Statt sounder 
Dörfer sein, damit Unterschied der Menschen (aufhöre), 
und ain gannze gleichaitim Lannd sei"—" That all walls 
round towns, likewise all castles and fortified houses in 
the country, should he thrown down, and thenceforth there 
were to be villages but no towns, so that all distinction 
among men should cease, and a complete equality shoultl 
prevail in the land." 



ginning, ere it assumed its more frightful form, 
he exhorted them to peace : while he rebuked 
the lords and princes for their acts of violence 
and oppression, he condemned the rebellion as 
contrary to divineand evangelical law, and as 
threatening destruction to both spiritual and 
temporal authorities, and hence to the German 
nation. -f- But when the danger so rapidly in- 
creased, when his old enemies, the " murder 
prophets and mob spirits," took so prominent 
a part in the tumult, and when he really began 
to fear lest the peasants should prove victorious 
(a state of things which he thought could only 
be the precursor of the day of judgment), the 
wdiole storm of his indignation burst forth. 
W^ith the boundless influence which he pos- 
sessed, what must have been the consequences 
had he taken part with the insurgents ! But 
he remained a staunch advocate for the sepa- 
ration between the spiritual and the temporal, 
which was one of the fundamental principles 
of his whole system ; and to the doctrine that 
the gospel gives freedom to the soul, but does 
not emancipate the body from restraint, or pro- 
perty from the control of the laws. The origin 
of the rebellion has been often ascribed to 
preaching, but this is not confirmed by the 
facts. Luther now, as three years before-, did 
not for one instant hesitate to brave the storm, 
and to do every thing in his power to prevent 
the general destruction which he clearly fore- 
saw. A pious Christian, said he, should rather 
die a hundred deaths than give way one hair's 
breadth to the peasants' demands. The gov- 
ernment should have no mercy; the day of 
wrath and of the sword was comiC, and their 
duty to God obliged them to strike hard as long 
as they could move a limb : whosoever perished 
in this service was a martyr of Christ. Thus 
he supported the temporal order of things with 
the same intrepidity that he had displayed in 
attacking the spiritual. tj: 

The secular authorities, too, aroused them- 
selves, and took courage in this, the greatest 
peril that had ever threatened them. 

The first who rose was the same man who 
had done the best service against Sickingen,— 
the young Philip of Hessen : towards the end 
of April he assembled his knights and his most 
trusty subjects of the tow^ns in Alsfeld ; he 
promised them that no new burthens should be 
laid on the peasants ;§ while on their part, in 



t " Ermanung zum Friede auf die 12 Artikel der Baur- 
schaft in Schwaben." — Altenh. iii. p. 114. 

J Wider die räubischen und mordischen Bauern.— 
Against the robbing and murderous peasants. — Hid. p. 
124. See the letter to Rühi-l, ii. p. 886. Melanchthou 
came to his aid on this occasion with his convincing, dog- 
matical, and clear Conclusions; e. g. to Spalatin, lOtli 
April, 1525, chiefly to be understood as directed against 
the introduction of the Mosaic laws, but also to be under- 
stood generally : " Rationi humaiiJE commisit Christus 
ordinationes politicas: debemus uti presentibus legi- 
bus." {Corp. Ref. i. 7.33.) It is necessary to have a front 
of brass to persist in afiirming, as Surius and CocIiIbeus 
have done, that Luther abandoned the peasants when he 
saw tiiat they were beaten. I don't know whether the 
partial successes of George Truchsess, gained at a great 
distance, were really known to Luther; it is, however, 
certain that they decided nothing: (lie revolt of the pea- 
sants had just taken full possession of Thuringia and Sax- 
ony, when Luther, at his own personal risk, opposed it. 

§This information is afforded by a declaration of Land- 



Chap. VI. 



DEATH OF FREDERIC. THE WISE. 



219 



answer to his inquiry, they swore with out- 
stretched hands to live and die with hini. His 
first care was to defend his own frontiers ; he 
tranquiilised Hersfeld and Fulda, not, indeed, 
without violence, though his cruelties have 
been fabulously exaggerated ; and then crossed 
the mountains and marched into Thuringia to 
the assistance of his Saxon cousins, with whom 
he stood in hereditary alliance.* 

Just at the moment that these disorders reach- 
ed their height in that district, the Elector 
Frederic died. How striking was the contrast 
between the fierce intestine discord which raged 
throughout Germany, and the quiet chamber at 
Lochau in which Frederic, calm and collected 
in the ijiidst of agonizing pain, was awaiting 
the approach of death ! " You do well," said 
he to his preacher and secretary Spalatin, who 
after long hesitation had taken courage to de- 
mand an audience of him, "you do well to 
come to me, for it is right to visit the sick :" 
he then caused the low chair in which he re- 
clined to be rolled to the table, and laying his 
hand in that of the intimate friend and adviser 
of his latter years, he once more talked of the 
things of this world, of the peasant's rebellion, 
of Dr. Luther, and of his own approaching 
death. He had ever been a gentle master to 
his poor people, and he now exhorted his bro- 
ther to act prudently and leniently ;-j- he was 
not frightened at the danger of the peasants 
becoming masters, serious as he believed it to 
be ; for if it were not the will of God, it could 
not happen. This conviction, which had guided 
and supported him through the whole course 
of the Lutheran movement, was doubly strong 
in his last moments. None of his relations 
were with him ; he was surrounded only by 
servants. The spirit of opposition which every 
where else divided rulers and their subjects, 
had not yet reached them. " Dear children," 
said the prince, "if I have ever offended any 
of you, I pray you to forgive me for the love 
of God ; we princes do many things to the 
poor people that we ought not to do." He 
then spoke only of the merciful God who com- 
forts the dying. For the last time Frederic 
strained his failing eyes to read one of his 
friend Spalatin's consolations ; he then received 
the sacrament in both kinds from the hands of 
a clergyman to who,m he was attached. The 
new doctrine, which had flourished under his 
prudent and sheltering care, now no' longer ap- 
peared to him in the light of a power of this 
world which had to fight for its existence, and 
the herald of a new order of things ; — he only 
saw in it the true Gospel, the true christian 
faith, piety, and comfort to the soul. The dy- 
ing man leaves the world to itself, and with- 
draws entirely within the circle of his own 
relations to the Infinite, — to God, and eternity. 
Thus he died on the 5th of May, 1525. " He 



grave William at the Diet of 1576. Rommel, Neuere 
Geschichte von Hessen, p. 255, 848. • 

* Haarer, Warhaffiige Beschreibung des Bav^ernkriegs, 
c. 49, in GöbePs Beiträgen, p. 139. Rorajnel, i. 108. 

t His letters of the i4th of April, and 4th of May, in 
VValch, L. W. xvL p. 140. 



was a child of peace," said his physician, " and 
in peace he hath departed. ":J: 

His successor, now the Elector John, ascend- 
ed the throne in the midst of the wildest and 
most formidable confusion. Concessions were 
no longer to be thought of; there existed the 
same diflference between Frederic and John as 
between Luther's first and second book ; be- 
tween doubt and cautious counsel and down- 
right hostility. Philip of Hessen came to his 
assistance at the right moment ; Duke George 
and Duke Henry took the field about the same 
time, and four princes thus marched with their 
forces to meet the peasants. 

Münzer had taken up a position upon the 
rising ground above Frankenhausen, which 
commands the ■\\'hole length of the valley ; the 
spot was well chosen for preaching to assem- 
bled multitudes, but offered no advantages what- 
ever for defence. He showed utter incapacity : 
he had not even provided powder for his labo- 
riously cast guns ; his followers were miserably 
armed, and had only entrenched themselves 
behind a feeble barricade of waggons. The 
prophet who had said so much about the force 
of arms, and who had threatened to destroy all 
the ungodly with the edge of the sword, w^as 
now reduced to reckon on a miracle, which ho 
saw announced in the portent of a coloured 
circle round the sun at noon. At the first dis 
charge of the enemy's artillery, the peasants 
sang a hymn ; they were totally routed, and 
the greater number killed. Hereupon the panic 
which accompanies a half-accomplished crime 
seized the whole country. All the troops of 
peasants dispersed, and all the towns surren- 
dered ; even Mühlhausen attempted hardly any 
resistance. § Münzer v/as executed in the camp 
before Mühlhausen, where for a time he had 
reigned. He seemed possessed by a savage 
demon up to his last hour. When, under the 
pangs of torture, he was reminded of the count- 
less number he had led into destruction, he 
burst into a loud laugh, and said it was their 
own desire. When he was led out to death, 
he could not remember the articles of faith. 

At this conjuncture, movements w^ere made 
in all directions for attacking the forces of the 
peasants. 

Duke Antony of Lorraine came with the va- 
rious garrisons from Champagne and Burgundy, 
and a few companies of German landsknechts 
and reiters, to the assistance of the Landvogt 
of Mörsperg in Alsatia. He cut off some scat- 
tered troops in the open field, after which, those 
who had assembled in Zabern capitulated; 
they were, however, accused of having made 
a subsequent attem.pt to gain over the lands- 
knechts, and were attacked and slaughtered to 
the number of seventeen thousand, as they 
were leaving the fortress on the morning of the 
17th of May. II 

X Spalalin, Leben Friedrichs des Weisen, p. 60. 

§ Die Histori Thomä Mnntzers des Aufengers der Dö- 
ringischen Urfur." Hagenaw. — This book contains the 
vv^ell-known narrative of Melanchthon, also to be found, 
in Luther's works. (Altenb. iii. 12G.) 

KBellay, No. TIL Account by Kappolstein in Vogt's 
Rheinisch. Gesch. voi. iv. p. 49. 



220 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



Book III 



Thus Wiirtemberg once more fell into the 
hands of the Swabian League, whose general, 
Truchsess, having in a great degree secured' 
his rear by a treaty with the peasantry around 
the lakes, marched upon the Würtemberg in- 
surgents, whom he encountered at Sindelfingen, 
and having first thrown them into disorder with 
his field artillery, he charged and cut them 
down with his numerous and well-armed ca- 
valry. Having then taken and garrisoned a 
succession of towns and cities, he marched on 
Franconia. There he was joined by the other 
two princes who had fought against fSickengen, 
— the Electors of Treves and the Palatinate, 
who marched to meet him from Bruchsal, which 
had just fallen irtto their hands. The two 
armies united on the 29th of May, in the open 
field between Helspachand Neckarsulm. They 
made up together a force of two thousand five 
hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and 
marched on into Franconia.* 

It was a most important advantage to them 
that the castle of Würzburg still held out 
against two powerful bodies of Franconian pea- 
sants. At first, indeed, the garrison would have 
consented to accept the twelve articles, and had 
already received authority from the bishop to 
do so ; a part of the peasants were anxious to 
come to terms, which would enable them to go 
to the assistance of their allies, hard pressed 
on all sides. But the citizens of Würzburg, 
determined to get rid of the castle, which had 
always been a bridle in their jaws, contrived 
that the conditions offered to the garrison should 
be such as it was impossible it should accept. 
Hereupon the latter resolved to resist to the 
utmost. »Sebastian von Rotenhan, who had so 
greatly promoted the interests of the Lutheran 
doctrines in the Council of Regency, had sup- 
plied the fortress with every requisite, even 
with powder-mills ; erected chevaux-de-frise 
within the ditches, and palisades all round the 
castle, and had induced the garrison to swear 
with uplifted hands that they would stand the 
storming bravely and faithfully. On the 15th 
of May, the day of the battle of Frankenhau- 
sen, the peasants began the storm at nine o'clock 
at night, to the sound of trumpets and fifes, 
with loud shouts and flying colours. Pitch, 
brimstone, and other combustibles were thrown 
down on them from the castle; and incessant 
firing kept up from every loop-hole in the walls 
and tower. The lonely castle reared its head 
in haughty grandeur amid the many-coloured 
glare of the fire with which it kept off" the wild 
hordes that had overrun Franconia, and now 
threatened all Germany.- The artillery decided 
the victory here, as at Sindelfingen and Frank- 
enhausen ; at two in the morning the peasants 
retreated.! 

A second assault was entirely out of the 
question ; they received news of the defeat of 
their friends on all sides, and the storm im- 
pending over themselves became every moment 
more near and threatening. 

* The autogrraph diary of the Count Palatine Otto 
Heinrich, in Freiberg's Urkunden und Schriften, iv. p. 
367, gives these numbers. 

t Johann Reinhard, in Ludwig, 889. 



They made one more effort to save themselves 
by negotiating; they again offered the twelve 
articles to the acceptance of the garrison of 
Würzburg, and invited Truchsess, the general 
of the League, who was marching upon them, 
to appoint time and place for an interview for 
the purpose of negotiation. In a general ad- 
dress to the States of the empire, they endea- 
voured to set their views and objects in a favour- 
able light; and called upon the Franconian 
states especially, to send delegates to Schwein- 
furt, that they might take counsel together with 
them, " for the establishment of the word of 
God, of peace and of justice."^ But all this 
was now too late. They had never had confi- 
dence in their own strength, and now fortune 
had deserted them : they must either remain 
masters of the field or perish. 

The united army advanced against them 
without delay; all the places it passed in its 
march surrendered unconditionally. On the 2d 
of June it fell in with the first troop of peasants 
at Königshofen : it was the band from the 
Odenwald which had had the courage to ad- 
vance against the victorious enemy. But it 
consisted of not more than four thousand men,§ 
and all their measures were thoroughly ill-con- 
certed. The peasants had neglected to guard 
the fords of the Tauber, and had encamped 
round their baggage, within a barricade of 
waggons, on the Mühlberg ; and it would have 
been well for them if they had awaited the 
attack of the enemy even there; but, terrified 
by the superior force which gradually present- 
ed itself, they endeavoured to reach a neigh- 
bouring forest, and thus invited an immediate 
assault. The cavalry fell upon their exposed 
flank, the princes themselves helping to cut 
them down ; in the twinkling.of an eye, before 
even the landsknechts could come up, the whole 
body of peasants w^as entirely broken and rout- 
ed. || A false rumour of victory induced the 
1 Rothenberg troop to quit its position near Würz- 
burg, and on the 4th of June that also fell into 
the hands of the cavalry in an open field, be- 
tween Sulzdorf and Ingolstadt, and was com- 
pletely dispersed. Both victories were accom- 
panied by the most barbarous massacres. Df 
six hundred peasants who attempted to defend 
themselves in a fortified house near Ingolstadt, 
all but seventeen were put to the sword. 

A third band which was connected with the 
Thuringian insurgents was overthrown and 
routed, after a short conflict, on the Bildberg 
near Meinengen, where they had entrenched 
themselves behind waggons, by Elector John 
of Saxony. ^f The mild and placable prince 
promised safety to all who would surrender 
themselves to his protection. 

Thus the great Franconian bands, which had 

X Proclamation in Ochsle, of the 27th of May, p. 302. 
The meeting was fixed for the 31st day of May. 

§ I hold these to be the true number, as the report of 
Secretary Spiess, who accompanied the army (Ochsle, p. 
W7), and the Journal of the Elector, p. 363, agree on this 
point. Others mention far greater numbers. 

II Brower. Annales Trevirenses, lib. xx. p. 333. 

IT Spalatin, see Menken, ii. 1114. The peasants had one 
carronade, sixteen cannons and mortars, four arquebusses, 
and matchlocks. Their waggons were buried in the earth. 



Chap. VI. 



PEASANTS' WAR. 



221 



thougiit to reform the whole of Germany, were 
destroyed like those of Alsatia, Thuririgia, and 
Würtemburg; and, like those provinces, Fran- 
conia was now garrisoned and chastised by its 
former masters. 

On the Tth of June, "VYür-zburg was forced 
to surrender at discretion. The aged members 
of the town council assembled in the market- 
place, and bared their grey heads to salute the 
-leaders of the array of the League; but they 
found no mercy from Truchsess, who declared 
that they were all perjured and dishonoured, 
and had forfeited their lives. In Würzburg 
alone, sixty rebels from, the town and country 
were hanged : the executions were equally fre- 
quent and terrible throughout the whole bishop- 
ric ; tv/o hundred and eleven were put to death 
in different ways ; all arms delivered up, new 
serviees imposed, and heavy contributions ex- 
torted : the ancient ceremonies of the church 
were restored. IMeanwhile IMarkgrave Casimir 
of Brandenburg, having taken possession of 
all the rest of Franconia, of Bamberg, Schwein- 
furt, and Rothenburg, without encountering any 
serious resistance, proceeded to take vengeance 
on the insurgents in his own territories. 

All that now remained was» to subdue the 
remnant of the insurgents who still kept their 
ground on the Upper and Middle Rhine. 

The army of Treves and the Palatinate, on 
their homeward march, fell in with the insur- 
gents of the Middle Rhine at Pfeddersheim,* 
and, as on all former occasions, the peasants 
vrere dispersed and cut dov/n ; the warlike 
archbishop is said to have slain several with 
Ins ov.-n hand. These districts hereupon sub- 
mitted ; and even the people of the Rheingau 
had to give up their arm.s, and to pay contribu- 
tione. Mainz v/as forced to resign the liberties 
it had but just regained ; while the people of 
Treves, happy that they had not made any se- 
rious demonstration, readily dropped all the 
projects they had entertained. 

The great army of the League on the Upper 
Rhine found a far more arduous task ; it was 
there that the rebellion had originated and taken 
the deepest root, and nothing decisive had yet 
been accomplished toward its'suppression. The 
men of the Allgau reappeared in the field; 
they had occupied a very strong post on a steep 
hill,_at the foot of which is the river Luid^s, 
and on either side, large ponds : a considerable 
number of experienced landsknechts fought in 
their ranks. They vrere able to keep their 
/ ground against even the artillery of Truchsess, 
and indeed had some intention of beginning 
the attack. Fortunately for Truchsess, the 
veteran and successful leader, George Frunds- 
berg, came to his assistance in time. It is 
highly probablef that he exercised a personal 
influence on many of the peasant chiefs, his old 
comrades and followers. Contemporary writers 
positively affirm that he bought over Walter 
Bach, who treacherously persuaded the pea- 

* Haarer, c. 84-89. I intenci in give in the Appendix 
whatever is necessary to illustrate the relation in which 
the Latin stands to the German text, as well as that sub- 
sisting between Gnodalius and Leontius and Haarer. 

t Keisner, Kriegsthaten der Frundsberge. 



sants to abandon their strong position. Per- 
haps, however, their stores failed ; at all events 
they separated, and retreated towards the moun- 
tains. Truchsess hastened in pursuit of them, 
and began to burn their farms and villages. 
This was in direct violation of the orders of the 
League, at which he only laughed ; he, he 
said, a peasant himself, understood his business 
better ; he knew^ that this was the way to make 
every man think of his own home. He kept 
his troops together, and thus easily beat the 
separate bands of peasants whenever he met 
with them. He was not, however, so abso- 
lutely master as at Würzburg. George Truch- 
sess was at last obliged to enter into a compact 
with the large body of rebels who held together 
on the Kolenberg, by which redress of the local 
grievances of their several villages was pro- 
mised them. Not till then did they lay down 
their arras and give up their ringleaders. :|: 

At the same moment, Count Felix of Wer- 
denberg put to the rout the peasants of the 
Hegau, Kletgau, and all that remained in the 
Schwarzwald — for many were gone home to 
their harvest — and compelled them to lay down 
their armiS.§ 

Thus was arrested the great raovem-ent which 
threatened the total' subversion of the whole 
existing order of things in Germany : all the 
schemes for reconstituting the empire from the 
groundwork of society upw^ards, or still m-ore, 
for visionary changes in the order of the world 
i under the guidance of a fanatical prophet, were 
I now for. ever at an end. 

I Wherever the matter had been decided by 
arms, the laws of war were enforced. The 
most barbarous executions took place; the se- 
verest contributions w-ere exacted ; and in some 
places, laws m.cre oppressive than ever were 
imposed. 

It was only in districts where the peasants 
had not sustained a total defeat, that, after all 
their former vague and ambitious projects had 
spontaneously died away, some alleviation of 
their burthens and sufferings w^as granted them. 

The Count of Sulz and his subjects agreed 
to refer their differences to arbitrators chosen 
in comm.on, and Archduke Ferdinand consented 
to appoint a chief umpire. I| 

To the people of the Breisgau, Ferdinand 
promised in his own name that due regard 
should be psid b}- magistrates and government 
officers to the complaints of the subjects.^ The 
states of Upper Austria would not allow con= 
tributions to be levied upon the people."** 

In Tyrol, steps were taken under the influ- 
ence of the disturbances, towards drawing up 
a code of law^s, whereby the subjects were 
relieved from all taxes that could not be proved 
by authentic documents, to have existed for 
more than fifty years; likewise from the lesser 

tHaggenmüller Kempten, p. 540. 

§ Walchner Eatclphzell, p. 109. 

|: The treaty which the people of Zurich helped to ne- 
gotiate is to be found in Bullinger's Refornaations-gesch- 
ichte, i.p. 249. 

UThe treaty of Offenburg: extract in Schreiber's Tas- 
chenbuch, p. 302. 

** Declaration of the Stände, Bucholtz, viii. p. 104. 



222 



FORMATION OF 



Book Hi 



titbxGS in kind, and a variety of other dues and 
services ; and the right of fishing, and even of 
shooting and hunting, granted them. Archduke 
Ferdinand also made concessions as to religion. 
Towns and councils were empov^^ered to appoint 
their own clergy, and the Gospel was to be 
preached according to the letter,* 

Salzburg was the only country in which the 
peasants kept the field against the advance of a 
regular army ; and even when they were forced 
to bend before the might of the Swabian League, 
they began by making singularly advantageous 
terms, f 

These events belong, however, to another 
state of things, which immediately followed 
the disturbances, and to which vve will now 
turn our attention. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PORxMATION OF THE ADVERSE RELIGIOUS LEAGUES. 
DIET OF AUGSBURG, DECEMBER, 1525. 

The conflict between the elements of German 
society was now at an end ; the rebellious pea- 
santry, and that portion of the population of the 
towns which took pare with them, were sub- 
dued, as the knights had been before them. 
The local powers which had arisen during the 
course of ages had again withstood all the 
storms by which they were assailed : aided by 
the emperor or the Council of Regency, they 
had stood fast amidst the ruin of all central 
authority. 

Nevertheless, peace was by no means re- 
stored, nor was one of those great questions 
which had so long occupied public attention 
decided. 

The rebellion had been put down without 
any reference to religious creed ; friends and 
foes of the new doctrines had taken up arras 
with equal eagerness against the common ene- 
my ; but as soon as that enemy was subdued, 
the old antipathies broke out with fresh vio- 
lence. 

The Regensburg members of the Swabian 
League, who at this time exercised the chief 
influence in that body, seized upon this oppor- 
tunity of carrying into execution by main force 
the measures which had been concerted at 
that city. The victories of the League were 
everywhere followed by religious persecutions. 
Among those who were beheaded at Würz- 
burg, many were condemned, not for the rebel- 
lion, in which they had taken no part, but for 
the crime of professing the evangelical faith. 
Nine of the most wealthy burghers were exe- 
cuted at Bamberg, and it is asserted that some 
of them were remarkable for their peaceable 
conduct, and had rather tried to prevent than to 
encourage the attack of the country people on 
the bishop's palace; they were punished, as 

* Excerpts from the proceedings of the diet, Bucholtz, 
Tiii. p. 337. 
t Zauner, Chronik von Salzburg, iv. p. 429. 



was openly proclaimed, for their adherence to 
the evangelical party.ij: Their possessions were, 
by an unexampled exercise of arbitrary power, 
given to certain individuals, among whom was 
a secretary of Truchsess. All w^ho professed 
the evangelical doctrines immediately fled out 
of both bishoprics. But even in all other ter- 
ritories, spiritual as well as temporal obedience 
was enforced on the peasantry; the Lutherans 
stood — under that title — first on the list of those 
excluded from pardon. The bitterest persecu- 
tion was directed against the preachers. A 
provost-martial of the name of Aichili traversed 
Swabia and Franconia in all directions at the 
head of a band of reiters, in order to carry into 
effect the executions that had been decreed ; it 
is calculated that within a small district, he 
hung forty evangelical preachers on trees by 
the roadside. § This was the first restoration 
of Catholicism by violence in Upper Germany. 

Similar attempts were now made also in the 
north. 

After the taking of Mühlhausen, the allied 
princes had agreed on common measures against 
the peasants. Duke George relates, that one 
morning, as his son-in-law Philip was just 
setting off on a journey, he (Duke George) 
went to him once more, and entreated him not 
to attach himself to Luther's cause, " in consi- 
deration of the evil which had flowed there- 
from ;" that he repeated this warning to the 
Elector of Saxony within the same hour, and 
that it was. kindly received by both of them. 
Duke George hoped to exercise great authority 
over his cousin John after Frederic's death, as 
well as over Landgrave Philip, to vi'hom he 
stood in the relation of an affectionate father- 
in-law. 

These three princes had agreed at Mühl- 
hausen to communicate their resolutions to 
their neighbours ; and Duke George had an 
interview as early as in July with the electors 
of Mainz and Brandenburg and the Duke of 
Brunswick, at Dessau. These princes still 
adhered to the Catholic faith, andrthey allowed 
their belief, that the insurrection owed its ex- 
istence to the new doctrines that had been 
preached, to influence their resolutions. Though 
we have no authentic document as to the na- 
ture of these resolutions, there is sufficient 
evidence that they were in the highest degree 
unfavourable to the religious changes. Duke 
George communicated them to his cousin and 
his son-in-law, expressing at the same time his 
persuasion that they had ceased to entertain 
any Lutheran ideas. || At all events, he did not 



t Detailed account in Milliner's Annalen. 

§ Bullinger's 140th cap. treats of Provost Aichili ("von 
Profossen Aichili.") Anshelm also mentions him (vi. p. 
291,) as beinij peculiarly active against the Lutheran par- 
sons; he seized, plundered, mulcted, and hanged them. 
" Er war sunderlich gflissen, uf die lutherischen Pfaffen, 
fiengs' beroupts' schatzts' und henkts'." 

II The only authentic notice of these meetings is to be 
found in a letter from Duke George in the Dresden Ar- 
chives. According to that, the determination was " to 
stand by each other in case the Lutherans attacked any 
one of them, in order to remain at peace from such rebel- 
lion." — " Sich bei einander finden zu lassen, wenn die 
Lutherischen einen von ihnen augreifen würden, um 
solches Aufruhrs vertragen zu bleiben." It is not, how- 
ever, easy to perceive from whom they expected an attack, 



Chap. VII. 



RELIGIOUS LEAGUES. 



223 



suffer himself to be deterred by any considera- 
tion for them, from condemning his own subjects 
to the severest punishments. At Leipzig two 
citizens were beheaded for no other reason than 
that some Lutheran books had been found in 
their possession.* 

It appeared probable that the Lutheran move- 
ment, from the time it was associated with an i 
insurrection of the peasantry, would, like that ! 
of Wicklyffe, be encountered by a reaction \ 
which would end in its entire suppression. ! 

But the reform set on foot by Luther stood | 
on a far wider and firmer basis than that of 
Wicklyffe, and had already found resolute and 
powerful supporters both in North and South 
Germany. 

^ Landgrave Philip even brought an evan- 
gelical preacher with him to jMühlhausen; and 
Duke George, while in the act of expressing 
his conviction of his son-in-law's altered -sen- 
timents, was struck Math surprise at the ap- 
pearance of this man. From that time Philip 
had become more and more deeply imbued 
with Lutheran opinions. We have only to 
read the letters he v.'rote to Duke George 
during this year, — in which he controverts the 
doctrine of the canon and the mass, the re- 
ceived idea of the church, and the obligation 
of vows, — in order to see with Vv^hat lively and 
yet earnest zeal he adopted the new doctrines, 
and what accurate and extensive knowledge 
he had acquired of the Scriptural grounds on 
which they rested. | 

The same state of things existed in Saxon}^. 
Far from forsaking the path trodden by his 
predecessor, the new elector advanced in it 
v/ith far more decided steps than Frederic had 
done. On leaving Vveimar in At>gast, 1525, 
he once more assembled the priesthood of that 
district — on the IGth ofthat month — and, after 
causing their 'minds to be prepared by two 
sermons,, he announced to them that in future 
they were to preach the pure word of God, 
without any human additions.:|: Some old 
priests who were present having expressed the 
opinion that this would not be inconsistent 
with their saying masses for the dead and 
consecrating salt and water, they were told 
that the same rule applied to ceremonies as to 
doctrines. 

if tliey really believed Philip and the Elector John to have 
been re-coiiverted ; and, indeed, Duke George says, "other- 
wise he would not have made them a party to the treaty, 
for he -vvoll knew that one could not beat Swiss with 
Swiss." — "denn sonst würde er ihnen den Vertra<j nicht 
initgetliei't haben, er wisse wohl, dass man Schweizer 
mit Sciiweizern nich schlage." The explanation is, that 
in those times a defensive form was given to all alliances, 
eve« v,-hen there was no intention^ of abiding by mere 
defence. Duke Henry said to the emperor, tli^at he had 
signed a treaty with his friends, " against the Lutherans, 
in case they should attempt by force or cunning to gain 
them over to their unbelief,"— " wider die Lutherischen, 
ob sie sich unterstünden, sie mit List oder Gewalt in 
ihren Unglauben zu bringen." 
* Gretschel : Leipzigs kirchliche Zustände, p. 218. 
t Roiiimers Ürkundenbuch, p. 2. n 

J " Das man das lauter rayn cvangelion on mensch- 
liche Zusatzung predigen soll, fürstlicher Befelch zu 
Weymar beschehen."— "That the pure Gospel should be 
preached without any human additions. Sovereign com- 
mand issued at Weimar.'" — Circular from the minister 
Kisswetter at Erfurt to Master Hainrich at Elxleben, a. d. 
Gera, 1525. 



In consequence of the recess of Mühlhausen, 
the elector had an interview v/ith Markgrave 
Casimir of Brandenburg at Saalfeld, at which 
the evangelical tendencies predominated as 
much as the catholic had done at Dessau. 
These princes did not indeed form a regular 
alliance, but Markgrave Casimir declared that 
he would hold fast by the word of God.§ 

At the very time when the military force of 
the Swabian League v/as employed in check- 
ing the progress of the reformation, some of 
its most powerful members, the very towns in 
v/hich it had originated, — Augsburg, and 
above all, Nürnberg, — organized their churches 
according to evangelical principles. Vv'e shall 
return to this subject in another place. 

The territory of Wiirternberg, which had 
been conquered by the League, and could 
hardly have been imagined capable of taking 
any resolutions of its own, now declared itself 
on the same side ; the Estates expressed their 
conviction that the tranquillity of the country 
could only be maintained by preaching to the 
people the pure word of God, unalloyed by 
the selfishness and vain conceits of men. 

Already the evangelical preachers began 
formally to emancipate themselves from the 
authority of the bishops. At Wittenberg, in 
May, L525, they determined to give ordination 
j themselves. Melanchthon justifies this, on 
I the ground that the bishops neglected their 
' duties. |] The preachers nov/ asserted their 
underived vocation as against the bishops, in 
the same m.anner as those had done against 
the pope. Melanchthon says that the princes 
could not be called upon to support a jurisdic- 
tion of whose abusive and corrupt nature they 
were convinced. In Hessen and Brandenburg, 
too, even in the towns, the clergy began to 
emaiKiipate themselves from the episcopal 
jurisdiction. 

We perceive that the two opposite tendencies 
came out of the conflict with the peasants, ex- 
actly in the same state in which they entered 
it; only with increased activity on either side. 

The papal party had the advantage, in so 
far as in a great part of the empire, the penal 
power, of which it made such fearful use, was 
in its hands ; but on the whole, the evangelical 
party had gained still more in the struggle. 

Never had the aversion to the spiritual part 
of the constitution of Germany been so general 
and so avowed. The clergy were accused of 
those acts of grinding oppression which had. 
mainly caused the revolt. The hostility of the 
people was specially directed against them ; 
the peasants of the Allgau, for example, who 
were besieging Füssen, raised the siege as 
soon as that town threw off its allegiance to 
its lord, the Bishop of Augsburg, and hoisted 
the banner of Austria. On the other hand, 
though the ecclesiastical princes had contri- 
buted very little to extinguish the flame of re- 
bellion, they now made the most tyrannical 
and merciless use of the victory won by others. 



§ According to a description by Casimir himself in a 
letter from Schrauttenbach to the Landgrave Philip, 
dated 27th Dec. 1525, in Neudeckers Urkunden, p. 16. 

[I De Jure Reformandi. Corp. Reform, i. p. 7C5. 



224 



nmT ATTEMPTS 



Book III. 



Hence it happened that the evansjelical party 
found it so easy to shake off the episcopal au- 
thority; it is, however, more remarkable that 
an analogous effect was produced in the catholic 
party. If the one side questioned the spiritual, 
the other no less vigorously attacked the tem- 
poral jurisdiction. 

We must here again recur to the events of 
Tyrol and Salzburg. Archduke Ferdinand 
had taken up the most remarkable position in 
the world. 

At the diet of Tyrol, which we have already 
mentioned, there were assembled only the 
nobles, the cities, and rural districts {Ge- 
richte*) ; the ecclesiastical body did not ap- 
pear. The anti-ecclesiastical temper which 
this produced was very strongly expressed in 
the resolutions that were passed. In the re- 
cess of this diet it was proclaimed, that the 
appointment to the inferior situations in the 
church should be rendered totally independent 
of the bishops ; in future, cities and rural dis- 
tricts {Gerichte) should have the right of pre- 
sentation, which the sovereign of the country 
should confirm, and all complaints of the 
clergy should be addressed by the former to the 
latter. f The petition of the bishop of Trent 
for leave to call in foreign troops to punish the 
insurgents within his see, was refused ; for 
the common people were of opinion, says Fer- 
dinand, that the clergy ought to have no juris- 
diction whatever in temporal affairs ; were 
such a permission granted to the bishop, the 
nobles would complain that he was goading 
the people to a fresh revolt, which would 
bring trouble and ruin upon them also.ij: This 
was even carried much further. The Bishop 
of' Brixen proving himself incapable of re- 
storing order in his see, where one of his 
secretaries and toll collectors was the leader 
of the revolt, the Tyrol ese determined not to 
afford him the least assistance, but at once to 
seculariza the. see. Archduke Ferdinand took 
possession of it, and committed the govern- 
ment to one of his council, " till some future 
council, or the retbrmation of the empire;" he 
received the homage from all tlie vassals and 
the official persons of the see.§ The captain 
of Ehrenberg, which Was garrisoned by Tyro- 
iese, would not g;o to the succour of the town 



* GcricM here means a certain cominnriity. Grimm 
(Deutsclie Rechts Alterthünier, p. 755) says, " By Gericht 
we now understand atribanal for the decision of litigated 
matters, or the punislnnent of offences. Originally, how- 
ever, the predominant idea was that of a popular assem- 
bly (concilium), in which all the public business of the 
Mark, the commune, or the district was discussed, dis- 
putes settled, and fines adjudo^ed. The main element of 
the Gericht is now the judges ; but then, it was the con- 
grei2;ated free men All judicial power was exer- 
cised by the comuiiniity of freeineu under the presidency 
of an elected or h,?reditary head."— Traksl. 

t Bucholtz, viii. p. 338. 

X Ferdinand to Bishop Bernhard of Trent, Inspruck, 9th 
July, 1525, Bucholtz, ix. p. 640. 

§ Patent of occupation, 2]st July. " Auf Beger und mit 
Eat ainer ersamen Landschaft dieser iinsrer f. G. Tirol, 
— zu furkumung nachtail Schadens und geferiichait, so 
dieselben unsur; Grafschaft und dem Stift zu Brichsen, 
des Vogt Schirm und Schutzlierr wir dann sein, enstehen 
mechten." — " At the request and with the advice of the 
honourable province of this our free county of Tyrol — 
for the prevention of loss, damage, and danger, which 
might accrue to our country and the see of Brichsen, 
whereof we are bailiff, lord, and protector." 



of Füssen till it surrendered itself as an here- 
ditary fief to the house of Austria, and did 
homage to the Archduke. || The Zillerthalers 
were thus enabled to throw off their allegiance 
to Salzburg, to attach themselves to Tyrol, and 
to accept the Archduke, who had already high 
authority over them, as their l^rd and sove- 
reign.^ Nay, even in Bavaria, similar no- 
tions prevailed. When Matthew, Archbishop 
of Salzburg, was besieged in his citadel by the 
peasants, and reduced to the greatest extremit}''. 
Doctor Lesch, a Bavarian chancellor, presented 
himself before the archduke, and proposed to 
him to sequester the archbishopric in common; 
so that the part lying on the confines of Bavaria 
should be taken possession of by the dukes, 
and that bordering on Austria by the archduke. 
Ferdinand joyfully acceded to the proposal ; 
he authorized the commissioners he had sent 
to the peasants to use all their endeavours 
(but v;ith the knowledge of the archbishop) 
that the see might be given up to Austria and 
Bavaria.** In Bavaria, however, this was only 
a transient thought ; the plan here pursued 
was that of an unconditional restoration, from 
the accomplishment of which the dukes might 
justly expect a still greater degree of authority 
than they had already acquired, over the neigh- 
bouring bishoprics. They therefore furnished 
aid in every direction. In Tyrol, on the other 
hand, the province had agreed with the prince 
on the concessions to be made to the rebels ; 
by a resolute postponement of spiritual inte- 
rests, they thought they should at once allay 
the tumults and enhance their own liberty and 
power. The Bavarians, consequently, soon 
abandoned the plans above-mentioned, and re- 
solved to come to the assistance of the arch- 
bishop in this exigency with the, forces of the 
Swabian League. The motives which deter- 
mined the dukes were not, hovv'-ever, of a very 
disinterested nature; they calculated on this 
opportunity of securing the succession to the 
archbishopric for their brother, Ernest of Pas- 
sau; Vv^hich they preferred to contributing to 
place the greater part of it in the hands of 
Austria, and thence in a hostile relation to 
themselves. In vain the states of Tyrol made 
an attempt to restrain the Swabian League 
from its intended campaign, by representations 
of the ancient privileges and alliances of Salz- 
burg.f f At Insbruck a strong desire prevailed 



II Martin Furtenbach, the town notary at Füssen : re- 
port on the insurrection of-the pensar.t-,, in Oechsle's 
Beitrage, p. 478. " Das Volk schrie Hei Oeslreich damit 
v/ir nicht gar verderbt werden, der IJauptmann nahm die 
Erbhuldigung auf ein Hintersichbringen an." — "The 
people cried, 'Hey Austria,' so that we might not be en- 
tirely ruined: the g(!vprnor received our hereditary ho- 
mage on a hint given him." I'he delegates of the town 
went to Inspruck, and were there well greeted (wohl be- 
grüsst). Ferdinand declared that he would soon go there 
himself and receive the homage in person. 

IT Instruction to Liechtenstein and Stöckel, " was s^ 
mit dem Pfleger zu Kropfsberg, mit der Nachp;irschaft im 
Zillerthal reden sollen," — " what they should say to the 
parish priest at Kropfsberg, and to the neighbourhood i.'i 
Z\\\en\\a.V— Bucholtz, ix. p. C30. 

** Instruction of Ferdinand to the mediating commis- 
sioners, Bucholtz, p. 621. 

tt " Die vom Ausschuss der dreier Stände — an Hanpt- 
leute und Räthedes Pundts zu Schwaben, 31 Juli."— /i. i^f. 
p. 624.—" The committee of the three estates to the gover- 
nors and councillors of the Swabian League." 



Chap. VH. 



AT SECULARIZATION. 



225 



to secure the succession to Don George of 
Austria, natural son of Emperor Maximilian, 
and a disposition to afford protection to the 
peasantry.* But the dukes had already the 
advantage. Duke Louis of Bavaria, the gene- 
ral-in-chief of the Swabian League, led its 
armies against Salzburg at the end of August. 
He, too, deemed it expedient, and strongly 
urged George Frundsberg, who was general 
of the county of Tyrol, at first to grant the 
peasants'!, favourable treaty — afterwards, in- 
deed, they were as severely dealt with here as 
dsewhere — as a means of attaining all their 
other objects. The chapter of the cathedral 
promised the succession to the bishopric of 
Salzburg to the Bavarian prince Ernest,, to 
whom the archbishop also made some conces- 
sions ; the lordships of Laufen, Geisfelden, 
Titmanning, and Mattsee were mortgaged to 
the dukes for the expenses of the war. In 
short, they obtained a general ascendency in 
Salzburg; nor was it till some time afterwards 
that the archbishop took courage timidly to 
admonish them to demand nothing of him at 
variance with the rig-hts and dignities of his 

CO 

see. I 

Thus, as we see, the plans of the League 
triumphed over the inclinations of the people 
of Tyrol. The archduke was also forced to 
cede Füssen again to Augsburg, and the Zil- 
lerthal to Salzburg. 

Notwithstanding this, Ferdinand did not re- 
linquish the ideas he had once conceived. 
When the Wiirtemberg territory made the de- 
mands vre have mentioned, and pointed very 
unequivocally to a secularization of the church 
lands, as a means of meeting the exigencies 
of the country, Ferdinand showed not the 
smallest displeasure : he permitted that coun- 
try to send deputies to the approaching diet at 
Augsburg, and promised that whatever should 
there be determined in regard to a reformation 
of the clergy, should be carried into effect, as 
•wellin Wiirtemburg as in his otlier dominions. ij: 
The views entertained on these points by Arch- 
duke Ferdinand entirely coincided with those 
of the evangelical party, who, with perfect 
justice, regarded the revocation of the sum- 
mons for the meeting at Spire as theim.mediate 
cause of the recent tumults. In the autumn 
of 1525 the project of settling the religious 
diflerences at an assembly of the empire, and 
of there proceeding to a thorough reformation, 
was once more universally stirred. 

In addition to the meetings at Dessau and 
Saalfald, there was a third and corresponding 
one between the Landgrave Philip and the 
Elector Palatine, at Alzey. They agreed " that 
things must be put on an equitable footing:" 
every means must be employed to bring about 
union among the States.§ 

* Excerpts from a receipt of Ferdinand, ib. viii. p. 109. 

t Zauner, Salzburger Chronik, v. p. 225, 133. 

t Extractus landschaftlicher Schlusserklärung bei Sat- 
tler, Herzoge, Beilagen zum zweiten Theil nr. 124, and 
Landtagsabschied, 30th Oct. 1525, nr. 125 (iii. i. 4). 

§ Letter from the Elector Louis of the Palatinate, in 
Neudeckers Actenstiicken, i. p. 16. From the words, "von 
E. L. und unserm Freund, von ir und uns,"— "from E. L. 
29 



Markgrave Casimir proceeded from Saalfeld 
to Auerbach, to a conference with the Count 
Palatine Frederic, who governed the Upper 
Palatinate in the name of his nephew. They 
determined, in the first place, to lighten the 
burthens of the common people as much as 
possible ; and in the next, again to petition the 
emperor to hold an ecclesiastical council in the 
German nation, " in order to come to some 
common understanding as to the exposition of 
the divine word." 

In September the cities held a meeting, and 
Ferdinand thought he had reason to fear very 
hostile and objectionable resolutions on their 
part ; but their decision only amounted to this : 
to urge anew upon himself and the emperor 
the necessity of introducing a clear and uniform 
order into the whole empire, with respect to the 
ceremonies of the church. 

In the universal discussion of these subjects, 
every possible change was suggested, and thus 
ideas and plans of the most extraordinary na- 
ture became current. 

In a project dravrn up towards the end of the 
year 1 5*35, and discussed at one or two meetings' 
of the empire, it is assumed in the outset, that 
the property of the church is no longer of any 
use or benefit either to religion or to the em- 
pire : that som.e change in the disposition of it 
is therefore indispensable ; that this must not, 
however, be left to the common people, but 
must be undertaken by the supreme authorities ; 
i. e. by the emperor and the temporal Estates. 

People no longer scrupled to propose the 
secularization of all ecclesiastical property. 

So much might, they said, be assigned to 
the spiritual princes and prelates as was neces- 
sary for the m.aintenance of a suitable mode 
of living ; nor should any thing, for the present, 
be taken from the canons, but both they and 
their superiors should be allowed gradually to 
die cut. Of the convents, a few might be re- 
tained for 3"oung women of noble birth, but 
with full right and liberty to quit them. 

With the funds thus obtained, the first care 
must be to supply the new spiritual wants ; to 
appoint pastors and preachers ; to nominate in 
every circle a pious and learned man as bishop, 
with a fixed salary, but wholly without tem- 
poral functions, and solely a superintendent of 
the other ministers of the church; and, lastly, 
to establish a high school in every circle, in 
which the languages and the exposition of the 
Holy Scriptures according to their true sense, 
should be taught. 

But the party which suggested these reforms 
also entertained the hope that they should thus 
acquire strength to give a new form to the whole 
secular constitution of the country. 

The proposal to that effect contained in this 
project is, to establish a particular Council of 
Regency, or administrative body, in each circle ; 
consisting of twelve councillors, three from 
each of the four estates, sovereigns, princes, — 
counts and lords (nobles), — and imperial cities; 
and a chief or president, chosen from the states 



and our friend, from him and from us," we may conclude 
that the Elector of Treves was also there prese"nt. 



226 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS LEAGUES. 



Book IIL 



of the circle, but approved by the emperor, 
with nearly the same powers as the governors 
and the councillors of the Swabian League. 
This body was to put in execution all the plans 
determined on by the States ; to form a supreme 
court of judicature, and, above all, to maintain 
the public peace, and for that purpose to keep 
a standing force of horse and foot always in 
the field. The young nobility were to serve 
in the army, instead of occupying the posts in 
the chapters. With these troops any succours 
granted by the emperor and the empire could 
then be rendered effective, without imposing 
burdens on any body. They v/ould constitute 
so great a permanent force as no emperor had 
had at his command since the birth of Christ.* 
The particular provisions of this project are 
far less important and interesting than the gen- 
eral ideas upon which it is founded : — -the secu- 
larization of ecclesiastical property ; the empire 
represented exclusively by temporal estates (the 
constitution of v.diich was mainly based upon 
the extension of the functions of the circles) ; 
a standing array specially for the advantage of 



course taken by the Swabian League was nearly 
the same. At a meeting held by that body in 
November, it received a letter from Pope Cle- 
ment, exhorting it to show the same zeal in the 
completion of the work, that had inspired the 
first undertaking of it, and to finish the most 
glorious deed that had been done for centuries. § 
The sovereigns of eastern Germany felt in the 
same manner; the instruction given by Duke 
George to his delegate at the diet is still extant. 
After vehement complaints of the enormous 
mischief done by the Lutheran Gospel, he de- 
mands that no change shall be made in the 
traditional ordinances without the sanction of 
a general council ; adding, that even if an angel 
should come down from heaven, he was not to 
be obeyed, unless in a full Christian assembly.!] 
jMoreover a papal nuncio was sent to attend the 
diet. 

The idea of a change was, it is true, as 
widely diffused as it was com.prehensive ; but 
the opposite tendency, towards the maintenance 
of the existing ecclesiastical institutions, or 
rather tov;ards their restoration in their com- 



the young nobles: — all things which, in their j plete integrity, was still exceedingly powerful, 
mature and finished form, gave their character ' Even while the partisans of the new faith cher- 
to the succeeding centuries, and constituted | ished the most sweeping schemes, they could 
modern Germany. The most distant results ! not disguise from themselves that the diet might 
were boldly contemplated, but the vvay that led ver}?- possibly take a turn highly unfavourable 



te them was long and arduous. 

The ecclesiastical princes were yet far too 



to their wishes. Some believed that the good 
and the bad would be destroyed together; that 



strong ; and it may easily be imagined that truth would be suppressed together with false 



plans of the kind above mentioned, which could 
not remain concealed from them, would make 
them feel the necessity of collecting all their 
strength. The clergy already complained that 
they were kept out of possession of many things 



hood ; that a rule of faith and life would be 
established in accordance Avith the old law, and 
that those who did not receive it willingly would 
be compelled by violence to conform to it. 
As Elector John and Landgrave Philip had 



of which they had been robbed during the late ; declared themselves m.ost openly for the new 
com.motions; and even that their enemies pro- ! doctrines, they had the greatest reason for fear, 
c^eded in depriving them of their accustomed jThe landgrave, because his territory was sur- 
jurisdiction ; they showed a determination not | rounded on all sides by puissant ecclesiastical 
to await the attack at the next diet, but to press ■ princes ; the elector, because already there was 
for a complete restitution of their rights and an idea of depriving him of his electorate as a 
possessions. To this course they were em- ! seceder from the Church of Rome; he was ad- 
boldened by a rescript of the emperor, in which vised to place himself on a better footinsf with 



mention v/as made cf the suppression of all 
things that threatened the destruction of our 
holy faith, and in such severe terms as seemed 
to imply that an entire restoration of the old 
order of things was contemplated.! The Coun- 
cil of Regenc}^ Vv'hich was sitting in Esslingen, 
and of which we now hear once more, prepared 
to propose riieasures.in the same spirit.t The 



* " Rathschlas; was man mit gelstliclien Gütern zu j^e- 
meineminid des Reichs Nutzfurnemen und handeln soll." 
"Opinion as to what should be done with ecclesitistical 

^V^Z'ZS:2.'7?>ni,£i'nlX:^;X ^olf of WaibUnge,,, to-Torga«, ^vhere Elector 

amnn^the acts of 15-20, but as the diet of Aujrsburg is 



his neighbours, — doubtless especially with 
Duke George, — for that many intrigues were 
on foot against him in that direction. 

It was less the view of effecting any change, 
than tlie dread of danger to themselves, and 
the necessity of maintaining the position which 
they had taken up, that determined these two 
princes to enter into a closer alliance with each 
other. 

Landgrave Philip made the first advances in 
this matter, by sending his chamberlain, Ru- 



mentioned in it, it was doubtless originally intended far 
thaL 
tTolleten in Castnien, 24th May, 1523. (W. A.) 
J Feilitsch, Esslingen, Monday after St. Martin"'s day: 
" Er hält genzlichen dafür, dass von denen die sich der 
Aufruhr theilhaftig gemacht, auch denen die Kirchen und 
Klöster irewaltig ze'rstört, denselhigen Güter eingenom- 
men und davon wieder geben was ihnen gefällig, dass 
wider diese auf dem Tleichstag gehandelt werden soll." — 
" He was entirely of opinion'that the property should be 
taken from those who had been parties to tlie seditious 
movements, and who had violently destroyed churches 
and convents, and that such of it should be restored as 
they thought fit. Proceedings against these persons should 
be "taken at the diet." 



John was holding his court, charged with the 
proposal to com.bine with him in making a 
common resistance, at the next diet, to any 
measures that might be attempted in support 
of abuses, or for the suppression of truth ; to 
accede to no ordinance at variance with the 
word of God, and to unite steadfastly to that 



§ Papal Brief, delivered in November. Oehsle, p. 305. 

I Instruction to Otto v. Pack in the Dresden Archives. 
It also contains some censure of Luther's marriage; — 
"that he and his Kate wanted as much for themselveä 
alone as the whole Augustine convent had formerly re- 
quired. 



Chap. VIT. 



DIET OF AUGSBURG, 1525. 



£27 



end with all who held the same opinions. This 
commission was received with great joy bj^ the 
elector, with whose sentiments and convictions 
it so fully harmonised. At the beginning of 
November, his son John-Frederic set out to 
hold a conference with the landgrave, and to 
concert the course they were to pursue.* 

The interview took place at the strongly 
defended hunting-seat of Friedewalt, in the 
Sullinger forest. The two young princes per- 
fectly understood each other. There is in the 
Weimar archives a note of an opinion " of our 
dear cousin and brother the landgrave," in the 
hand-writing of John-Frederic himself, which 
is, without doubt, the result of this conversa- 
tion. Its contents do not show that any actual 
treaty as yet existed ; the resolutions were such 
as the circumstances of the moment called 
forth : such as, that the contracting parties 
should come to a fuller understanding as to the 
evangelical cause, and should induce as many 
princes, counts, and cities of similar views as 
possible to join them (they had even the hope 
of gaining over the Elector of Treves) ; and 
should then eriter a common protest against 
the expressions contained in the rescript, v.hich 
were favourable to old usages, but pernicious 
to the word of God ; and that they s|;iould 
stand as one man for the evangelical cause. 
The electoral court did not only approve these 
conditions, but thought it good to extend the 
agreement to other thingrs, " in which one might 
be worse treated than the other."| 

In the beginning of December the hostile 
parties thus met at Augsburg, furnished with 
directly contrary instructions. 

The same disagreement which prevailed 
among the deputies, manifested itself in the 
imperial commission. This consisted (inde- 
]>endently of Archduke Ferdinand, whose be- 
haviour was necessarily ambiguous) of "Duke 
"William of Bavaria, the -leader and champion 
of the papists, and ^Markgrave Casimir of Bran- 
denburg-, who had so long been attached to the 
evangelical party. Casimir declined indeed to 
enter into the compact proposed to him by the 
envoys of Hessen and Saxony ; but he declared 
that he would advocate his own convictions in 
the commission, and thus, he urged, do more 
service to the cause than he could by joining a 
formal alliance. 

Had the prince? been present in person, the 
struggle must now have become vehement, 



♦Instruction in Komrael's Urknndenbacli, p. 10. Cre- 
dentials of the same date (5tli Oct.) in tlie Weimar Re- 
cords. There is also a note of the answer that VVaiblino-en 
was to deliver to Torgau, 13th Oct. 

t " Verzaichniss des Bedenkens unsres lieben Vetters 
tind Bruders auf die vertreuliche Unterrede, so wir mit 
S. L. jetzo allhie sehabt, so vil das h. göttl. Wort belangen 
thiit. Friedewalt Mitw. nach Beniardi (8th Nov.)."— 
" Note of the opinion of our dear cousin and brother, ex- 
pressed at our confidential mpetin? held here, so far as 
they coTicern the holy word of God. friedewalt, Wednes- 
day after St. Bernard's day, i. e. 8th Nov." The copv 
which was made in Torsjau ditfers from the paper written 
in the prince's own hand in this respect :— the prince had 
only written that they would make an alliance together 
for the sake of the Gospel : but in the copy the words 
above quoted are added : — " Auch sunsten in andern 
Sachen, do eyner vor dem andern Recht leyden kunt, aus- 
geschlossen gesren den, so in der Erbeynung sind." I in- 
tend to make ample extracts in the Appendix. 



earnest, and decisive ; it would soon hase öeen 
clearly seen to which side the majority in- 
clined. 

But neither party was at bottom sincerely 
resolved on bringing matters to an issue. Each 
saw too clearly what might be the consequences 
of such a decision : they wished to assemble 
all their forces, and to secure to themselves 
ev-ery kind of support. The princes at Friede- 
walt thought it expedient to remove the diet of 
the empire immediately to Spire or to Worms. 
On the other side, the arrival of the >Iainz 
deputy, without whom no step could be taken, 
inasmuch as he brought with him the imperial 
chancery, was unduly delayed. No prince as 
yet appeared in person«; even the commission 
was not complete, and a great number of the 
deputies were still missing. 

The first preliminary meeting v/as held on 
the eleventh of December. Archduke Ferdi- 
nand besought those who were assembled to 
have patience awhile, till a larger number ar- 
rived, and promised to report to the emperor 
the good dispositions of those present.:|; 

But some weeks elapsed, and their num-bers 
were little augmented : on the renewed appli- 
cation of the States, the commissioners at 
length held a definitive meeting on the SOth 
December.§ 

It was evident to every body that, consider- 
ing the incompleteness of the assem.bly of the 
States, and the importance of the questions at 
issue, no permanent result could be obtained. 
Duke William suggested whether it would not 
be better to adjourn the diet. The three col- 
leo-es separated, and were unanimously of t^at 
opinion. They adjourned the diet to Spire, on 
the first of May; there, however, they said, 
every prince must appear in person ; " there 
they would with greater dignity treat of the 
holy faith, of peace and justice." 

In order, however, to have done at least 
something, and in consideration of the conti- 
nued ferment among the people, a committee 
was appointed to draw up a Recess. 

The only remarkable circumstance as to this 
is, that the ordinances of the foregoing diets 
of 15-23 and 1524 — that the Gospel should be 
preached pure and intelligible, according to 
the interpretations of the received expositors — 
was repeated, without any mention of the 
Fathers of the Latin Church, or of the edict 
of Worms. The States mutually agreed to 
hold themselves prepared to put down instantb/ 
e%*ery attempt at insurrection ; and so far re- 
stored to their rights and station those who 
had been declared infamous on account of their 
participation in the disturbances, that the latter 
were allowed to take part in the sittings of the 
courts of justice.il They were so numerous 



i Letter from Feilitsch to the Elector John, 24th De- 
cember. W^eimar Records. 

§ Feilitsch und Minkwitz to the Elector John, 2d Jan, 
1526. 

I; Recess (Neue Samml.), ii. 271, §5 1,4. This was then 
looked upon as a victory obtained by the Protestants 
Letters from the Nürnbergers, quoted by Hortleder, i 
viii. 1. ^palatin Annales in Mencken, ii. 652: " Concidit 
spes sperantiuni, ec conventu totura Baalem restitutuni 
iri." 



223 



RELIGIOUS LEAGUES, 



Book III, 



that the village tribunals would otherwise have 
been entirely at a stand. 

The whole attention of the public, as well as 
its active measures of preparaticfn, were now 
directed towards the approaching meeting, 
which, indeed, proved to be decisive. 

Saxony and Hessen had not as yet found 
the sympathy they expected in their scheme 
of an evangelical league ; in fact, the Nürn- 
berg deputies alone had really shown an ear- 
nest inclination towards it: but this discou- 
ragement did not induce those princes to aban- 
don the idea : the two ambassadors were of 
opinion that the affair must be undertaken 
with redoubled vigour, in a personal interview 
between their respective masters. 

Meanwhile, the other party also concentrated 
its forces. The chapter of the cathedral of 
Mainz brought forward its long-forgotten me- 
tropolitan powers, and summoned the chapters 
of its suffragans to an assembly at the mother- 
church. The attention of this meeting was 
called to the danger which threatened the 
clergy generally; and the resolution was 
passed, to send a deputation who should lay 
before the emperor and the pope a complaint 
that the spiritual jurisdiction was invaded by 
the temporal authorities; to remind tiiem of 
the services which the spiritual princes had, 
from the earliest times, rendered to the empire 
and the church ; and to declare that they were 
ready to perform similar and yet greater ser- 
vices in future, but that, in return, they should 
expect their ancient privileges to be protected. 
They thought it most expedient to entrust this 
protection to certain princes who had not fallen 
off from the faith, whom they specified.* 

The w'ishes of these princes seemed to tend 
to the same point. Duke George of Saxony 
and Duke Henry of Brunswick met at the resi- 
dence of the Elector of Mainz at Halle. A 
few days after, we find them again at Leipzig, 
together with the Bishop of Strasburg ; they, 
too, determined to address themselves to the 



* Letter from Count Albert of Mansfeld, sent with a 
copy of the treaty, to the Elector of Saxony, in the Wei- 
mar Records. Letter from Waldenfels to Vogler in v. d. 
Lith, p. 160. 



emperor. They represented to him that, see 
ing the uninterrupted progress of the " damn 
able Lutheran doctrine," nothing could be ex- 
pected but a repetition of the rebellion ; nay, 
even an open war, between the princes and 
lords themselves ; that attempts were daily 
made to draw them, too, over to the Lutheran 
party ; and, since these were not likely to suc- 
ceed by amicable means, it seemed as if it 
were the design of the Lutherans to force them 
into it, by instigating their subjects to revolt. 
Against these attempts they now called upon 
the emperor for support. j- Immediately after 
the meeting, Duke Henry of Brunswick went 
to Spain, thus throwing the weight of his per- 
sonal solicitations into the balance. 

Everything was thus prepared for the deci- 
sive battle. If the adherents of innovation 
found their strongest support in the sympathy 
of the nation, and in the mighty movement of 
the public mind generally; on the other hand, 
the champions of the papacy v/ere sustained 
by the natural strength of established institu- 
tions, and the resolute aversion of some power- 
ful princes to all change. 

But they now likewise sought to engage in 
their behalf the active interference of the two 
supreme authorities whose dignity was so in- 
timately bound up with the spiritual constitu- 
tion of the empire. They did not doubt that 
these potentates would bring all their influence 
to their aid. 

But they thus came into contact with two 
great political powers which stood in very dif- 
ferent relations to each other, frojn that which 
subsisted between them in Germany ; — 3, rela- 
tion subject at every moment to be changed by 
the great events of Italy, and the course of 
European policy. 

We shall be unable to understand the affairs 
of Germany, if we do not first devote our atten- 
tion to these events : -they are also important, 
as exhibiting another phase of the character 
and condition of the German people. 

t Excerpt fronn a judgment given at Leipzig, quoted 
by Schmidt in his Deutsche Geschichte, viii. p. 202. Yet 
I know not whether this meeting took place at liCipzig 
or at Halle. 



BOOK lY. 

FOREIGN RELATIONS.— FOUNDATION OF THE NATIONAL 
CHURCHES OF GERMANY. 

1521—1528. 



CHAPTER I. 

FRENCH AND ITALIAN WARS, DOWN TO THE 
LIGUE OF COGNAC, 1521 — 1526. 

In the tenth century, when the peoples of the 
"West, just struggling into intellectual life and 
culture, were exposed on every side to attacks 
from mighty and hostile forces, the first great 
victory was won by the Germans. In defend- 
ing themselves, they rendered inestimable ser- 
vice to all others. They restored security and 
independence to the West ; their successes in 
arms revived the idea of a western empire; 
two-thirds of the great Carolingian heritage 
devolved upon them. 

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the 
majesty and supremacy of the empire were re- 
cognised by all the surrounding nations, north 
and south, east and west. 

Aries and Lyons, Milan and Pisa, M^ere in- 
cluded within its dominions. At the end of 
the twelfth, and the former half of the thirteenth 
century, we find the emperors of Germany 
founding a strong domestic power in Italy ; 
more than once the idea of annexing the east- 
ern empire to that of the west suggested itself 
to them. Meanwhile, wide tracts of country 
in the north and east were covered with settle- 
ments ; and as outposts in the far distance, 
those great colonies of military orders were 
established, which were unquestionably the 
best constituted and strongest power in the 
ngrth. 

For a while the conquests of the empire con- 
tinued to advance, although the imperial go- 
vernment no longer retained its pristine energy ; 
but at length the dissolution of internal order, 
and the annihilation of the real independence 
of the imperial throne, was felt on its fron- 
tiers : the empire was no longer able to main- 
tain its lofty station. 

The spoliation began with the pope, who 
wrested Rome, the States of the Church, and 
Avignon from the empire. In alliance with 
him, the French crown got possession, noise- 
lessly and bit by bit, of the kingdom of Aries; 
shortly after, the rising power of Poland and 
Lithuania gained a decisive victory over the 
Teutonic order, no longer adequately sup- 
ported. In the fifteenth century, Bohemia 
made herself independent; the states of Italy 
scarcely preserved their allegiance to the em- 
pire even in name; and, lastly, the principle 
u 



of separation reacted even on the races of Ger- 
man blood and language who inhabited the 
Alps and the Netherlands. The contempla- 
tion of so many disasters awoke that sorrowful 
indignation in the hearts of true patriots to 
which we have already alluded. 

As yet, however, no definitive act of cession 
had been made on the side of the empire ; ex- 
cepting on some points, in favour of the pope, 
with whom, however, the boundary line of 
their respective powers had not yet been very 
firmly settled : it was still open to every kind 
of suggestion or discussion. 

Never, above all, had the project of giving 
up the north of Italy been entertained. As 
early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
Rupert, King of the Romans, made a resolute 
attack on Milan : in the middle of it, after the 
Visconti became extinct, a party arose in Milan 
disposed to place the city under the power of 
the emperor ; and we have traced the life-long 
attempts of Maximilian to conquer Lombardy. 
He did not, it is true, succeed : after many 
fluctuations in the fortunes of war, the French 
at length kept possession of Milan and Genoa ; 
but the ancient claims were held in the live- 
liest remembrance; and Francis L, who, more- 
over, had never received investiture of the fief, 
was by no means regarded in the empire in the 
light of a legitimate possessor. 

On Charles V.'s accession to the throne, the 
magnificent prospect of a recover}'' of all its 
rights once more opened on the empire. 

We must remember, that this was the point 
of view which immediately presented itself to 
men's minds, on the first approximation of 
Burgundy and Austria. W^hen Charles the 
Bold sent to offer his alliance to Frederic III., 
he told him that he would make him more for- 
midable than any emperor had been for three 
hundred years : he represented to him what an 
irresistible power must result from the union 
of their possessions and privileges.* The 
youthful prince who now ascended the throne 
was the great-grandson and heir of both those 
sovereigns, and his principalities and king- 
doms extended beyond the farthest limit that 
any imagination could at that time have 
reached. How, then, was it possible that 
ideas of this kind should fail to arise within 
him ! 



* The only account which may, however, be considered 
authentic, is given by Schmidt from the Imperial Ar- 
chives, book vii. cap. 24. 

(229) 



230 



BREAKING OUT OF WAR 



Book IV. 



Of all the nations of Western Europe, the 
German was, without doubt, the best prepared 
for war. The nobles of that country were the 
first to throw oft' the use of the lance — that 
chivalrous weapon which the new art of war 
had rendered nearly useless : lords and vassals 
fought in the same ranks.* The foot-soldiers, 
or landsknechts, who were peasants, had iio 
equals except among; the Swiss, — also of Ger- 
man race. The citizens were masters in the 
■use of fire-arms ; nor could any other nation 
in the world have measured its naval forces 
at^ainst those of the Hanse towns and the 
Netherlands combined. 

All these elements of strength had been 
paralysed by the want of an emperor endued 
with energy enough to put them in motion. 
vSuch an one had never yet arisen ; but a new 
era now appeared at hand. The landsknechts 
hailed its advent in a song, the burden of 
which is, that they had now a prince who 
would be able to pay them, and to keep them 
in the field. At the diet of Worms, the recon- 
quest of the lost or ceded dominions of the 
empire was discussed with great earnestness. 
But here again we must not for a moment lose 
sight of the fact, that the augmentation of the 
imperial power was not the ofFspri/i^ of any 
essential change in the sentiments of the na- 
tion. The nation was not disposed to grant to 
Charles V. greater rights than it had granted 
to his predecessors ; nor to rally round him 
with greater unanimity. The difference con- 
sisted in the union of power, such as had 
never before centred in one house, with the 
rights and powers of the empire. But the for- 
mer included elements so heterogeneous that 
it could never be amalgamated with the power 
conferred by the imperial throne. The posi- 
tion of Charles Y. w^as twofold ; hence it must 
of necessity in time give birth to difficulties as 
peculiar as its own nature, and might become 
perilous to the rights of the German empire 
in so far as they were distinct from those of 
the individual then wearing the imperial 
crown, j" 

Even the origin of his wars is to be traced 
far more to the aggregate of his various rela^ 
tions than to the peculiar interests of the em- 
pire. 

We have already alluded to the revival of the 
old hostility between France and Burgundy. 

In the beginnirig of the year 1521, the de- 
clared enemies of the emperor were favourably 
received and advanced at the French court. 
Francis I. formed a connection vi-'ith the revolt- 
ed communes in Castile ; in Germany, also, 
the emperor thought he continually detected 
traces of his enemy's machinations : letters and 
schemes of the most hostile nature reached 
him from Italy :^ in May, Francis I. made an 

* A passage from Pasqualigo's narrative will explain 
this further. 

t>See translator's note, p. 5-2. 

j Tractat de subtrahendis omnibus Ctesaris amicis, — 
solicitat licet frustra sacri imperii electores,— concitat et 
Uteris et nunciis turbatos Hispanise populos. From these 
and similar complaints in the Refutatio Apologise Dis- 
suasoria; in Goldest Polit. Imp. p. 870, is seen what espe- 
cially irritated the emperor, in addition to the direct 
attacks. 



attempt to restore Navarre by forqe to Albert. 
When the English expressed their pacific views 
and wishes, he replied that he could not allow 
himself to be stopped in his victorious career. § 
He openly took under his protection Robert de 
la Mark, who, in order to avenge a violation 
of his jurisdiction on the part of the Chancellor 
of Brabant, was proceeding to acts of violence 
against Luxemburg. 

On the other hand, the emperor now^ con- 
cluded his treaty with Pope Leo X., to whom 
the ascendency of the French in Italy was ex- 
tremely oppressive, and any augmentation oL 
it, intolerable. II The alliance was destined to 
revive and restore the rights of the papacy and 
the empire conjointly, and even remote contin- 
gencies were not forgotten. The emperor pro- 
mised to assist in establishing the pope's claims 
on Ferrara ; the pope, those of the empire on 
Venice.^ But they first determined jointly to 
conquer Lombardy. Parma and Piacenza were 
to fall to the share of the pope ; Milan and 
Genoa, to be governed by native rulers, who 
were to acknowledge the emperor as their sove- 
reign lord. There is frequent reference in the 
treaty to the legitimate subjection of all princes 
to the pope and the emperor, from whom God 
would hereafter demand an account of the state 
of the Christian republic. 

In Germany, well-meaning people were anx- 
ious to bring about a reconciliation between 
the king and the emperor. The electors drew 
up a sort of memorial, exhorting the King of 
France to a peaceful demeanour, and a recog- 
nition of the rights of the empire. But the 
emperor was not pleased at their interference ; 
he forbade the Elector of Mainz to send this 
paper; his chancellor declared to the Elector 
of Treves that no negotiation would have any 
effect with the king, who would keep the peace 
only when restrained by force.** 

The purposes, moreover, which had dictated 
the treaty with the pope were wholly irrecon- 
cilable with an acconmnodation of the differ- 
ences with the King of France. 

In August, 1521, it is true, delegates from 
the emperor and the king, together with pleni- 
potentiaries from Rome and England, met again 
in Calais ; but from the first, little was to be 
anticipated from this conference. Of the me- 
diators, one was already in alliance with the 
emperor, while the other had long been nego- 
tiating with him, with a view to a stricter 
alliance. They went over the old treaties, 
article by article ; each party maintaining that 
it was the other who was chargeable with the 
breach of it. The greatest impression was 

§ Extracts from the despatches of Fitzwilliam, the Eng- 
lish minister in Paris, dated 18th Feb. and 29th of May; 
Raumer, Letters from Paris, vol. i. p. 237. 

|( This motive, which the Italians seemed afterwards to 
have forsotten, is very apparent in a conference held by 
Henry VIII. with the French minister: " fere ofFextreiue 
subjection."— 5tafe Papers, Henry VIIL, i. p. 13. 

IT " Omnibus viribus suis spiritualibus et temporaübus." 
Art. 19.—Dumont, iv. iii. p. 99. 

** " Wurde keine Handlung leiden, er sey denn der- 
maassen zugericht, dass er das Friedens begere." — " He 
would hear of no negotiations unless he w-ere in a condi- 
tion to ask for peace." From the mouth of the Elector 
of Treves: Planitz to Frederic of Saxony. Nov. 1, 1521. 



Chap. I. 



WITH FRANCE— CAMPAIGN OF 1521, 1522. 



231 



produced by a letter of Francis to the Count 
of Carpi, wiiich had fallen into the hands of 
the imperialists, and in which the king spoke 
very plainly of the assistance he gave to Robert 
de la ^lark, and of his views on Naples and 
Sicil}". When at length a renewal of these 
treaties was proposed, the emperor's grand 
chancellor, without the slightest hesitation, re- 
fused; alleging that th^ basis upon which they 
■ were constructed was unsound; the emperor 
having ancient claims on France, of which they 
contained no mention. He not only denied, as 
might be expected, the suzerainty of France 
\ over Flanders and Artois, which he pronounced 
a mere momentary concession ; but demanded 
that the inheritance of Charles the Bold should 
be given back entire and undiminished; he 
reminded the mediators what the throne of 
Aragon, and what the empire w-as entitled to 



in the south of France :* 



•pretensions 



which, in faot, expressed nothing less than a 
resolute determination to try the fortune of w"ar; 
and which it was impossible for Francis to ad- 
mit unless he had suffered a defeat. 

From this congress at Calais, Charles V. 
reaped one advantage — he won over the King 
of England. Henry VIII. had before solemnly 
engaged to^ declare himself against the one of 
liis neighbours who should first break the 
peace. The intercepted letter in question con- 
vinced him that the blame rested with Francis 
l.j He had, therefore, no hesitation in espous- 
ing the side of the emperor, from whom he 
carefully obtained security for compensation 
for whatever pecuniary injury might arise to 
him from his rupture with France. His pleni- 
potentiary, Cardinal Wolsey, proceeded from 
Calais to Bruges, where the stricter alliance, 
which had formerly been discussed, was con- 
cluded. 

The emperor really wished not to engage in 
the war without full justification. As, in con- 
sequence of the ambiguously worded article in 
the treaty of peace, there was a doubt which 
part}^ was in the right in the affair of Navarre, 
he was rather glad than otherwise when he 
heard the news of the serious demonstrations 
of the French in favour of Robert de la Mark. 
'•God be praised !" exclaimed he; "it is not 
I who begin the w^ar; God affords me an oc- 
casion for defending myself." He was the 
more determined to pursue the enterprise to the 
end. ''I must be a miserable emperor," said 



* Garnier, Histoire de France, xxiii. p. 359, from the 
MSS. of Bethune, which, however, he does not mention, 
pives a very m>satistactory account of the matter. At the 
tiine of the first edition, I remarked that in time some- 
th'ius material should be done (which would be easy 
enoush) in France for the aiUlientic elucidations of this 
history. Since then a beginning has been made by the 
yiiblication of th* papers of Cardinal Gravella. In the 
f.rst volume, p. 125-241, we find a Precis des Conferences 
dft Calais, a report written by the Grand Chancellor of 
the empire in Latin, and put into the '^ langue Valonne 
ou Prancoise" (so he calls it) by Claude de Chassey. 

t " Letters sent unto Rome by the Frenshe King; to the 
Counte de Carpve siirned with his hande and subscribed 
by Robt. Tett (Robsrtet), which I have seen, conteyning 
the hoole discourse of his intended enterprise, as well by 
Eobt. de la Marche in those parties, as the commotion of 
Italie and disturbance of Naples, wherby the invasion 
of his partie evidently apperithe." Wolsey to King Hen- 
ry.— Sfaie Papers, i. 27. From the answer of Pace, p. 35, 
it appears that the king thought this testimony decisive. 



he, "or he shall become a pitiable king of 
France.":^ 

Such Avas the beginning of the war betvv'een 
Charles V. and Francis I. 

It w^as, in fact, a direct continuation of the 
ancient hostilities between Burgundy and 
France. At the same time, it was' immensely 
important to the Germanic empire, to which, 
for, the first time, a well-grounded prospect of 
re-establishing its rights and authority w"as re- 
opened. The war, with the political changes 
consequent upon it, would then incessantly 
react on its internal condition; as we have 
already remarked, and sli^l soon more distinct- 
ly perceive. 

CA3IPAIGN OF 1521, 1522. 

It seemed at first as if the struggle would be 
decided on the ancient theatre of the Burgun- 
dian wars — the border country of France and 
the Netherlands. 

From the territory of Robert de la IMark, 
which had been subdued without much diffi- 
culty, a stately imperial arm}", under the com- 
mand of the Count of Nassau, Sickingen, and 
Frundsberg, marched upon the French frontiers, 
conquered Llouzon, besieged Mezieres, and 
threatened the whole of Champagne. In the 
mean time, however, Francis assembled his 
best forces, and had soon so confident a feeling 
of his own superiority, that he declared that 
God himself was evidently on the side of 
France. The imperialists were compelled to 
raise the siege of Mezieres, and when they met 
the French near Valenciennes, esteemed them- 
selves happy to escape without a beating. 
George Frundsberg regarded this retreat as 
one of his most glorious achievements ; and it 
did, in fact, in some degree restore the balance 
of affairs : the French took some strong places 
in Artois ; the imperialists, Tournay ; but these 
momentary successes led to no great efforts or 
important results. § 

In Italy, on the other hand, events unexpect- 
edly advanced to a crisis. 

This was mainly brought about by the Swiss 
Confederation, which, though still retaining 
the form of subjection to the empire, and re- 
ceiving its pay, enjoyed, in fact, political inde- 
pendence, and had for many years been prin- 
cipally instrumental in deciding all the great 
struggles in the north of Italy. Recently (A. 
D. 1512) the Swiss had reconquered Milan for 
the Sforzas, and its loss, determined in a most 
bloody battle, was entirely the result of their 
divisions. In the 5"ear 1516, I\Iaximilian had 
undertaken, with their aid, a second expedition 
into Lombardy, the failure of which was attri- 
buted solely to his defective conduct of it. 
Now, too, both the pope and the emperor, in 
all their plans, reckoned on the assistance of 
these neighbouring, brave and warlike troops, 
as indispensable to the success of their arms. 

t Aluigi Aleandro de' Galeazzi, Brusselles 3. Luglio, 
15-2L Lettere di principi, i. 93. That is doubtless the 
meaning of this speech. 

§ The Memoirs of Bellay and of Fleuranges on one side, 
and of Pontus Heuterus and Sandoval on the other, de- 
scribe this war. I shall insert a very unpoetical, but in- 
structive historical song, in the Appendix. 



232 



CAMPAIGN OF 1521. 



Book IV. 



Their intention was to march 16,000 Swiss 
across the Alps, and to advance upon Milan, 
at the same time that an imperial fleet appeared 
before Genoa, and a combined papal and Nea- 
politan force on the Po.* 

It seemed hardly possible to entertain a doubt 
of the success of their efforts. The Confede- 
ration had espoused the part of the House of 
Austria at the election, and was closely allied 
with the See of Rome. In the beginning of 
the year, some thousand Swiss had entered 
Leo's service, and their captains had been de- 
corated by that pontiff with chains of gold. 

But there was another party in Switzerland 
attached to France. This party had been the 
cause of the division in the army in 1515 ; had 
afterwards concluded the permanent peace with 
France ; and though it did not actually support 
the pretensions of the king to the imperial 
crown (which would have given him legitimate 
claims to their services), being now free from 
any anxiety on that score, manifested the live- 
liest desire to enter into a strict alliance with 
him. The French left nothing undone that 
could secure or strengthen the attachment of 
this party. Their means were simple and in- 
fallible. They openly promised pensions, and 
secretly administered bribes. Anshelm de- 
clares that not only the members of councils 
and the burgesses were bfibed, but all the 
loudest village orators; that many were bought 
with ten gulden, while not less than three 
thousand found their w'ay, by different chan- 
nels, into some houses. f Opposition was,' in- 
deed, not wanting. It was remarked that the 
contracting parties bound themselves to a most 
unequal obligation in engaging mutually to 
defend each other's territory ; the Confedera- 
tion, the extensive dominions of the king on 
either side the Alps ; the king, the narrow ter- 
ritory of Switzerland : itw^as said that Francis, 
by means of pensions, bribes, and promises, 
would become almost absolute master of the 
Confederation ;:t^ but as majorities are generally 
swayed rather by interests than by arguments, 
these representations had no effect. 

The reply was, that the Confederation wanted 
something to fall back upon in unexpected 
emergencies ; and where could a better con- 
nection be found ] that w-hile the only sacri- 
fice demanded of them was to let their hot- 
blooded youth, whom they could not keep in 
order, flock to the king's standard, they would 
derive great advantages from him in return. 
In Zurich alone a firm resistance was offered — 
the result in part of more profound religious 
convictions; but all other parts — even at last 
Schwyz and Glarus, which held out the longest 
— gave way. On the 5th of May, 1521, just 
as these plans were maturing, the alliance was 
ratified at Lucern, according to the terms of 
which, the king raised the pensions already 



* This plan is adopted in the treaty of alliance. Art. 9. 

t Anshelm, Berner Chronik, vi. p. 25. 

X Arguments on the other side are to be found, espe- 
cially in the address of the city of Zurich to the canton 
quoted by BuUinger, i. p. 42. 



granted to the Confederation by one half;§ 
while the Swiss, on their side, promised to 
come to his aid whenever any part of his do- 
minions was attacked, with a force of from six 
to sixteen thousand men. This is the basis 
of every subsequent treaty between France 
and Switzerland. How . great a weight in 
Europe would the renewal of that relation to 
Milan which had subsisted from 1512 to 1515 
have given to Switzerland ! But this she dis- 
regarded ; she sold her arm and her strength — 
the whole of that warlike power by which she 
had w^on herself a name among the nations — 
to the crown of France, and became the hired 
instrument of its designs. She advanced an- 
other step in the career of separation from the 
empire, to which she was bound by the ties of 
nationality and of history, and sustained by 
which, she might have assumed a lofty station 
among the powers of Europe; In July, 1521, 
a solemn deputation repaired to Dijon, to de- 
liver to Francis I. the sealed copy of the 
treaty ; and the king's mother w^as delighted 
at the marks of reverential homage addressed 
to her son at this ceremony ; immediately after 
which, bands of Swiss joined the king's troops 
both in Picardy and in Italy. 

It is evident how completely this must have 
thwarted all the plans of the pope and the em.- 
peror. ■ 

In Italy, the breaking out of hostilities was 
hastened by a very ill-concerted attack of the 
French on the town of Reggio, where they in- 
tended to carry off some Milanese emigrants. 
In .Tuly, 1521, Prospero Colonna, to whom the 
supreme command over the combined papal 
and imperial forces was given, left Bologna to 
attack Parma ; a fleet was sent to sea against 
Genoa; in Trent, German foot-soldiers flocked 
to the standard of Francesco Sforza, son of 
Luigi il More; while the exiled Ghibellines 
appeared with a few boats on the Lake of 
Como, where they had always carried on a 
sort of banditti w^arfare.|| 

But to what could all these detached efforts 
lead, when the force from which the grand 
attack on the Milanese was expected hadnow 
made common cause with the enemy, whose 
confidence was thus raised at all points 1 The 
enterprises against Genoa and Como com- 
pletely failed. It was fortunate, that at least 
the Germans from Trent found means to elTect 
a junction with the army before Parma, where 
the troops whi.ch had been destined for the 
attack upon Genoa now likewise collected ; 
but, even with this addition, they did not feel 
themselves strong enough for a serious and 
decisive attack : on the" 12th of September the 
siege was raised. *![ 



§ " Ut cngnoscaiit iiilimuni amnrem, liberalitatem, be- 
nevolentiam, et affectionem dicti Christianissimi regis 
in eos. "—Z)MW!oni, iv. i. p. 334. ^ 

|( Benedictus Jovius Historia Novncomensis in Graevii 
Thes. Ital.iv. p. 71, names, as leader, Johannes a Brinzia, 
cogiiomento stultus; that is, Matto da Brinzi, as he is 
otherwise called. 

IT The somewhat contradictory details of the raising of 
this siege are to be found in Guicciardini, Capella, 'Jovius 
(Vita Pesc. ii. 300. Leonis Xmi, iii. 100.) See also NarUi, 
Storie fiorentine, vi. p. 170. 



Chap. I. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1521. 



233 



The French at this time possessed an un- 
questioned superiority over their enemies. 
The Venetians had sent into the field five hun- 
dred men-at-arms, and six thousand foot-sol- 
diers; the Duke of Ferrara, who was not blind 
to the danger impending over him, fell upon 
the papal territory ; the Swiss came down 
from their mountains in detachments, at their 
head the Bernese, led by the most ardent par- 
tisans of the French. The historian Guicciar- 
dini, who was with the allied armies as papal 
commissioner, declares, that if the French had 
attacked them at that moment, when also dis- 
cords and disorders had broken out among 
them, they would have obtained an easy vic- 
tory.* 

But just at this moment, hope of succour 
and of safety dawned in the very point whence 
the danger had arisen. 

Imperial and papal envoys had arrived in 
Switzerland, richly provided with money and 
all the means of corruption, and had again 
found a soil very favourable to the fulfilment 
of their commission. By pressing on the 
Swiss their old obligations towards the em- 
peror and Austria, and especially towards the 
pope, they brought into full and distinct light 
the extent of the danger into which the Con- 
federation had rushed. They were bound by 
ancient treaties to defend part of the territories 
of Austria (i. e. Franche Comte), and all those 
of the Church ; yet, in the teeth of these, they 
had entered into a new treaty, a special clause 
of which declared that they were to take the 
field against all parties specified, and espe- 
cially against Austria an'd the pope, if they 
should^ attack the king's dominions. There 
were still some Swiss in the papal armies, 
who had taken part in the attack on Parma, 
while others of their countr37men co-operated, 
under Lautrec, in the relief of that place ; and 
it was not easy to see w^hat v/ould be the re- 
sult of their coming in contact. The French 
alliance was the work of a party, and nothing 
was more natural than that another party 
should be formed in every place to oppose it. 
The disorderly and ill-timed departure was 
also a ground of complaint and reproach ; in 
some places the whole labour of getting in the 
harvest had been left to women. Zürich, 
which had rejected the French alliance by an 
unanimous resolution of the council in the 
city and the communes in the country, was 
determined at all events to maintain that with 
the pope. All these various inclinations and 
passions were now laid hold of, and turned to 
account by the old master of Swiss intrigues, 
Cardinal von Sitten. }n Zürich he was allowed 
to levy 2700 men, though under the condition 
that they were to be employed solely for the 
defence of the papal possessions, and" on no 
account for the attack on Milan : these troops, 
however, formed a mere rallying point around 
which partisans of the pope and emperor 
gathered from all parts ; the cardinal granted 
still higher pay than the French plenipoten- 



tiaries : we find that a banner or company, 
which had been recruited for the service of 
France, went over in a body, with the single 
exception of its captain, to that of the pope : 
above 6000 men mustered in Coire, towards 
the end of September, and were quickly joined 
by troops from the Orisons and the Pavs de 
Vaud.j 

The pope was already in great dismay and 
perplexity at the ill results of his undertakings, 
when he received these tidings. His nuncio 
Ennio assured him that the clause in the agree- 
ment with Zürich would not restrain the troops 
of that canton from attacking Parma, Piacenza, 
and even Ferrara, though they belonged to the 
Church ; nay, that he was confident that if he 
did but distribute money among some of the 
leaders, he could induce them to undertake any 
thing he wished.:];: 

This revived the almost extinguished hopes 
of the allies. It was evident that the mere, ap- 
pearance of so strong a Swiss force in the 
combined army must cripple the strength of the 
enemy, which mainly consisted of the Swiss 
in his service. The only question w^as, how 
to effect a junction, and to accomplish this the 
army set itself in motion. Cardinal Giulio de' 
Medici had just arrived from Florence, and had 
appeased all the quarrels of the leaders and 
secured the good wdll of the troops by the Flo- 
rentine gold of which he was the bearer; he 
had thirteen sumpter mules in his train, all said 
to be laden with money. On the first of Octo- 
ber, Prospero Colonna crossed the Po at Casal 
Maggiore, and marched up the river Oglio. 
iMeanWhile the Swiss who had come down 
from the Alps across the Morbegno arrived from 
Chiavenna. Neither mountain nor flood, nei- 
ther the warnings of their countrymen nor the 
hostilities of the French, had power to deter 
them. At the end of October they too appeared 
on the other side of the Oglio. 

It was evident that the safety of the French 
depended on preventing the junction of these 
two bodies of troops. Prospero Colonna had 
taken up a position near Rebecca, so little ad- 
vantageous, that even the cautious Venetians 
were tempted to attack him ; the Swiss w^ere 
urgent to do so : they wanted to fight before 
their countrymen reached the scene of warfare; 
and in a council of war which was held, the 
voices were nearly unanimous lor the attack. 
The commander-in-chief, Lautrec, alone was 
not to be induced to comply with their wishes.§. 



* Guicciavdini, xiv. p. 408. Se fosse sopravenuto Lau- 
trecli, gU raetteva facilissimamente in fuga. 

30 ij* 



■f The offers made by the imperial and papal party are 
to be seen in Anshelra. Dullinger is more explicit as to 
the aöairs of Zürich, cap. 24-26. See Hottinger, Ge- 
schichte der Eidgenossen (Müller's continuation), i. p. 
55, 63. 

JGaleacius Capeila gives, p. ISO, an extract from the 
letter; " Demuni pecnnia facile esse duces corrunipere, 
qui milites quo res postularet technis suasiombusque im- 
pe'lerent. 

§ The version which Leferron (v. p. 330,) quotes from 
the mouth of an eye-witness — that Lautrec had really 
intended to make the attack on the following day, but 
was prevented by the Venetians— is a mere pretext. Eel- 
lay says, " La tardivite de nos chefs fut cause de les nous 
faire perdre."— CoZZ. Univ., torn. xvii. p. 180. The parti- 
culars are mentioned by the most trustworthy Italians, 
such as Galeazzo. We may judge of the effect of this 
event from the Chronicles of Rabbi Josef; he saj'S of too 
French, " They are a nation voyd of counsel." 



234 



CAMPAIGN OF 1521. 



Book IV. 



Many motives for his refusal were assigned ; 
the most generally received v^^as his want of 
resolution : he was not a general fitted for enter- 
prising vi'arfare. He chose rather to strengthen 
the garrisons in the nearest fortified towns, and 
to take up a strong position behind the Adda. 
Prospero Colonna soon after joined the Swiss 
at Gambara without any impediment. A part 
of them, as the nuncio had predicted, were not 
reluctant to advance with him upon Milan. 
The more conscientious, who could not be in- 
duced by any promises to do so, marched upon 
Reggio, whence they were to make an attack 
on the papal cities of Parma and Piacenza. 

The allied arary thus acquired an incontest- 
able superiority. The Swiss in the French 
service, discontented at not having earned the 
bounty distributed after a battle ; dissatisfied 
with Lautrec, who preferred his German guard 
to them ; and exhorted by messengers from 
Switzerland, for God's sake not to fight their 
brother confederates, deserted the ranks, and 
returned home in troops. If, therefore, in 1515, 
the dissensions of the Swiss had essentially 
facilitated the conquest of Ölilan to the French, 
the consequences of those dissensions now 
mainly occasioned their disasters. The allies, 
at'this moment, reinforced by fresh troops from 
the Grisons, effected their passage across the 
Adda with equal skill and success. Lautrec 
found himself entirely confined to the fortified 
towns. 

But these had long been the scene of hostile 
ferment. The Ghibellines hated the French 
government; nor were the Guelphs treated by 
it with all the consideration they expected; 
their most eminent leader, the aged Trivulzi, 
whose authority had for a time been superior 
to that of the French governor, had, on that 
account, fallen into the disfavour of the king, 
which had terminated only with his life. To 
these causes of discontent were added the acts 
of extortion and violence which generally ren- 
der the domination of the French hateful to 
•every country subject to their swa)^ On Lau- 
trec's arrival in Milan, he found so great an 
agitation, that he thought it necessary to put it 
down by severe military executions ; he caused 
the aged Christofero Pallavicini, a near relation 
of the House of Medici, and one of the chiefs 
of the Ghibelline faction, to be beheaded in the 
castle.* It is easy to imagine what was the 
impression produced by this cruelty, combined 
w^ith the spectacle of a defeated' army and the 
report of the approach of an enemy of over- 
Vfhelming force. Upon the state of the public 
mind resulting from such causes, Prospero and 
Cardinal Giulio had all along placed their 
hopes. j- Francesco Sforza had fostered this by 
proclamations, breathing nothing but clemency 
and mildness, and promising the paternal rule 



* Cronaca Gruinello, in Verri, iii. p. 221. 

tSepulveda, Praefatio in Aristotelem de parvis Natu- 
ralihus (Cf. Sepulvedte Vita et Scripta, p. cvii.), says, of 
Giulio: " Non ijrnarus, in uno Mediolaiio cetera oppida 
expugnari." Vettori admirably describes the change of 
circumstances. " In Milano in facto la parte Ghibellina 
e snperiore' assai, i popoli sono sempre desiderosi di mu- 
tazioni : chi lascia la campagaa e si retira dentro alle 
mura, perde di riputazione." 



of a native prince, which were read with avidity. 
As the allies approached Milan, they were 
urged to advance without delay, and to venture 
on an attack ; the whole city, it was said, would 
rise in their favour. It was in November, the- 
weather and the roads as bad as possible; but 
under these adverse circumstances they marched 
forwards. On the evening of the 19th they 
reached Milan, and immediately pitched their 
camp before it. Meanwhile, a small party of 
light-horsemen having reported the bad state 
of the entrenchments which Lautrec had has- 
tily thrown up round the city, the Marquess 
Pescara, commander of the Spanish infantry, 
said, " We must find quarters in the suburbs ;" 
and instantly placing himself at the head of 
sixty Spanish riflemen, advanced on the Porta 
Romana, followed by an irregular troop of 
Landsknechts. The event which was to de- 
cide the fate of Italy for centuries, began like 
an adventure undertaken in wantonness and 
sport. Prospero Colonna, unwilling to be out- 
done, collected another party of Germans and 
Spaniards, and marched on the Porta Ticinese. 
The entrenchments were easily forced ; but, as 
nearly the whole of the enemy's army Jay in 
the city, and rallied in haste to make resist- 
ance, the affair was still doubtful, and a part 
at least of the assailants held it expedient to 
retire. At tliis crisis the population rose ; the 
streets resounded with the cry " the Duke ! the 
Empire for ever! down with the French!" a 
universal insurrnction appeared imminent, and 
as the main body of the allied army at this 
moment apprcacfed, and the Landsknechts, 
wading up to their belts in water through the 
ditches, mounted the entrenchments, Lautrec 
thought the defence cf the city desperate, and 
retreated through the Porta Comasina on the 
opposite side. The Vonetia^ns were easily dis- 
armed. The Swiss officers would not abandon 
the French, and hurried sfter them. In less 
than two hours the city was taken. ij: On .en- 
tering it, the imperialists found all the streets 
brilliantly illuminated. The name evening it 
was publicly proclaimed that the emperor and 
pope had determined to restore to the Milanese 
their hereditary sovereign, Duke Francesco 
Sforza. Geronimo Morone', the confidential 
councillor of that prince, who hal kept alive 
the connection with the Ghibellire families, 
and had contributed more than any other indi- 
vidual to the «access of the enterprise, took the 
reins of government. 

Pavia and i>odi, on the one side tho Po, 
Parma and Piac<3nza on the other, followed the 
example of Milai>. The latter cities received 
very vv^elcome assi!.^t:\nce from the Swiss of Zug 
and Zürich, who haL\ net accompanied the army 
to Milan. 

The matter was, however, by no means at 
an end. The French array had not dispersed, 
as was expected ; it took up a strong position 

JA letter of the Marquis o! Mantua to his^ mother, 
dated '21st Nov., 152], and printed in the thirly-siy;ond 
volume of Sauuto's Chronicle, co.ifains the best and the 
most trustworthy account of this ev.spt. I shall give it iu 
the Appendix, as well as a letter rsf the J-,egate, Giulio 
Medici, written between the eventn^ of ctit- I9th and tho 
morning of the 20th. 



Chap. I. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1522. 



235 



in Cremona, whence it menaced Milan on the 
one side and Parma and Piacenza on the other; 
it was still in possession of a number of cas- 
tles; Novarra, Trezzo, Pizzighetone, in the 
Milanese; the strongholds in the passes of the 
Alps ; Domo d'Ossola and Arena, with all the 
others on the Lago Maggiore. The sudden 
death of Leo X., whom fate summoned away- 
just as he received the first favourable tidings, 
compelled the allied commanders to be frugal, 
and to discharge as many of their troops as 
they could possibly spare. For the moment, 
at least, they could not reckon on any further 
support from the Tuscan or Papal dominions, 
which were distracted by troubles of their own ; 
■ while the French had at their disposal the re- 
sources of Venice and Genoa. The most im- 
portant thing, however, was that, after this 
disaster, of which they w^ere themselves the 
sole cause, the Sv/iss acted with greater con- 
cert. The emperor invited them to enter into 
alliance with him ; the Council of Regency 
reminded them of their duties as members of 
the empire ; an embassy from Milan offered 
them a subsidy ; but all was in vain : the 
French party, reinforced by the povi-erful cap- 
tains who w^ere returned from Italy, asserted 
its superiority;* its adversaries themselves were 
/ struck by the danger which threatened the Con- 
federation from opposition to the will of the 
majority. Zürich now recalled her citizens 
from Italy, and the twelve cantons granted the 
king a levy of 10,000 men: they gave leave 
to the French plenipotentiary to inspect them 
himself, which had never been granted before; 
and at the end of January, 1523, whilst falling 
snow still covered the roads with fresh drifts, 
they marched across the Alps. 

By this event, the whole political face of 
things assumed a new and most complicated 
aspect. 

The Swiss being thus opposed to the claims 
of the emperor and the empire, they were only 
to be maintained (if indeed it was possible to 
maintain them at all) by purely German re- 
sources : no union of hereditary possessions, 
no negotiation, availed the emperor further; 
he had nothing to look to but the strong arm 
and the tried faith of his Landsknechts. 

A considerable body of these troops were 
already collected in the Milanese. They had 
been levied the preceding year in Tyrol and 
Swabia, chiefly with the pope's money : it ap- 
pears from extant documents, that the Würten- 
berg government ordered its servants to let 
every man go who would be better out of the 
country than in it.f' Francis of Castelalt had 
raised live companies.:^ The most renowned 
of German captains, George of Frundsberg, 
now set himself in motion. He was personally 
acquainted with Francesco Sforza, who had 
once paid him a visit at his castle of Mindel- 



* On the 29th November, we find the French agent, 
Galeazzo Visconti, in Lncern : " Qtieste lige," he says, 
" sono in grosso dixordine, — ma a tuto spero troverase 
bono recapito, etiam che cum faticha et spexa." — Molini, 
Doc. i. p. 132. 

t Avvisi da Trento, dated 9tli July, 1521; Molini, i. p. 
99. On the 15th the order was published in Wiirtenberg. 
—Sattler, p. 77. 

X Jovius, Vita Alfonsi, p. 185, names him. 



heim : another Italian pretender, Geronimo 
Adorno, who aspired at regaining his power i.. 
Genoa, and had rendered important service at 
the conclusion of the treaty, appeared in Ger- 
many well provided with money ; the drum 
was beat in the streets of Augsburg, and in a 
very short time twelve companies of Lands- 
knechts flocked to the standard of George 
Frundsberg, and marched under his orders from 
Glurns on the 12th of February. He had to 
contend with all the difficulties of the season, 
and under their severest form ; the Grisoners 
would not allow him to pass over the Valtel- 
line, so that he was obliged to take a much 
worse road, which the labour of two hundred 
peasants was required to clear and level, over 
the Wormser .loch to Lovere and the Lago 
d'Iseo ; notwithstanding which he arrived at 
the right moment, just as the Swiss and French 
were about to attack Milan from Monza.§ 

A third German army, 6000 strong, had also 
assembled at Trent, under the command of 
Francesco Sforza; Adorno, whose personal 
hopes and interests all hung on the issue of this 
campaign, hurried back to lead on these troops 
to the scene of action. 

The French made an attempt on Milan; but 
Prospero had put himself in an excellent state 
of defence, both against the castle within, and 
the enemy without. He belonged to the clas- 
sical school of Italy of that time ; and it was 
affirmed that Ceesar's defence of Alesia had 
served as a model for his operations. |1 

The French and Swiss took Novara, Vige- 
vene, and some other places ; but — what was 
much more important — they were unable to 
prevent the junction of Francesco Sforza with 
Prospero : on the 4th of April, after an absence 
of twenty-two years, the new duke entered 
Milan, amidst the ringing of bells, the inces- 
sant firing of guns, and the joyous shouts of 
the whole population : a foreign yoke had now 
taught them the value of a prince of their own 
race and country ; and they deemed that such 
an one would be more solicitous for their wel- 
fare, and more attached to their persons and 
interests than a stranger. Francesco Sforza 
lay under the unfortunate necessity of begin- 
ning his reign with demands ; nevertheless, his 
people vied with each other in the zeal with 
which they complied with them. High and 
low brought money and money's worth-;- every 
body strove to show him aflfection, and to ob- 
tain his favour.^ An Augustine friar, Andrea 
da Ferrara, fostered this spirit in the people, 
by the fervid eloquence of discourses in which 
he represented the French as enemies of God. 

The imperialists were thus once more in a 
condition to appear in the field. After relieving 
Pavia, they took up a strong position at Bi- 
cocca, before Milan, in the hope that their 
impetuous enemy would attack them here. 



^Reissner, Historia Hern Georgen und Hern Casparen 
von Frundsberg. 

II Jovius : Pescara, p. 316. If he must have an example, 
that of the Thebans when they besieged the Cadmeia, 
and endeavoured at the same time to defend themselves 
against Alexander (Arrian, i. 7), would be more appro- 
priate. 

TT ^rumello, quoted by Verri, p. 223. 



236 



BATTLE OF BICOCCA. 



Book IV. 



Nor did they long expect in vain. As usual, i 
the error last committed was that most anx- 
iously avoided. It was the unanimous opinion 
in the French array, that nothing had been 
wanting the preceding autumn at Rebecca but 
a resolute attack, to have ensured the victory : 
the Swiss, in particular, were convinced of this ; 
they determined not to let the opportunity slip 
by again, and loudly urged their leaders to lead 
them on to the enemy. Lautrec had lost his 
judgment and presence of mind. Though he 
did not entirely approve of the proposition of 
the Swiss, he did not dare resolutely to oppose 
them ; he suffered himself to be overruled. On 
the morning of the 27th of April, the Swiss 
and the French moved upon Eicocca. 

The imperialists had encamped in a spot 
enclosed by morass, hollow ways, hedges, and 
ditches; had entrenched themselves here ac- 
cording to the rules, of art, as in a fortification, 
and placed their guns on lofty breastworks. 
The army consisted of the German companies, 
which occupied the front under George Frunds- 
berg, and Rudolf Hal; of Spanish infantry, 
especially arquebusiers, who had remained in 
Italy ever since the former wars, and had 
fought, under Gonsalvo di Cordova, by the 
side of the Germans; and, lastly, of Italian 
Ghibellines, who wished to see the power of 
the empire restored, in order that they might 
avail themselves of its protection to obtain the 
mastery over their adversaries. It was an army 
which fully represented the substantial powers 
of Spain and Germany, as united under the 
wearer of the imperial crown. Francesco Sfor- 
za, whose interests were most immediately at 
stake, the very next morning occupied a bridge 
which would have afforded access to the camp, 
with Milanese troops, horse and foot. He was 
accompanied by a monk of San Marco, who 
proclaimed that heaven had decreed the victory 
to the new duke. This patriotic excitement 
was another ally of the imperial cause. 

On the other hand, the troops of the Con- 
federation stood now undivided on the side of 
the French. As often as this had been the case 
before, they had turned the scale of victory, and 
they were inflamed with confidence in their 
present success. 

Their tactic had hitherto always consisted in 
a headlong, furious, straightforward oriset on 
the camp or the artillery of the enemy ; and 
this was the mode of attack they now adopted. 
They formed into two large bodies ; the one 
out of the country parts, under Arnold von 
Winkelried of Unterwaiden; the other from 
the cities, under Albrecht von Stein. They 
would submit to no intermixture with the for- 
eigner, and responded to the exhortations of 
their leaders, who sought to moderate their 
'impetuosity, with shouts and curses ; according 
to the plan of attack, the body from the villages 
was to have made the first onset, and that from 
the cities the second ; but they advanced nearly 
in line, so as to form a right and left wing ; 
the Junkers, pensioners and camp followers 
were forced by the cries of the multitude to ad- 
vance into the foremost ranks. Inspired by the 
ferocity of savages, rather than by the noble 



enthusiasm of heroes, they trusted only to 
themselves and despised all discipline and 
guidance. They knew that they were merce- 
naries, but every one of them was bent on do- 
ing his duty : their only thought was to fight 
out the matter hand to hand ; to earn the storm- 
ing money {Sturmgeld), and to conquer their 
old foes, the Swabians — the Landsknechts. 

But the camp upon which they were now 
advancing was in a better state of defence .than 
any they had before attacked. As they moved 
forward, their left flank experienced a fearful 
reception from the enemy's well-posted infan- 
try, and the order of battle was disturbed from 
that moment; the country troops pressed upon 
those of the towns. As these, however, did 
not give way, the former recovered their ranks, 
and, in spite of the incessant fire of the arque- 
busiers, both bodies Vit once charged the lines 
of the imperial entrenchments. 

Seeing the enemy approach, George Frunds- 
berg alighted from his horse, took a halberd, 
and placed himself in the ranks of the lands- 
knechts. They fell on their knees and prayed. 
Meanwhile, the Swiss came on. "Be it so," 
cried Frundsberg, " in a good hour, and in 
God's name." The landsknechts sprang to 
their feet ; the Swiss advanced in deep columns 
through the ditches and hollow ways against 
the landsknechts, and began the fight. " Ha ! 
do I meet thee there, old comrade V exclaimed 
Arnold of Winkelried, as he caught sight of 
George of Frundsberg, with whom he had 
formerly served ; " then by my hand must thou 
die." "God willing," replied Frundsberg, 
" thou by mine." Frundsberg received a stab 
in the thigh ; Winkelried was struck to the 
earth by a shot. The combatants rushed for- 
ward into each other's lines, and were mingled 
in one common struggle. The valour of Ru- 
dolf Hal and of Castelalt; of the standard- 
bearer Brandesser and of Stralin's troop, were 
celebrated in song and story. But the Swiss, 
too, kept their ground, which was the more 
remarkable, as they were not yet out of the 
range of the artillery ; they still hoped to over- 
come the enemy, spite of his present advan- 
tages. 

Meanwhile, the French cavalry had made 
an attack on the bridge, and had been repulsed ; 
their retreat had borne along the troops in the 
rear. The cry arose, " The rear is running !" 
To the effect of the artillery, the impossibility 
of carrying the entrenchments, and the obsti- 
nate resistance of the enemy, was now added 
the danger of being abandoned. The retreat 
of the Swiss was characterized by the same 
impetuosity as their onslaught. They left two 
or three thousand men dead on the field, but 
they retreated in tolerably good order. 

The Italian cavalry and the Spanish infan- 
try now rushed out upon them from behind the 
entrenchments, but without doing them much 
injury. 

Frundsberg, too, was urged to pursue them ; 
but he was satisfied "with the repulse of so 
powerful an enemy : he said that he had 
earned honour enough for, one day : he felt too 



Chap. I. 



CONQUEST OF GENOA. 



237 



sensibly the importance of the victory, to en- 
danger it by a tumultuous pursuit.* 

As the military chest of the French was ex- 
hausted, the Swiss were no longer to be kept 
in the field; they betook themselves to their 
homes. The French, too, now gave up the 
campaign as lost. At different points, they 
found their way back across the Alps. The 
whole Milanese territory fell once more into 
the hands of the Sforzas, and acknowledged 
the emperor as its feudal lord. 

This rendered it impossible for the French 
party to retain its footing in Genoa. Unfor- 
tunately, hov/ever, though powerless for any 
effectual resistance, it was powerful enough to 
prevent the conclusion of a treaty, while it v/as 
yet time. The city was taken and given over 
to pillage. The Adorni now attained the end 
w^hich they had aimed at from the first, and got 
possession of the government. 

In the Italian historians the share taken in 
this event by the Germans appears less promi- 
nent than it really was. The historical ballad, f 
however, circumstantially relates, " hovv' the 
eagle was once more let loose, and many a one 
who had borne his head high must now cower 
' before it ; how George Frundsberg led an army 
at the emperor's command towards the sea- 
coast to attack Genoa : v/illingly do the lands- 
knechts follow him; the Genoese feel that they 
cannot withstand the imperial crov/n, but the 
arrival of French succours under Peter Navarra 
leads them to attempt it: then the cannons are 
brought into the field, and are cheerily served 
by the landsknechts ; there is a skirmish under 
the walls ; the "storming party aiTd the battle 
are a sport to the Germans; it is they who 
conquer the city." There is no allusion what- 
ever to any foreign co-operation, to a.ny foreign 
leader. It is certain that they had the largest 
share both in the victory and the plunder. 
" They measured the broad cloth with their 
spears; they clothed themselves in silk and in 
velvet." A number of the wealthier families 
of Genoa bought an exemption from pillage. 
Frundsberg was much displeased that treasure 
which Avould have sufficed to maintain the 
army in the field for months, fell into their 
hands in so disorderly a manner. He selected 
out of the booty a beautiful mariner's compass 



* In the account of this battle, I have adhered to the 
oldest and simplest sources : Ansiielm amon;^ the Swiss, 
Galeazzo Capra among the Italians ; the Jiistorical son? 
which I shall publish in the Appendi.T, and Reissiiers 
Historia der Frundsberge, ainongtiie Germans. I am not 
ignorant of the objections made, especially by Bullinger, 
against certain passages of the latter. The Suiss wo'uld 
not allow that they had been beaten by the landsknechts, 
but replied to the songs in which the Germans celebrated 
their deeds, others in which they defended their own. One 
song (reprinted by Grüneisen, p. 400,) by Nicholas Manu- 
el, which is grossly false, is very well known. But even 
there it is not positively denied," as Bullinger will have it, 
that the combatants fought hand to hand. According to 
the information brought the next day by a Venetian spy, 
about lOOa men fell on the side of the imperialists. The 
statement of Ugo Foscolo, in Sanuto's Chronicle, vol. 
xxxiii., is by no means clear. " Non si sa," he finishes 
by saying, " chel causasse, nostri si misseno a ritirare in 
gran disordine." His description certainly leaves the 
matter in complete obscurity. 

t " Ein Hiipsch neu lied von der Stat Genna und wie 
sy die Lantzknecht erobert haben."—" A pretty new song 
of the city of Genoa, and how it was conquered by the 
Landsknechts."— See Varese, Storia di Geneva, iv. p. 315. 



for himself, as a memorial of the day. Great 
as was the loss of the Genoese, it did not seem 
to affect them much ; they had feared the far 
more serious evil of a shock to their credit.^ 

Thus were these dependencies of the Impe- 
rial Chamber, Genoa and Milan, after long 
separation, reannexed : a victorious imperial 
army, m.ore powerful than any that had existed 
since the time of Henry VI., placed over them 
rulers recommended by their hereditary claims, 
and by their attachment to the empire. The 
result was in fact greater than the emperor 
expected — greater than he would even have 
ventured to aim at. At the beginning of the 
year, he had aspired only to gain over the 
Swiss, or even to buy their services with a 
yearly pension; now, they were defeated and 
repulsed. The forces of Central Germany, 
which were far more at the emperor's com- 
mand, had fought the battle and completed the 
conquest. 

And at this moment the prospect and the in- 
ducement to enterprises of far wider reach pre- 
sented themselves to his view. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1523, 1524. ATTACK ON FRANCE. 

The claims of the empire extended not alone 
to Italy ; they also embraced a large part of the 
south of France, nor had this portion of them 
by any means fallen into oblivion. The Elec- 
tor of Treves still bore the title of arch-chan- 
cellor of Aries ; in the year 1401, Rupert had 
destined his son to fill the post of vicar of that 
kingdom; in 1444, Frederic had summoned the 
dauphin to his assistance " as the kinsman and 
vicar of the Holy Roman Empire." At a later 
period, it had often been rehfiarked that France 
had neglected to renew its fief as feudatory of 
the empire. 

It was likewise to be considered that Charles 
v. was not merely emperor; as prince of Bur- 
gundy, he possessed other rights which he had 
never renounced ; he never ceased to demand 
the restitution of the French possessions which 
had been wrested from his house ; the blood 
and the spirit of one of the ancient vassals of 
France still lived in him. 

For his schemes on this side the Alps, 
Charles nov/ found as powerful an ally in 
Henry VIII. of England as, for those on the 
other, in the pope. Henry, too, had not for- 
gotten the ancient claims of his predecessors 
on France; he still retained the title which ex- 
pressed them, and Calais was still in the hands 
of the English. Immediately after the con- 
clusion of the treaty at Bruges, in which the 
emperor and the king mutually promised to 
maintain their claims by force of arms, with 
combined efforts by sea and land, V^olsey laid 
before his master a long list of provinces, 
towns, and castles which he meditated wrest- 
ing from the French. § In the correspondence 
of the king with the cardinal, it is seriously 
proposed that he should invade France in per- 
son ;|| and this project is given as a reason for 



I Polydorus Virgilius, Hist. Angl. 27, 64. 

§ Pace to Wolsey, 10th Sept, 1521. See State Papers, 
p. 52. 

II Wolsey to Henry, Sept. 1522. Ibid. p. 107. 



238 



DESIGNS OF ENGLAND. — BOURBON. 



Book IV. 



endeavouring' to keep the Scottish border at 
peace. At one time, the English were inclined 
to confine themselves within the part of France 
nearest to them, from Calais to the Somme, as 
being easier to maintain than the more distant 
Guyenne ; but occasionally the idea of placing 
the crown of France on his own head floated 
before Henry's imagination. On hearing a 
report of the bad state of things in that coun- 
try, he exclaimed that " they were making a 
way for him there, as King Richard III. had 
done for his father in England :* he trusted 
he should govern France himself." These 
thoughts w-ere sedulously fostered by Leo, 
who caused a draft of a bull to be prepared, in 
which he formally released the subjects of 
Francis I. from their oath of fidelity. "j- On the 
other'hand, the king, as well as the emperor, 
promised him aid against the heretics. :[: It 
forms a link in this chain of circumstances, 
that Henry VIIL— like his cardinal, a zealous 
adherent of Thomas Aquinas — broke a lance 
with Luther, in behalf of that great teacher of 
the church : he was delighted with the favour- 
able reception his book experienced in Rome,§ 
and with the title' of Defender of the Faith 
which it procured him. 

In March, 1522, Henry VIIL caused war to 
be proclaimed against the King of France, by 
his herald. Already the English merchants 
had left the ports, and the English students 
the universities, of France ; very little English 
property fell into Francis's hands. In .Tune, 
Lord Surrey, admiral of both the imperial and 
the English fleets, made an attack on the 
coast near Cherbourg; in September, an army 
from England and the Netherlands joined and 
invaded Picardy ; but no considerable results 
ensued either there or elsewhere : a fev/ towns 
were plundered, and some small districts laid 
waste ; then came the unfavourable time of 
year, and the troops retreated. 

Much more brilliant were the prospects which 
opened on the campaign of the following year 
(1523). As in the earlier times of the monar- 
chy, a powerful vassal of the French crown 
took part with its foes. The constable Bour- 
bon, the second man in the realm, proffered 
his assistance to the emperor and the king. 
This fact is of so general an interest, that we 
may be excused for dwelling upon it somewhat 
at length, even in a German history. 

Louis XL, who had already found means to 
reduce to subjection so many of the territories 
of the great vassals, had also meditated a 
scheme for bringing about the escheat of the 
possessions of the house of Bourbon to the 
crown. On the marriage of his daughter with 

* MoretoWolsey, p. 111. "Tlie kinges grace saied that 
he trusted in God "to be theyre governour liym selfe, and 
that tliey shold bv tliys meanvs make a way for hyui, as? 
King Richard did for his father." 21st Sept. 1522. No 
one will believe that this was the first time such an idea 
crossed his mind. 

t " Excommunicatio lata per Iseonem. Papara X. contra 
Franciscum I. . . . qua etiam subditos ejos plcnissime 
ahsolvit ab omni fide itatis nexu et juramento. 4th Sept. 
3521."— Z)m Mont, Supplement, iii. p. 70. 

~J Herbert, Life of Henry VIIL, p. 118. 

§ Pace to Wolsey, 27th Oct. 1521. " Itt is to Hys Graces 
grete contentacion and comforte." 



Pierre de Bourbon-Beaujeu, he extorted from 
that prince a promise that, in default of male 
issue, he would leave to the crown all the pos- 
sessions of his house which were alienable. H 
A younger branch of the house still flourished 
in the person of the Count de Montpensier, 
whom it was the king's intention to exclude 
from the succession. 

After some time, the event which had been 
foreseen actually occurred; Duke Peter died' 
and left only one daughter. Countess Susanna. 

Meanwhile, however, Louis XII. had as- 
cended the throne, and was not inclined rigidly 
to enforce the claims of the crown, acquired 
by such questionable means. ' He recognised 
the feudal rights of the house of Montpensier, 
nor did he contest certain of the hereditary 
claims of the surviving princess ; in order to 
prevent all dispute, he brought about a mar- 
riage between the young Count Charles de 
Montpensier and the Countess Susanna, and 
their rights were completely blended by a mu- 
tual donation founded on a prudent and equi- 
table basis. ^ 

Such was the origin of the vast power of 
Charles, Duke of Bourbon. He united in his 
person two principalities, two duchies, four 
counties, two vis-counties, and seven consider- 
able lordships; his inpome was reckoned at 
120,000 crowns; far more than the richest of 
German princes then possessed. He had 
strong places garrisoned by his troops ; he 
convoked his states, and levied taxes ; to 
crown all, King Francis revived the dig- 
nity of constable in his person. Lie was 
brave, bountiful, and affable; and since he had 
succeeded in repulsing Maximilian's attack on 
Milan in the year 1516, he enjoyed the univer- 
sal respect both of the army and the nation. 
Even then his thoughts took the highest flights ; 
the lineal succession to the throne was by no 
means secure; he hoped in time to ascend it 
himself. The family of Alencon^ indeed, pos- 
sessed nearer claims ; but he flattered himself 
that these had been forfeited by the former re- 
bellion of that line. He even went so far as 
to solicit the support of the republic of Venice, 
in case of the king's death.'^ 

Events however took a totally different 
course. The succession to the throne becam.e 
more secure ; the government w^as entirely in 
the hands of the confidential servants of the 
king and his mother. Bourbon was recalled 
from Milan, and excluded from any share in 
affairs of state at home ; in the very next cam- 
paign, that of the Netherlands, the privileges 
of constable were no longer granted him. He 
m/ight already be regarded as leader of the nu- 
merous malcontents created by the disorders in 

II " En tant qu'il le touchoit on pourroit toucher, que 
tous les duchez, contez et vicomtez de la Maison de Bour- 
bon, advenant qu'il n'eust enfans inasles de son mar- 
riage, appartinssent au Roi." — Extract from the original 
document in Pasquier, Recherclies de la France, vi. c. xi. 

TT Notestaken especially from Badoer, Relatione di M.- 
lano, in Sanuto's Chronicle. Bourbon explained these 
claims to the envoy, adding, — " perho in quel caso la 
serma Signoria volesse ajutarlo." Badoer describes him 
thus: "Prosperoso, traze i;n pallo di ferro molto gaiarda- 
mente, teme dio, e devoto, piatoso, humano e liberalis- 
simo." 



Chap. I. 



ATTACK ON FRANCE, 1523. 



239 



the government of Francis I., when, in the year 
1522, his proud and splendid station was threat- 
ened by overwhelming' danger. 

His v/ife, Susanna, died without issue ; and 
although she had confirmed by fresh acts the 
donations made to him at her marriage, the 
most formidable pretensions to her inheritance 
were immediately put forward. 

The king's mother, Louisa of Savoy, niece 
of Duke Peter, and hence a member of the elder 
line, made a general demand to enter upon all 
the rights enjoyed by Susanna; but scarcely 
was her suit commenced, when the Crown itself 
came forward with still more sweeping claims ; 
allegin^g not only the promise made by Count 
Peter, but a multitude of other very plausible 
titles. The more clear and incontestable of 
these were soon declared valid ; and even with 
regard to the others, the parliament could give 
no other advice to the duke than that he should 
endeavour to come to some arrangement with 
the adverse party.* The constable saw him- 
self in imminent danger of sinking to the rank 
of an insignificant Count of IViontpensier. But 
to this he Vv'as determined not tamely to submit. 
He addressed himself to that house which was 
then preparing to avenge on the crown of 
France the violated and oppressed rights of the 
great vassals. It was not the emperor who 
sought him ; the first advances were made by 
Bourbon; and at the same moment in which 
his suit began, in the month of August, 1522, 
he sent Adrian de Beaurain to the court of the 
Netherlands, where the only surprise expressed 
by Margaret was, that he had so much confi- 
dence in so young a man.]" The more perilous 
and uncertain the aspect of his legal affairs, the 
more earnestly did he prosecute this negotia- 
tion. To the emperor and king nothing could 
be more welcome. Beaurain went backwards 
and forwards several times, and, at a later pe- 
riod, Sir John Russell visited the constable in 
disguise, on the part of Henry VÜL^: It was 
agreed that a German army should invade Bur- 
gundy, a Spanish, Languedoc, and an English, 
Picardy, at the same moment, and that Bour- 
bon should declare himself independent. He 
flattered himself that he should be able to bring 
into the field 500 men at arms and 10,000 foot 
soldiers. The emperor promised to give him 

* Gaillanl (Histoire de Frfincois I.) has piven a fuller 
description of the passion said to bo entertained by Louisa 
for the Constable Bourbon. liis remarks on the suit it- 
self in the Appendix have somewhat more valne; yet 
even on this snl)ject he is far surjiassed by Gamier, vol. 
xxiv. p. 17. Neither does Sismoudi make the real mo- 
tives sülTiciently clear. 

t Notices from the Austrian Archives in Hormayr's 
Archiv, for the year 1810. No. 6. 

f Herbert, Records, p. 119. According to the extracts 
in Hormayr (p. 27.\ the matter was not ofiicially an- 
nounced to the English court before the 1st June, 1523; 
and, if I am not mistaken, it was to this that Wolsey's 
undated letter among the State Papers refers (No. 78. p. 
143 ). For what else can the " mervailous fordell" mean, 
tlie like of wliich was not to be expected, "for the at- 
teynino- of FrauFice ?" The leajriie was siffned the begin- 
ninir, of Ansust (letter of De Praet, dated 9th Auglist. 
Ibid.) It were much to bo wished that the authentic in- 
strument itself could be produced. The letters of Wolsey 
to the Enjriish envoys in Spain, Sampson and Jerning- 
liam. in Fiddes' Collection, appended to his Life of Wol- 
sey, No. 69. and 70., give in greater detail, the plans of 
that period. The precise terms of the treaty I have, how- 
ever, sought there in vain. 



his sister in -marriage, and to raise him to the 
kingly rank ; while he, on his side, promised 
to acknowledge the king of England as his 
suzerain, if the emperor should desire it. 

Francis I. had just formed the determination, 
since his general had been so unforfinate, to 
make another attempt in person on Milan. A 
magnificent army was assembled, and Admiral 
Bonnivet, who commanded the vanguard, had 
already advanced to occupy the passes of the 
Alps : the king set out to follow him. The 
allies intended to put their plan in execution as 
soon as he should have left France. 

But the affair was already known to too many 
not to transpire. The court of the Netherlands 
feared it might get wind from England ; the 
English court, from the Netherlands : even in 
France itself, the conspirators had been com- 
pelled to communicate it to some not perfectly 
trustworthy persons. In short, the king's sus- 
picions v/ere excited, and Bourbon had to es- 
teem himself fortunate that he was able to 
escape. The king was induced by these cir- 
cumstances to commit the army of Italy to the 
sole command of the admiral, and to remain at 
his post, to take measures of defence against 
the various dangers with which his kingdom 
was threatened, from within as well as from 
Vv-ithout. 

Bourbon fled through Besancon to the coun- 
try of Pßrt, whence he projected making an 
immediate descent upon France. A few thou- 
sand landsknechts under the Count of Fürst- 
enberg entered Champagne, and occupied some 
fortified towns in the neighbourhood of Chau- 
mont and Langres ;§ Bourbon's idea had al- 
v.-ays been that the English should, at the same 
time, advance as far as possible into the heart 
of the kingdom, carefully abstaining from plun- 
der, and appearing only in the character of 
liberators from the tyranny of Francis I. Then 
he thought, every town would open its gates 
to them.jl But the landsknechts were soon com- 
pelled to retreat, by want of money and pro- 
visions ; the combined array of English and 
Netherlanders continued its march through Pi- 
cardy, and, for a moment, struck terror into 
Paris : but its leaders followed the traditional 
mode of warfare, and it could no where obtain 
a Arm footing. The v^-arlike ardour of the 
Spaniards expended itself before Fuenterrabia, 
which the French had taken. Bourbon per- 
ceived that he could accomplish nothing for the 
present on this side the Alps, and repaired to 
Italy. 

Italy was destined to he again the field where 
the fortune of war was to he decided. 

When Bonnivet appeared in Lombardy with 
the fine army which the king had raised to 
revive his fame and regain his conquests (it 
was estimated at 30,000"foot and 4000 horse), 
the imperialists were unable to contest the pas- 



5 Bellay, Memoires, i. p. 294. Petri Martyris Epp. No. 
790., who thinks that attempts were made to bribe the 
German commanders. 

II More to Wolsey, 20th Sept. St. P. p. 139. " The duke 
adviseth that the Kinges army shall in the marching pro- 
clayme libertie, sparing the cuntre frohurning and spoile. 
The king thought tliat they would soon exclaim, 'Home ! 
home!' if they should also forbere t^eprofite of the spoile," 



240 



CAMPAIGN IN ITALY, 1524. 



Book IV. 



sage of the Tessino, or to meet it in the open 
country. Prospero Colonna was compelled to 
confine himself to the defence of the four most 
important fortified towns— Como, Cremona, 
Milan and Pavia. 

Fortuna^ly he had now nothing to fear from 
the Italian states usually in alliance with 
France. Immediately before the arrival of the 
French army, the emperor had concluded an 
anti-Frsnch alliance with the Italian powers. 
It was of great advantage to him that his old 
preceptor, Adrian, now filled the papal chair: 
and as he entirely disclaimed all the plans of 
conquest of his predecessors — for example, the 
designs upon Ferrara — the emperor on his side 
renounced all views on Venice : the Venetians 
entered into alliance with the emperor, the pope 
and the king of England,* and promised to 
protect Sforza in his duchy. 

Every thing now depended on th-e Milanese, 
and it was deemed expedient, as the French 
were advancing, to learn their dispositions. 
They again declared their entire devotion to 
the duke and the empire. At the first sound 
of the bells on the 22d of September, they 
flocked in as great numbers as ever to the ap- 
pointed place of meeting ; most of them in fall 
armour, many who had come in haste, unarm- 
ed. f The duke rode among the assembled 
crowd. He told them he would govern them 
with the mildness and magnanimity of his fore- 
\ fathers; and they, on their side, declared their 
willingness to defend his cause. The aged 
Prospero Colonna was a man exactly formed 
to keep alive these sentiments. He enjoyed 
the reputation of being equally zealous for the 
happiness of his country, and for the power 
and glory of the empire. Am^idst the horrors 
. and calamities of war, he had ever appeared in 
the character of protector of the citizen and the 
peasant. Now, too, he was intent upon the 
common good. There had been time to lay in 
abundant stores for the winter; handmills and 
windmills had been erected within the walls, 
and there was wine in profusion. The fortifi- 
cations, spite of the great circumference of the 
city, were in admirable order. Sorties v/ere 
daily made, and rarely without the capture of 
prisoners : the people were grown so daring 
that they often begged for leave to go out in a 
mass to attack the French.^: 

Even independently of these adverse circum- 
stances, Bonnivet saw himself compelled by 
frost and snow to raise the siege, and already 
other and far more formidable forces were ga- 
thering around him. 

By. degrees the newly recruited Italian infan- 
try arrived ; Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples, 
brought up light and heavy cavalry ; the Ve- 

* We see in Partita, p. 217., that refrard tn England on 
commsrcial grounds had considerable eiTect here. Wolsey 
said "plainly to liis master that the treaty had come to 
jiass, " by "your mediacion and moost for your sake."— 
Ä>fe Papers^ No. 66. 

t,Lettera di Milano, narra quelli successi de dl 16 Stt. 
a dl 22. Sanuto's Chronicle, vol. XXXV. 

J Lettera di Grotiani, 21 Ott. in Sanuto. " Tanto sti- 
mano Francesi e Sgnizari come se fussero tante pultane." 
As to the mention of scarcity in Milan alluded to, this 
could only refer to the first days, before every thing was 
fully arranged. See Gal. Capella and Carpesanus, p. 1356. 



netians appeared in the field : but the most im- 
portant reinforcement consisted of 7000 lands- 
knechts, whom the Archduke Ferdinand§ had 
taken infinite pains to get together under Lud- 
wig von Lodron and Eitelfritz von Zollern. 
George Frundsberg had remained at home, but 
had sent his son Caspar in his place. Some 
enterprising chiefs like Schärtlin von Burten- 
bach, came at their own charges. The, Mar- 
quis of Pescara, too, who commanded the 
Spanish infantry with the sam.e singular and 
instinctive talent as Frundsberg the German, 
came again. Fortunately, he arrived just at 
the moment of Prospero's death, in consequence 
of which the conduct of things devolved mainly 
upon him. f 

If, however, the imperial army was once 
more in a condition to meet the enemy in the 
field, it had not a moment to lose ; since he too 
expected reinforcements which would restore 
to him his former superiority. The king had 
concluded a new treaty with the Grisons ; the 
Bernese aided him with money, and considera- 
ble bodies of men were on their way from both 
countries. 

Nevertheless, the imperialists and their allies 
did not yet deem it expedient to venture on a 
battle; the Venetian Provveditore was espe- 
cially opposed to it. "I do not believe, how- 
ever," said the general-in-chief of the Vene- 
tians, the Duke of Urbino, to the Provveditore, 
Pier de cha Pesaro, " I do not believe that the 
republic maintains so many caparisoned horses, 
so large a body of infantry, and all these arms 
which glitter around us, for any other reason 
than to do battle when it is needful." " My 
lord," replied the Provveditore, " wh^t advan- 
tage v/ould it be to the republic if we fought 1 
A defeat would endanger all her possessions: 
victory cannot escape us if we do not fight. 
Were the emperor here in person, he would not 
give battle." This opinion, which convinced 
the general, prevailed in every council of war 
from that time. It was agreed not to attempt 
to overcome the enemy by open attack, but by 
strategy. 

While one division of the army posted itself 
in the territory of Como and Bergamo to keep 
off the Grison troops, the main force, accom- 
panied by Bourbon, who was now invested 
with the rank of Lieutenant of the empire, 
crossed the Tessino near Pavia, and, by an 
unexpected attack, took the fortress of Garlasco 
which comm,anded all the surrounding country. 
This compelled Bonnivet to retreat across the 
Tessino, and to abandon his strong encamp- 
ment of Abbiate-Grasso, that he might at least 
defend Vigevene, and the fertile plains of the 
Lomellino, whence he drew his provisions, !| 



§ For this the emperor afterwards thanked him. Let- 
ter in Bucholtz, ii. p. 264. 

li'Galeazzo Capella, lib. iii. p. 191, from whom most 
other writers have drawn their information. Even Du 
Bellay's is only a version of Capelia's text, with some 
French additions. Anshelm introduces some particulara 
about the Swiss, and Sandoval some, but very few, ;ibout 
the Spaniards. In other respects they both merely trans- 
late him. It is a great pity that no one who knew the 
deeds of the Landsknechts took the trouble of supplying 
the deficiencies in bis narrative. Hence we know no- 



Chap. I. 



ATTACK ON FRANCE, 1524. 



241 



The imperialists immediately crossed the 
Gogna and took Sartirana. Whilst Bonnivet, 
menaced in his new position, as he had been 
in his former one, prepared to drive them 
thence, they got possession of Yercelli, by the 
favour of the Ghibelline faction of the town, 
' and by that means obtained a footing on the 
other side the Sesia, so as to cut off the admi- 
ral from the base of his operations. He had 
now nothing left but to retreat to the Upper 
Sesia, towards Gattinara, where a new body 
of Swiss were just arrived from Ivrea. He 
still did not relinquish the hope, with this rein- 
forcement, of turning round upon the enemy 
and once more offering him battle. But even 
on his road he found the smaller places occu- 
" pied by the imperialists. When he reached 
the banks of the Sesia, the Swiss refused to 
cross to him, and he ws.^ obliged to take mea- 
sures for transporting his troops over the river. 
While thus engaged, he was attacked by 
Pescara ; universal confusion ensued ; the 
bridge broke down ; Gattinara was in flames ; 
' and, insignificant as was the number of the 
imperialists on the other side the river (about 
a thousand light horse and the same number 
of foot), the loss of the French w'as immense; 
nothing remained for them but once more to 
abandon Italy. It w"as evident that the mode 
of warfare by which they had, within the last 
thirty years, obtained such brilliant triumphs 
in Italy, was no longer available. Single deeds 
of arms, momentary advantages, chivalrous 
bravery, no longer decided the fortune of a 
war. The awakened national antipathy ren- 
dered a more o'bslinate and regular sj'^stem of 
defence possible : in the field, the calculations 
of strategy and the skilful use of the arquebuss 
carried all before them. In this retreat fell, 
among other distinguished men, the good 
knight — the knight without fear and without 
reproach — Bayard, who united i« his own per- 
son all the fair and glorious qualities of knight- 
hood, and presented them, for the last time, 
to the admiration of friend and foe. He had 
alwa)^ hated the arquebusiers with all his 
heart, and reluctantly granted quarter to one 
who fell into his hands : he was doomed to 
receive his death from a bullet* There is 
something at once symbolical, and ominous of 
universal change in this death, which has been 
dwelt on emphatically by so many historians ; 
and, indeed, in the defeat of this chivalrous 
army altogether. Like the fall of Sickingen, 
they were expressions of a great revolution in 

thin» more of them in this campaign than what we 
gather from the life of Sebastian Schürtlin. 

* I will not dwell long on the circumstances attending 
his death; the rather, because they appear to me doubt- 
ful. The French (Bellay, 342.) rela'te that Bourbon spoke 
to Iiim during his last moments, and that Bayard re- 
proached him with his treason. It is remarkable that v/e 
lind nothing of this in the Ufa of Bayard, Coll. Univ. xv. 
p. 412. But in Italy exactly the reverse was related, — 
that he died lamenting the injustice of the king and the 
disorders prevailing in the French government. Carpe- 
sanus, p. 1375: " (iuestus de injusta in Borboaium ira,'de 
fortuna et male animatorum hominum factiorie cuncta 
in Gallia permiscente." Kis feelings may have vibrated 
between the two sentiments here expressed, and both 
may be true. Lastly, the Spaniards make him praise God 
that he died, " en servicio de su rey y a manos de la mejor 
Bacion del mmido."—Batalla de Pahia. MS. Mh, 

31 V 



human affairs. The coat of mail was con- 
quered by the musket, and the massive wall 
of the castle fell prostrate before the cannon. 

The landsknechts took a very active part in 
the pursuit. Sebastian Schärtlin relates that 
for three days and three nights they followed 
the enemy to the foot of St. Bernard ; they 
dragged the cannon they had taken, crowned 
with garlands, from the valley of Aosta to the 
camp. All the places which the French still 
possessed in Italy immediately surrendered ; 
their defeat was as complete as it was possible 
to imagine. 

As a sort of necessary consequence, the 
thought immediately arose in the minds of the 
conquerors, that the attack on France, which 
had failed a year ago, might now be attempted 
with greater prudence and success. Bourbon 
found the imperial army in admirable order, 
while his bravery excited their respect and 
confidence. 

The^ state of Italy, too, seemed to render 
aggressive measures necessar}^ Either peace 
must be obtained (of which there seemed little 
prospect), f or employment must be found for. 
the King of France. Lannoy wrote to the em- 
peror, that the Duke of IMilan would be a costly 
bargain to him, if he could not succeed in clip- 
ping the wings of his restless neighbour. The 
emperor reflected that it would be better tc 
seek the enemy in his own country than to 
await him in Ital}^ where the army must be 
kept together at great expense, and gave his 
consent. 

On this occasion, as formerly, the idea of 
attacking France at various points was enter- 
tained, but after the experience of theVormer 
year, v,'as quickly abandoned. None of the 
parties concerned had money enough. They 
esteemed themselves fortunate if they could 
raise sufficient funds to keep the army of Italy 
quiet for a few months. Bourbon hoped to ac- 
complish the most brilliant achievements with 
this alone. 

" Your affairs, sire," says he, in a letter to 
the emperor, " will prosper. If we are able to 
give battle to the King of France, and win it?, 
as I hope, you v/ill be the greatest man that 
ever lived, and will give laws to the world."!: 

In July, 1524, Bourborf therefore led the im.- 
perial army, 5000 Germans under Zollern and 
Lodron, 3000 Spaniards under Pescara, and a 
number of Italians, from Italy into France. 
Francis had no inclination to meet these war- 
like and victorious bands in the open field. 
Bourbon met with no resistance, invested An- 
tibes, Frejus, Hieres, and Toulon, and caused 
them to do homage to him. He bore the title 
of Count of Provence, but had taken the oath 
of vassalage to the King of England.§ On 



t The Instruction secrete, <&:c., in Bucholtz, ii. p. 503. 
cannot deceive us on this point. The multitude of sug- 
gestions—and there are no less than nine— shows how 
impracticable each was. Peter Martyr observes this very 
justly in his Epp. 798, p. 472, July, 1524 ; "Temperate 

hujus tam incompcsiti psalterii chordas Dira ferri 

acies et humane cruore fiuentes rivi has diriment que- 
relas." 

X Extract in Bucholtz, ii. p. 263. 

§Guicciardini says indeed (xiv. p. 448), " Borbone con- 
stantemente ricuso di riconoscere il re d'Inghilterra." P. 



242 



ATTACK ON FRANCE, 1524. 



Book IV, 



the 9th of August, he took Aix, the chief town 
of the province, and on the 19th arrived before 
Marseilles, well knowinor that all his other 
successes were useless if he did not obtain 
possession of that fortified city. He felt of 
what incalculable value it would be to the em- 
peror to command a harbour of such import- 
ance between Barcelona and Genoa. Marseilles 
would form the true defence of Italy, and an 
incomparable basis for all future operations 
against France. Beaurain had entertained the 
design of putting Toulon in a state of defence 
for the emperor, but he was utterly without the 
means.* These things increased the ardour 
with which the army engaged in the siege of 
jMarseilles. 

Now, however, it became evident how greatly 
times had altered in France. Italians who knew 
the country, such as Ludovico Canossa, Bishop 
of Bayeux, had always predicted this change. f 
Spite of the many causes of discontent afforded 
by the king, it yet appeared that he was the 
object of genera] adoration. On the other hand, 
Bourbon had lost all credit by his treason. It 
must be considered that Bourbon's influence, 
powerful as he was, had not been of sufficient 
duration to acquire much strength : in most 
of his possessions he was a new master ; nor 
was there any man of importance so indepen- 
dent of the crown as to venture to embrace his 
cause. This conjuncture suffices to prove to 
what an extent the consolidation of France had 
Ifeeen silently advancing to its completion. Not 
alone did no one rise in Bourbon's favour, but 
the attack secured to the king more implicit 
obedience and more cordial loyalty than had 
been yielded him before. He was able to levy 
three extremely heavy taxes, amounting in all 
to five millions, one after the other. Tlie clergy 
consented to raise contributions; the good cities 
granted voluntary aids ; even the nobility was 
fain to submit to forced loans. What could 
the tardy and doubtful payments, laboriousl}^ 
obtained from Spain or from England, effect 
against such abundant pecuniary resources 1^ 
Francis brought an army into the field which 
:might vie with any former one in magnificence ; 



33 nevertheless not the less certain that he did take the 
oaths, as is stated by Herbert (p. 133), and as we learn 
■beyond a doubt from a l^ter of De Praet in Hormayr (p. 
27). The King of Enfrlandvvas besides fully in the secret 
of the undertaking. Richard Pace told the Venetian Su- 
riano, that his monarch had empowered him, by a letter 
of the 28th June, to strengthen Bourbon in his intentions ; 
indeed, that Cardinal Wolsey had offered on the 28th 
Sept. to cause a landing tobe attempted, if that might be 
of any assistance. Pace excuses himself for not accu- 
rately staling the amount of the succours, on the ground 
that the emperor had not always done so. In the mean 
while we know that John Russell brought 20,000^. into 
the camp before Marseilles, That Pace went very honest- 
ly to work, is evident from this; that, spite of all appear- 
ances, he expressed a certain suspicion of the good inten- 
tions of the Cardinal, who, he said, was a bad man:— 
" attenta la pessima natura del ditto Cardenal." What- 
ever may be the case, it is certain that the result of the 
expedition was anxiously expected in England. Bourbon 
acknowledged no other king than Henry VIII. 

*The letter in Hormayr. He imagines that he could 
accomplish this, with 10,000 ducats. 

t E. g. Lettere di Principi, i. 132. " E siate certo che 
Francesi adorano il loro re, e non vi fondate nelle ribel- 
iioni altre volte seguite in Francia, perche non vi sono 
piü di quel tali principi che le causavano." 

I Garnier, p. 102, Sismondi, xvi. 



two thousand men-at-arms, seven thousand 
French infantry, principally composed of the 
warlike peasantry of Dauphine, and six thou- 
sand Swiss. In the present low state of the 
German government, he had even found no 
difficulty in tempting a body of landsknechts 
to enter his service, by the offer of high pay. 

While these troops assembled in the country 
round Avignon, the imperialists carried on the 
siege of IMarscilles with great pertinacity ; they 
brought up the cannon fit for service, which 
they had found in the places they had taken 
from the French ; the}'' excavated mines with 
immense difficulty, and erected a battery from 
which they made breaches in the walls. Pes- 
cara was conspicuous above all in the skir- 
mishes, in his singular dress. He wore a red 
vest and hose, over which was a short black 
coat without sleeves, and a hat like those of the 
landsknechts, but with large waving plumes. 
The eyes of the men followed him like a ban- 
ner. His nephew Guasto vied with him in 
enterprising valour. The army was in the 
highest spirits up to the middle of September ; 
on the 21st they intended to storm the city. 
Pescara drank to his Spaniards, and put them 
in good humour; Bourbon promised royal gra- 
titude; the soldiers prepared themselves for the 
last extremities by confession. On the other 
hand, the garrison, commanded by Renzo da 
Ceri, an Italian of the Orsini faction, was un- 
daunted, and had put the city in an excellent 
state of defence. At the first preliminary 
attempts, the imperialists saw with whom they 
had to deal. They learned from their prisoners - 
that mines filled with powder were dug behind 
the breaches, cannon planted at the corners of 
streets, and the troops posted at all the most 
exposed points, armed and ready for action. § 
Suddenly Pescara changed his mind. " He 
who has a mind to eat his supper in hell," 
Said he, " may storm the city." A council of 
war was called, in which not only the proba- 
bility of a defeat before Marseilles, but even 
the danger to Italy of a longer delay, were 
weighed and discussed. . The suspicion began 
to be entertained that the king might, without 
troubling himself about Marseilles, march di- 
rectly upon Italy. " Sirs," exclaimed Pescara, 
" let him who would preserve Italy to the em- 
peror follow me." Bourbon reluctantly aban- 
doned the hope of once more gaining a footing 
in his own country ; but the German leaders, 
Zollern and Lodron, sided with Pescara. On 
the 28th of September the siege was raisejd. 

We shall not attempt to decide whether the 
king really entertained the design attributed to 
him: thus much at least is certain, — that as 
soon as he he^rd of Bourbon's retreat, he 
seized on this idea with the greatest eagerness, 
and, in -defiance of any representations, deter- 
mined to lead the noble army he again beheld 
around him, across the Alps without delay. 
He was determined to strain every nerve for 
the reconquest of Milan. On the sleeves of 

§ Sandoval, lib. xi. p. i. p. 598. In this place a mere 
literal repetition of an old narrative entitled La Batalla 
de Pabia, by which Sandoval must be here and there cor- 
rected ; as, for example, for Pisarmo, read Pisaiio. 



Chap. I. 



SIEGE OF PA VIA. 



243 



his body-guard were embroidered the words, 
"Once more, and no more."* 

The two armies rivalled each other in the 
rapidity with which they crossed the Alps. 
The imperialists marched as light as possible. 
They took only a part of their cannon, which 
they dismounted and placed on mules ; the 
rest were buried or sent to Toulon. They ad- 
vanced in two columns, but along the same 
road, so that the first always left their quarters 
before the other arrived. One day a few of 
the Germans got drunk and could not march. 
Pescara set fire to the house in which they lay, 
without pity, and burned them in it ; he would 
not leave one man in the hands of the peasants, 
whose vengeance he feared to irritate. Thus 
they passed Nice, Ventimiglia, and the Mari- 
time Alps, considerably reduced in external 
appearance, but not dispirited : they had suf- 
fered no defeat : they were followed by a long 
baggage-train, consisting of all the spoils of 
the v/ars of preceding years. 

Meanwhile, Francis I. marched at the head 
of his fresh and. brilliant army across the 
Upper Alps, Briancon, Pignerol, &c. ; and so, 
without halting, to the plains of Lombardy. 
He hoped still to be beforehand with the im- 
perial army. 

A IMilanese chronicle afiirms that the two 
armies crossed the Tessino on tlie same day ; 
the" French at Abbiate Grasso, the imperialists 
in the neighbourhood of Pavia.f 

Be that as it may, the imperialists were at a 
great disadvantage. They could not take pos- 
session of Milan, where the plague had broken 
out. Francesco Sforza said he was not a bird 
to let himself be shut up in that cage. They 
left a garrison in the castle only; the other 
troops were divided between Pavia, Lodi, and 
Cremona. The powerful body of troops which 
a few months before appeared about to make 
the emperor lord of the world, had suddenly 
vanished from the field. Maestro Pasquino 
published an advertisement at Rome, setting 
forth that an imperial army vras lost in the 
Alps ; the honest finder was requested to bring 
it to the owner, and a handsome reward 
offered. The French were undisputed masters 
of the"" country. They prepared to conquer the 
fortified towns, and in the first place, Pavia. 
The attack on France, which was to banish 
Francis to the other side of the Alps, had only- 
served to knit together all the energies of his 
kinfjdom, and to secure to him the ascendancy 
in Upper Italy. 

BATTLE OF PAVIA. 

The affairs of the emperor were not, how- 
ever, in so desperate a condition as they ap- 
peared to be. He had now, as before, Ger- 
mans in his service, and could without diffi- 
culty procure more. 

In forming the design of laying immediate 
siege to Pavia, Francis I. was actuated by the 
hope that he should be able to seduce the. Ger- 
mans who formed the garrison to desert to his 

* Carpesaiuis, lib. x. in Martene, v. p. 1379. 
t Martino "Verri, in P. Verri, iii. p. 241. 



side. But he was destined to become better 
acquainted with their character. The two 
colonels, Zollern and Lodron, were under mani- 
fold obligations to the House of Austria, and 
even the captains had passed a considerable 
time under the imperial banner. I shall not 
attempt to say what course they would have 
pursued had they now had to take service for 
the first time ; but it is certain that not one of 
them w^as disposed to abandon the cause which 
he had espoused.^ Nor was the Ghibelline 
city of Pavia at all the place to suggest 
thoughts of such a kind. There, women of 
high rank might be seen taking a part in the 
labours on the fortifications ; the wealthiest 
citizen, Matteo Beccaria, had raised a company 
at his own cost, and of his own retainers; 
when scarcity began already to be felt else- 
where, he gave the officers a splendid feast, 
and even the common soldiers never wanted 
" white bread and cool wdne." Antonio Leiva, 
the imperial commander, in praising the young 
Caspar Frundsberg, who had now risen to the 
rank of captain, says that he had kept him 
himself in good spirits. Antonia Leiva, too, 
was exactly fitted for emergencies of this kind ; 
equally prudent and resolute, devoted to the 
emperor's cause, and capable of any sacrifice ; 
he took the gold chain from his own neck and 
gave it to be coined into ducats. The Ger- 
mans derived great advantage from their skill 
as miners ;§ while the river opposed an insu- 
perable obstacle to the king, the attempt to 
turn the course of the Tessino having totall)'' 
failed, as might indeed have been expected. 
In short, in January, 1525, he found that he 
could do no more than surround the town, with 
a view to starve it into submission. || He des- 
patched some thousand men under the Duke 
of Albania M'ith orders to attempt a diversion 
in central or lower Italy. 

Meanwhile fresh troops descended the Alps 
from Germany. Bourbon had sold the jewels 
M^hich he had saved in his flight, and had then 
gone to Insbruck and to Augsburg. Supported 
by Archduke Ferdinand, he nov/ brought eigh- 
teen companies of landsknechts under Marx 
Sittich of Ems over the mountains. Count 
Nicholas of Salm accompanied them with two 
hundred horses of the retainers of the court. 
At the same time the viceroy of Naples sold 
every thing for which he could find a purchaser, 

X Sandoval, indeed, mentions that Znllern had medi- 
tated treason, and had been therefore poisoned at a feast. 
This is also alluded to by G. Capella, yet with the addi- 
tion, " multi existimavere," which has also been repeated 
by others, with more or less qualification. According to 
the account of Tcegius, physician and knight, who re- 
mained in Pavia during the siege (De Obsidione Urbis 
Ticinensis, ed. Pez, p. 9), Zollern died " post longas vigi- 
lias et assidüos labores ex tabida febre xvi. Cal. Febr." 
It was said in Pavia that he was related to the imperial 
family: " aliquali atlinitate cum Csesare conjunctus." 
He is celebrated in the songs of the time as the person 
who took the most active part in the defence of the town. 

§ Carpesanus ascribes the destruction of a bridge, 
"Germanis, ingeniosis viris." TfPgius gives high praise 
on this account to Gliirns, who "instrumentis ferreis mi- 
rabili arte in medio rescindit" this same bridge. 

|( Lettera di Pavia, ]0 Genn. Chr. Ven. MS. It was un- 
derstood, "che il re X™» avea deliberato di non voler piu 
dar battaglia a Pavia per non far morir gente, ma volea 
tener quella assediata et in simil modo averla." 



244 



SIEGE OF PA VIA. 



Book IV. 



and sent a messenger with the money directly 
to George Frundsberg, who regarded the em- 
peror's Italian power (which he himself had 
helped to establish) with the most intense in- 
terest ; and who had a yet stronger motive in 
the thought that it was his own son whom he 
was going to relieve. The day after Christmas 
he mustered eleven companies at Meran : he 
was surrounded by twenty-five distinguished 
captains and brother-soldiers of good family ; — 
younger sons, or gentlemen without inherit- 
ance, followed by a retinue of peasants' sons, 
who, like themselves, could find no employ- 
ment at home. On the 21st of January, the 
two divisions joined the Italian army at Lodi.* 

They saw the necessity of taking the field 
immediately. In spite of all the exertions that 
had been made, there was not money enough 
forthcoming to keep the troops quiet for any 
considerable time. Most of them had received 
nothing but their marching mone}^ and had 
only engaged to serve for a certain fixed period 
without pay. Pavia, too, must be relieved. 
On the 4th of February, the army arrived in 
the neighbourhood of that cit)^, threw into it a 
fej7 troops with munitions of war, and did 
every thing they could to provoke the king to 
quit his strong encampment. 

These efforts were, however, vain. The king 
would not abandon the strong position he had 
taken up in the park near Pavia : it was well 
fortified, f the army was in comfortable quar- 
ters, and abundantly supplied with provisions. 
He thought it more advantageous to wait for 
2in attack, as at Marignano, than to make it, 
\vhich had proved so disastrous to his army at 
Eicocca. 

On the other hand the imperialists were 
forced by want, both of mone}'^ and provisions, 
to resolve on attacking.:}: They thought it as 
disgraceful to disperse in sight of the enem)^, 
as to suffer a defeat. " God grant me a hun- 
dred years' war, and not one battle," said Pes- 
cara ; " but now there is no escape." He 
went into the midst of his Spaniards, and re- 
presented to them that they had not a foot of 
land they could call their own, nor a bit of 
bread for the morrow ; " but there, before you," 
added he, " is the camp, where there is bread 
in plenty, and meat and wine and carp from 
the Lago di Garda. We must have it; we 
must drive out the enemy; we will make St. 
Matthew's day memorable." Already had 
George Frunsdberg addressed his Germans in 
a similar strain. With uplifted hands they had 
promised him to do their best against their 
splendid foe, and to succour their brethren in 
Pavia. 

* Reissner, Historia Herrn Georg-en und Herrn Ccisparn 
von Frundsberg, p. 38. See G. Earthold's Frundsbjrg, 

t Extrait des lettres 6crites en Allemand ä Monseig- 
reiir rArchiduc Ferdinand par Messire George de Frons- 
berg, ürkundenbnch zu Buckholtz, Ferdinand, i. p. 1. 

I In an anonymous account of that tfrne, Lettere di 
Frincipi, i. p. ]53., and from tiience transferred by Sis- 
inondi to his Hist.de France, xvi.p. 2:^2., it is said indeed, 
that, two days before the battle, 150,000 scudi reached the 
camp from Spain : this, liowever, must bo a false state- 
ment. In Pescara's despatch it is expressly said, " De 
jfiinguno canto nostra necessiiad tenia rimedio." He had 
foreseen '-que deshazer el exercito a lavio del enemigo 
«ra lan mal como perdillo con batalia," 



This was not likely to be one of those bril- 
liant battles in which two chivalrous armies 
Vv'ere wont to contend for the prize of honour; 
a needy band of mercenaries, urged by hunger 
and privation, and counting the days of the 
service they had contracted for, must be led on 
to the assault, or they would disperse. Their 
objects were, to plunder the rich camp of the 
enemy, to relieve their brothers in arms, and 
once for all to secure the possession of the often 
conquered land. Circumstances were most un- 
favourable to them. " Either," writes Pescara 
to the emperor, "your majesty must gain the 
desired victory, or vre shall fdfil by our death 
the duty of serving you." 

Pescara's plan was to surprise the enemy by 
night. In the middle of the park w^as the farm 
of Mirabella, where the iTiarket of the camp 
was commonly held ; and a part of the cavalry 
was posted at this point. He wished, if pos- 
sible, to effect a junction with the garrison of 
Pavia. About midnight they began to pull 
down the walls of the park. Two thousand 
Germans of the regiments of Frundsberg and 
of Ems, and a thousand Spaniards, with linen 
shirts over their coats of mail, were to fall on 
the camp. But the walls were stronger than 
they thought; it was daylight before they had 
made breaches sufficiently large to pass through. 
When, at length — on the morning of the 24th 
of February — the troops pressed through, the 
French were fully prepared, and in motion. § 
One point was gained, — namely, that they left 
their strong position and came out into the open 
ground on the heath; but the imperial army 
itself incurred the greatest danger. The divi- 
sion of the landsknechts, as they were march- 
ing up, were within range of the very superior 
artillery of the French, and suffered great loss ; 
the light cavalry, too, were in disorder. King 
Francis, who rushed into the thick of the fight 
at this point and killed a brave knight with his 
own hand, was delighted when he saw some 
companies broken and fleeing before him." 
"To-day," sard he to his companion, reining 
up his horse to let him recover breath, " I call 
myself Lord of Milan. "|| His army advanced 
in the best order, the artillery keeping up an 
uninterrupted fire. 

But the moment which seemed that of vic- 
tory, was, in fact, but the beginning of the bat- 
tle. Pescara had rallied round him the three 
thousand men, wdio were now unable to effect 
any thing, in consequence of the non-appear- 
ance of their friends from Pavia ; and they 
were graduall^'^ joined by the tvro large bodies 
under the command of George Frundsberg, and 
Marx Sittich of Ems. Frundsberg, with his 
companions, the Counts of Ortenburg, Hag, 
Virneburg, and the Lords of Losenstein and 
Fleckenstein, and by his side Marx Sittich, 
now formed the left wing';^ Pescara, with his 



§ " Epitre du Roy traitant de son partement de France 
et de sa prise devant Pavie," in Lenglet and Gobel, p. 30: 

"Au matin jls feirent Icur entree 

Et nous aussi estions ja en bataille." 
i( Lettera di Paulo Luzasco al Sr Marchese di Mantua, 
according to a statement of the king himself, in the Ap- 
pendix. 
IT " This appears from the despatch of Fruodsberg,— 



Chap. L 



BATTLE OF PAVIA. 



245 



Spaniards and two thousand Germans, the right. 
^The cavalry near him had also recovered its 
order. As it was manifestly no match for the 
French, Pescara and Frundsberg ordered fifteen 
hundred arqnebusiers to support it. The vice- 
roy, who had always been of opinion that they 
might entrench themselves opposite to the ene- 
my in the park, now clearly perceived that this 
was impossible. " There is no help but in 
God's mercy," said he : " Sirs, do as I do ;" 
so saying-, and crossing himself, he put spurs 
to his horse and charged the enemy. 

The melee thus began on the right wins, 
where a part of the French men-at-arms, the 
king at their head, fought with the Spanish- 
Italian horse, aijd Salm's reiters ; in the centre, 
but some\Vhat further off, other French horse- 
men under Alen^on advanced with twentj^- 
eight companies of Swiss : against Pescara 
and Guasto with their Spaniards and Germans, 
the black companies (as the Germans from 
Gueldres and Lorraine in the king's service 
were called), admirably supported by artillery, 
moved upon the left wing of the imperialists, 
consisting of the tv/o great bodies of lands- 
knechts. 

On this point the first decisive stroke was 
struck. The Germans in the service of France, 
and the imperialists, were those between whom 
the bitterest and most determined hatred pre- 
vailed. An Augsburger, named Hans Langen- 
mantel, stepped from the ranks of the former, 
and challenged the two German colonels to 
single combat. But he was held unworthy to 
do battle with them, in consequence of his 
having taken service under the French, and 
was instantly felled to the ground and killed. 
A landsknecht held up his hand, severed from 
the body and covered with rings of gold, as a 
trophy. Upon this the combat became furious. 
Marx Sittich, by a rapid evolution, threw him- 
self on the flank of the black companies.* They 
made a most gallant defence, and were killed 
almost to a man. Their cannon fell into the 
hands of the imperialists. 

Meanwhile the centre had advanced. Already 
the arqnebusiers had made a fearful impression 
on the men-at-arms, for no armour was stout 
enough to resist the fire of their matchlocks, 
when Pestara, at the head of his Spanish ve- 

"Moyetma bände tirasmes ä la main senestre vers le 
• dite Marchsith contre les dits Francois." There is alsn 
to be found the number of arquchusi'ers, v. iio wem gene- 
rally supposed to amount to 500._ Teptriiis mentions as 
many, but it may have been only the Spaniards. That 
the landsknechts U'ere armed with arquebusses is proved, 
among other things, by tlie line of the sons— " Fire into 
them, you good landsknechts" (" Schiesst Drein, schiesst 
Drein, ihr trurame Landsknecht.")— ^/j-aw, p. 25a 

* "Ein scliöns neüwes Lied von der Schlacht newlich 
vor Pavia geschechen."— " A beautiful new sons of the 
battle lately fought before Pavia," bv no means poetical, 
but very accurate, which is proved bv its accordance with 
Frundsberg's despatch: "Da das ersachen die Lanntz- 
knecht, bey dem Frantzosen, mer kendt rechtt, zuL'endt 
vnns vnnder augen, Herr Jörsen Haufi' ervffen sie an, 
vnnd thätten in iiitt fraeenn. Da dz ersach Herr Marxen 
hauffan disem orth, gryffen sie drauffuartapfierjich diirch- 
trungen."— "When the landsknechts perceived this amonir 
the French, taking good note and marching past us, the 
Lord Georjre's troop attacked them without asking their 
leave. When the Lord Marx's troop saw this at this 
place, they attacked right bravely, and forced their way 
through." 



terans, attacked the Swiss. | The fight now 
became general ; the fury of the attack, the 
effect of the fire-arms on the cavalry, the sight 
of the defeat of 4,he black companies, and the 
rush of the victorious squadron of the imperial 
Germans, threw the French centre into confu- 
sion. AlenQon was the first of the men-at-arms 
who took to flight ; a part of the Swiss were 
hurried along with him ; a part had their ranks 
broken : at this moment the garrison of Pavia 
appeared in the rear of the disordered French 
troops,' and a universal flight followed. 

The gallant king was spurring his cliarger 
along the right wing, under a heavy fire from 
the arquebusiers, when he looked round and_ 
s^w his people in full retreat. " My God, what 
is this]" exclaimed he. He thought, at least, 
to rally the Swiss, and hastened after them. 
But the decided superiority of the enemy ren- 
dered this impossible. Even he himself was 
borne along with the retreating torrent. He 
wore on his arm an embroidered scarf, given to 
him in happier days in France by the lady of 
his love, to whom, in return, he had vowed 
never, und^r any circumstances, to give way 
before the enemy. :|: True knight as he was, he 
retreated as slowly as possible, and not with- 
out continually facing round in an attitijde of 
defence; he v/as now overtaken by the pursu- 
ing Germans. Nicholas von Salm stabbed his 
horse under him ; the king fell, and was com- 
pelled to surrender. At this moment the vice- 
roy came up, reached out his hand to him 
respectfully, and took him prisoner. 

Within an hour and a half, the most magni- 
ficent army that the world could then behold 
was annihilated. It was calculated that ten 
thousand men were left dead on the field, or 
drowned in the waters of the Tessino : among 
them many Swiss, the ancient fame of whose 
arms, established in the Burgundian wars, was 
now obscured for ever. The leaders of the 
French, with few exceptions, were killed or 
taken prisoners : above all, their puissant mon- 
arch had fallen into the hands of the enemy. 
Never was a victory more complete and tri- 
umphant.§ 

The victors seized on the plunder of the 
camp, to satisfy their most pressing wants. 
The}'' were at length lords and masters in the 



t His own despatch, agreeing with the statement of the 
king in Luzazio. When he says that he sent Guasto with 
the Gei;mans against the king's landsknecJits, it is only 
to be understood that Guasto had a siuue in Sittich's on- 
slaught. The Gern)an accounts prove that lie and Frunds- 
berg contributed greatly to the success of this attack. 

X "[L'heureux present, par lequel te promys 
point ne fuir devant rnes ennemys. — 

Epitre du Roi."' 

§ In this account of the battle, I have not thought my- 
self bound to adhere exclusively to the earlier historians, 
such as Capella, Guicciardini, Jovius, and Bellay. I have 
also avoided all that Reissner has borrowed from Jovius, 
as we are now enabled to draw more authentic inforir.a- 
tion from the despatches of the conmianders themselves; 
1. those of Frundsberir in Bucholtz, identical with an old 
German edition. " Wahrlicher Bericiit, &:c. (" True Ac- 
count," &;c.) which, however, I never saw: 2, those of 
Pescara in the Appendix: 3. those of Francis Lin the 
letters of Luzasco in the Apjiendix and in the Epitre. 
Besides these, there exists a detailed Spanish account, 
which has been used b}' Sandoval, and which contains 
some remarkable passages. The song before quoted, which 
I intend to print in the Appendix, is a bulletin in verse, 
and therefore worthy of credit. 



24G 



CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE OF PAVIA. 



Book IV. 



state of Milan, and had no fresh attack to fear. 
The Italian powers who, so long as things were 
in suspense, maintained a very doubtful atti- 
tude, now called to mind their old engagements, 
and consented to pay up the arrears of subsi- 
dies they had promised, so that the army at 
last gradually received its well-earned pay. 

But the fears of some, the hopes of others, 
and the attention of all, were now turned upon 
the young emperor, lor whom this victory had 
been won; while he, in tranquil retirement in 
Castile, had been slovv'ly recovering from the 
quartan ague which had long tormented him. 

Charles V. was standing in a room of the 
palace in Madrid, talking of the state of things 
in Italy, and of the situation of his army, vv hich 
he still felt to be very dangerous, when a, courier 
from that army arrived. Without announcing 
to any one the tidings with which he was 
charged, he walked in : he chose to deliver 
them first to the emperor in person. "Sire," 
said he, " there has been a battle before Pavia. 
Your Majesty's troops have gained the victory: 
the French arrny is destro3^ed ; the king him- 
self is a prisoner, and in your majesty's power." 
Great and unexpected good fortune has at the 
moment the same effect as a sudden calamity. 
While Charles listened to these words, the 
blood seemed congealed in his veins, and for a 
few moments he did not speak. When at length 
he found utterance, he only repeated, "The 
King of France is in my power — the victory is 
mine !" Hereupon he retired into the adjoining 
chamber, where his bed stood, and kneeling 
down before an image of the Holy Virgin, tried 
to raise his thoughts to God and to the great- 
ness of his vocation. He caused processions 
to be made and prayers to be offered up, that 
God would be pleased to grant him still higher 
favour in the war he meditated with the infidels. 
He spoke of an expedition against Constanti- 
nople and Jerusalem.* 

Projects of this kind, however, were yet at 
a vast distance. The immediate concern was 
to improve the present moment. 

The first idea w4iich presented itself was, 
that the great victory could in no way be turned 
to so much advantage as by a renewal of the 
so-often-attempted invasion of France. 

The Duke of Bourbon began immediately 
to make preparations for carrying this into ex- 
ecution. 

The King of England was urgent in his per- 
suasions to the same effect. The instructions 
drawn up by Henry VIII., for an embassy which 
he sent to the emperor in consequence of the 
battle of Pavia, are extremely curious, and show 
how far that monarch's views extended. He 
expresses his opinion that the King of France 
should, under no conditions, be reinstated on 
the throne ; — there are none, he says, that Fran- 
cis will observe : he requires that he should be 
absolutely deprived of the crown. With regard 
to a successor, there can, he says, be no ques- 
tion as to Bourbon, who could neither plead 
any defensible claim, nor afford the emperor 
any satisfactory guarantee; on the other hand, 

* Letter of the Mantuan envoy Suardin to the Mar- 
grave of Mantua, I5th March, 1526. Sanuto, vol. xxxviii. 



the King of England had the best and most 
incontestable right to the French crown, — a 
right, indeed, already recognised by the em- 
peror. In the course of the next summer, 
Charles might attack France in person from 
the side of Spain, while 'he would do the same 
from that of England : he would assist him 
with large subsidies; no formidable resistance 
was now to be feared, and he hoped to meet 
his imperial majesty in Paris. If he were once 
crowned in that city, he would accompany the 
emperor to Rome to be present at his corona- 
tion. All that had been wrested from the House 
of Burgundy or th? empire should be restored 
to him ; nay, even eventually France and Eng- 
land itself, if, in conformity with the existing 
treaties, he married the youthful Princess Mary. 
At first he had affected to raise difficulties on 
this head, but in the end he consented to give 
his daughter, who was yet a child, into the 
guardianship of the emperor till she should be 
of age to marry.f 

From time to time, projects like this are re- 
vived in Europe, — either of the universal do- 
minion of a single nation, or of a partition of 
power between two preponderant states; but 
though at a distance they seem to threaten uni- 
versal convulsion, they are invariably wrecked 
against the massive strength of existing insti- 
tutions. 

Young as the emperor was, he was of far 
too sedate a character to be carried away by 
such extravagant propositions. Nor had Eng- 
land by any means afforded him such a degree 
of assistance in the war, as would have war- 
ranted her claiming so large a share of the 
fruits of victory. The secret negotiations 
which the cardinal had carried on with France 
were well known in Spain. 

Chancellor Gattinara advised the emperor to 
answer, that it would be unseemly to make 
war upon an enemy who could not defend him- 
self; and that neither did the interests of peace 
require any such proceeding. He thought that 
if the King of England resolved to try his for- 
tune, the best way to thwart his schemes was 
to send him no assistance. He esteemed a 
union of France and England in the highest 
degree dangerous to the empire and to Europe: 
his idea was to maintain the independence of 
the throne of France, but at the same time to 
establish for ever the supremacy of Austria. A 
project drawn up by his hand, which is to be 
found in the Austrian Archives,:|: goes directly 

t Fiddes, in his Life of Wolsey, 346—352, quotes at 
length the instruction to Tunstall and Wingfield?* Her- 
bert, p. ]ö8, gives a very imperfect notice of it. Robertson, 
vol. iv., who had only read Herbert and not Fiddes, treats 
it all as a sort of pretext. But it is only necessary to 
read Wolsey's letter to the king, dated ]2th Feb., 1525 
(State Papers, p. 158,) where he already reckons on vic- 
tory, to be convinced that people promised themselves ' 
honour and advantage from this course. "The matters 
succeedingto the advantage of the imperiallis,the thanke, 
l^iUde, and praise shal comnie unto Your Grace." It is 
impossible, however, to ajiree with Fiddes, who denies 
that any arrangement with France had been already en- 
tered into. The same letter throws light upon this. If 
France were victorious, Wolsey says he had- provided 
against that event " by such communications as be set 
furth with France aparte." 

t In Bucholtz, ii. p. 280. To the same intent are the 
demands which occur in a letter of the emperor to the 
king's mother. Papiers d'6tat de Granvelle, i. p. 264. 



Chap. I. MISUNDERSTANDINGS BETWEEN THE POPE AND EMPEROfT. 247 



to the same decisive object which he already 
contemplated in the year 1521. The king was 
to renounce all his claims on Italy, both on 
Milan and Naples ; further, to restore Bur- 
gundy to the house to which it appertained; 
and, lastly, to acknowledge the rights of the 
empire over the south of France. To Provence 
he made a direct claim, as " an appurtenance 
of the empire :" the emperor's intention was 
to grant this in fee to the Duke of Bourbon. 
Dauphine, too, might be demanded back, be- 
cause the renewal of the investiture had so 
long been neglected ; but the emperor was dis- 
posed to leave this to the successor to the 
throne of France, provided always that he 
married a princess of the house of Austria. If 
Francis I. accepted these conditions, he would 
certainly be too much sunk and enfeebled to be 
an object of dread. The emperor's supremacy 
would then be established on an immutable 
basis: he would have no rival remaining Vv-ho 
could attempt to measure himself against him. 
A feeling pervaded the whole West, that the 
emperor was the predestined ruler of Europe. 
A Neapolitan description of the battle of Pavia 
concludes with the words, "Thou hast placed 
the world under his feet." " Now," said 
Wolsey, to one of Charles's ambassadors, 
" your master will be emperor no longer in 
title, but in fact also." "The counsels of 
God," exclaims a minister of the pope, "are 
a deep abyss." 

Such a prospect was not, however, v/elcome 
to all. No man had ever yet assumed a sta- 
tion of this kind in Europe without exciting 
the animosity and the resistance of all that had 
a feeling of independence. The King of Eng- 
land was, of course, offended by the emperor's 
refusal to accede to his proposals, and ever)'^ 
moment increased the coolness between them. 
But this was not all. In another of the em- 
peror's allies — the Papal States — opposition to 
his scJiemes arose. Indeed, the exclamation 
of a papal minister which we have just quoted 
savours more of the terror of one vrho feels 
himself menaced, than of the sympathy of an 
ally. For some time past misunderstandings 
of a very serious nature had arisen between 
the pope and the emperor. They originated, 
indeed, raerely in a question of territory, but 
soon assumed the character of one of the most 
important features in the affairs of the times. 

MISUNDERSTANDINGS BETWEEN THE POPE AND 
THE EMPEROR. 

When Leo X. concluded his alliance with 
the emperor, it was, as we have seen, with a 
view of getting possession of all the countries 
which were still claimed by the see of Rome, 
especially Ferrara : in this the emperor pro- 
mised him his assistance. 

On the sudden death of Leo, the Duke of 
Ferrara caused a medal to be struck, with the 
inscription, "The lamb rescued from, the jaws 
of the lion." But he was not only rescued ; 
he found occasion, during the vacancy of the 
Holy See, to get possession of Reggio and Ru- 
biera. Over Adrian VI. he gained such an 



influence, that that pontiff renewed his fief, in 
spite of these encroachments. 

Adrian's successor, however, Clement VII., 
was of a totally different way of thinking: no 
sooner were the French driven out of Italy in 
1524, than he asked the imperialists to assist 
him against the duke, and, in the first place, to 
expel the latter from Reggio. 

This, however, they did not consider them- 
selves bound to do. Their thoughts were ex- 
clusively bent on the invasion of France, and 
they wished to excite no troubles in their rear. 
The viceroy answered, that if the pope loved 
the emperor, he ought rather to complete his 
satisfaction by giving him back IModena.* 

This suggestion was deeply offensive to the 
pope. If he had not latterly contributed much 
to' the success of the common cause, the share 
which he had personally taken in the conquest 
of ]\lilan v/as still fresh in his memory. Was 
this now to turn exclusively to the profit of the 
empire] was the papacy not only not to obtain 
the extension of territory it desired, but to give 
up cities it had formerl}^ possessed ] 

So long as the imperial arms were successful 
in Provence, Clement was silent; but scarcely 
could he have received the news of the retreat 
of Bourbon from Marseilles, than he sent an 
envoy (the same Geronimo Aleander who is 
already vrell known to us) to the King of 
France ;f and as soon as Francis touched the 
soil of Italy, Giberti, the pope's most confi- 
dential minister, who had always been regarded 
as in the French interest, went to meet him ; 
in order, as his credentials set forth, " to ne- 
gotiate concerning things and plans which 
touch the honour and advantage both of the 
pope and the king.":|: The course and the 
result of their negotiations are not accuratel};- 
known; but thus much is certain, that a treaty 
was agreed on, the basis of which was, that 
the king should retain possession of Milan. In 
this case the king promised not to demand the 
restitution of Parma or Piacenza ; to import 
the salt for the consumption of Milan from the 
papal salt-works (a source of considerable re- 
venue to the apostolic chamber), and to support 
the pope against his rebellious vassals; — 
meaning, no doubt, Ferrara. § On Giberti's 
return, people remarked that he never went to 
the pope without the head-dress which then 
distinguished the French ; the pages of the 
palace were dressed in the French fashion, and 
French officers were allowed to recruit in Rome 
in aid of the Duke of Albania, who had under- 

* Giberti agli oratori in Spagna 22 Ott. 1524. Tlie 
duke's retreat^ after having made a short advance, was 
ascribed entirely to the imperialists: "Che tal mutatione 
del duca e determinatione di non rendere e processa del 
vicere."— 5a?/^a, 21 Mov. Latere di principi 21 JVov. 

t His credentials, dated 14th Oct. 1524, are to be found 
in Molini, i. 177. " Magnis de rebus christianasque rei- 
publicse hoc tempore non solum salutaribus sed etiam 
necessariis." 

I For Montmorency, dated 30th Oct. Ibid. p. 178. 
" Mittentes Gibertnm ad regem pro rebus ac consiliis 
utriusque nostrum honorem et commodum spectantibus." 

§ The articles of this treaty have never been published 
in an authentic form ; nevertheless the pope communi- 
cated them to the Archduke Ferdinand, and in this form 
Spalatin has preserved them. Annales in Mencken 
Scriptt., ii, p. 641. 



248 MISUNDERSTANDINGS BETWEEN THE POPE AND EMPEROR. Book. IY. 



taken an expedition against Naples : the Ger- 
mans at the papal court were persuaded that 
the pope had even made a grant of Sicily and 
Naples to the king.* 

This was an error : it was impossible that 
the sovereignty of the French in Naples could 
be agreeable to the pope. His view, doubtless, 
■was only to favour a diversion which promised 
to restore the balance of power in Italy ;j- but 
even this design, his whole demeanour, his 
undeniable defection in the moment of danger, 
awakened the hostility of the imperial com- 
manders. They rejected his offers of mediation 
with disdain. " He who is not for me," writes 
the viceroy to him, " is against me." Frunds- 
berg drove a papal agent out of his presence at 
the point of the sword, and anxiety as to the 
effect of the papal intrigues certainly hastened 
on the battle : the imperialists threw on the 
pope the whole blame of the dilatoriness of the 
Venitians in fulfilling their engagements.^ 

This state of things sufficiently explains the 
painful impression made at Rome by the news 
of the king's defeat ; and indeed Frundsberg 
actually recommended making an immediate 
attack on the pope in person. Letters were 
received in the ecclesiastical States from the 
other generals, full of threats, and imperial 
troops instantly invested the territory of Pia- 
cenza. Clement VIT. avowed that he had been 
influenced solely by this sort of coercion to 
pay the imperialists 100,000 ducats, and to 
conclude a fresh treaty with them.§ 

Unfortunately, too, we have no authentic 
copy of this treaty ; but from the state papers 
which were afterwards exchanged, it appears 
that in some articles the pope stipulated for the 
same conditions as had been granted to him by 
the king. He demanded the monopoly of salt 
in the Milanese, the recognition of his claims 
on Reggio, and assistance in the prosecution 
of them. He did not doubt that the emperor 
would accede to these demands. 

But one of them was no longer possible. 
Archduke Ferdinand, who had conducted him- 
self so meritoriously in the last expedition, had 
taken advantage of the favourable moment to 
conclude a treaty with Fra.ncesco Sforza, in 
virtue of which Milan was to purchase its salt 
from Austria.il This was the first solid advan- 
tage Austria derived from her sovereignty in 
Lombardy. 

Nor would the emperor accede to the other 
condition. He had no mind to make a forcible 

* Ziegler Historia dementis Vlf. in Scliellliorn Aniceni- 
tates, ii. p. 372. Ziegler was then present at the court. 

t Fr. Vettori says that the treaty made by the medi- 
ator of Alb. Carpi had reference only to the free passage 
of the troops. " Solo a questo che 11 papa la (gente) 
lasciasse passare, pagatido quello aveva bisogno; et i) 
papa stimo certo, che chome questa gente del I'e si met- 
teva in camino, cli,e gli iinperiali si povessino ritirare 
verscLNapoli, onde seguirebbe che Francesco diventerebbe 
Signore di Milano .... et ciascuno di loro avrebbe cura 
che I'oltro non diventassi maggiore in Italia. 

I Contarini Relatione di Spagna, 1525. Al papa da- 
vano principalmente la colpa, che V. Celsitudine fosse 
andata cosi ritenuta con S. M». 

§ Instruttione al C\ Farnese. Fürsten end Völker, 
iv. App. 15, (Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. iii. App. 
p. 32.) 

[I Rescripfum ad criminationes. 



attack on the Duke of Ferrara. Moreover, the 
feudal rights of the empire came into collision, 
on this ground, with those of the See of Rome. 
These the emperor would on no account sur- 
render. He accepted the treaty in the main, 
but these particular articles he refused to ratify. 

"As our sovereign lord now saw," says a 
subsequent papal instruction, " that he was be- 
trayed ; that, contrary to all expectation, his 
footing with the emperor was worse and worse, 
he lent an ear to the old assertion, that the em- 
peror's design was entirely to subjugate Italy; 
he therefore, determined to ally himself with 
those who had a common cause with him, in 
order to avert the danger which threatened 
him."^ 

It is evident, therefore, that the real ques- 
tions at issue related to the north of Italy. 
The pope put forward financial claims on 
Milan, and territorial ones on Ferrara; and 
these the emperor refused to admit. 

Let us examine the conduct of Charles V. 
Ey his treaties of 15-21, he was bound to make 
an attack both on France and on Ferrara. His 
allies, on their side, thought themselves wa^r- 
ranted in claiming a share of the advantages 
of the victory. But their co-operation had 
been trifling, their behaviour, latterly, equivo- 
cal ; and hence the emperor thought himself 
exonerated from all these obligations. The 
victory was due to his arms alone, and alone 
he would reap the fruits of it: what induce- 
ment could he have to-expose himself to new 
dangers in order to aggrandize allies of so 
doubtful a kind 1 

' The situation of the pope was in eOect the 
same as that of- England ; it marks the spirit 
of the age, that the pope was the first who had 
the courage to oppose the rising pov/ers which 
threatened to become universal.. He was afraid 
the empire might once more become too power- 
ful for the church; and the idea of the inde- 
pendence of Italy haunted him as it had done 
Julius n. The popes had hitherto always 
given the impulse which led to great political j 
changes, and their views had generally been 
carried out. Clement VIL ventured to present 
himself as the centre of the opposition to 
Charles V. 

His first object necessarily was to bring about 
a reconciliation between England and France. - 
As early as the 8th of March, Ludovico Ca- 
nossa, in concert with Giberti,** began to move 
in this affair in France. On the 16th of March, 
the latter exhorted the papal nuncios in Eng- 
land to use all their influence with Henry VIII. 
and Wolsey, to effect an amicable arrangement 
with France. "I"! In April, the negotiations were 
already known in the Netherlands. They 
were attended with little difficulty ; especially 
since the emperor's reluctance to fulfil his en- 
gagement to marry the king's daughter, became 
more and more obvious; whereas Francis I. 
declared that he would enter into no agreement 
without the good counsel of the king of Eng- 

!r The fore-mentioned Instruttione, (Ranke's History 
of the Popes, App. p. 32.) 
** See a later letter of Giberti, Lett, di pr. i. 171. 
It Lettere di Principi, 157. 



Chap. I. 



PESCARA. 



249 



land.* On the Hth of July, Wolsey, accord- 
ing to Giberti's report, appeared not only in- 
flined to a reconciliation with France, but 
inflamed with ardour for it.f On the 30th of 
June, the nuncios declared that all hesitation 
was at an: end. 

Another important circumstance was, that the 
Italian powers once -more assumed an attitude 
calculated to inspire respect. To this end, the 
pope had sought to renew the ancient alliance 
with Switzerland^ that he might be able to 
command the prompt succour of eight or ten 
thousand men, in case of need. He had 
already established a good understanding with 
the Duke of Milan and the Venetians. The 
fortified places belonging to the former, the fine 
army maintained by the latter, (1000 lances, 
500 light horse, and 16,000 foot,) formed an 
admirable basis for the schemes in agitation,:]: 
An alliance with France was necessary, and 
was desired ; but the first condition of the 
treaty was to be, a renunciation on the part of 
that power of all its Italian claims ; of those 
on Milan in favour of Sforza, and of those on 
Naples in favour of the pope. Then would 
Italy — for that name appears once more — bring 
a magnificent army into the field for the deliver- 
ance of Francis I. 

The persons by whom the pope was sur- 
rounded really indulged the hope that it would 
be possible to keep the French for ever at a 
distance ; to drive out the Spaniards, and to 
raise Italy to the state in which she was before 
the year 1494. The feeling of nationality, 
which had often given signs of its existence, 
and especially in the unrivalled culture of 
letters and art, which was the pride and the 
distinction of Italy, now took possession of all 
minds. The pope was strongly inclined to 
place himself at the head of the enterprise. 

Meanwhile, a prospect of reaching the goal 
of their wishes with unhoped-for rapidity now 
opened upon the papal party. 

Immediately after the battle of Pavia, mis- 
understandings had broken out between the 
imperial commanders. Lannoy, who, on that 
eventful day, had done the least, received the 
greatest proofs of personal favour, and at length 
presumed, in direct opposition to the decision 
of all the others, to take the royal captive on 
his own authority to Spain. § This gave gene- 
ral disgust. Pescara, who felt that his ser- 
vices were not duly acknowledged or requited, 
begged for his dismissal; in order, as he said, 
to close his life in some obscure corner of the 
earth, " far from suspicion and from war."|| 



* Instructions to Tonstall and VVyngfield : Herbert, 168. 

t In Wolsey's own handwriting to the king (St. P. No. 
g8), the demands of the emperor in reference to France as 
well as to Milan are declared to be exorbitant ; his offers 
to England, to be " lytel or nothing to your commodite, 
proufit, or benefit." 

I Paruta Storia Venetiana, v. p. 243. 

§ Letter of Bourbon, 10th June, in Ranmer's Briefen, 
i. p. '244. It is, however, officially asserted in the Refut. 
ApologiiE, that the journey was undertaken by the king's 
own proposal, "inscio atque inconsulto Ceesare." 

II Sepulveda, Hist. vi. 1. According to Jiv; ias, he wished 
to retain Carpi orSora, but vi^as put otf with empty 
words. According to Sandoval, i. p. 671, the right which 
he claimed of exacting ransom from the King of Navarre 
whom he had taken prisoner, was contested. 

33 



This was known to the Italians, and it was, 
indeed, no very far-fetched idea to ground a 
scheme upon the discontent of such a leader. 
Had not the first knight and captain of France 
lately set an example of defection 1 Was it 
impossible to lead Pescara to a similar course? 
He, too, was born in Italy, and was, in the 
exactest sense of the word, an Italian. 

The consequences which would result from 
gaining over such a man were incalculable. 
He was the most experienced and the ablest 
of all the emperor's generals ; in every cam- 
paign the most signal and successful actions 
had been his; the Spanish infantry were abso- 
lutely devoted to him. If they could succeed 
in gaining over the general, the best part of the 
army was sure to follow him, and the rest 
would easily be destroyed. 

And magnificent was the prize they had to 
offer him. The Spaniards were to be driven 
out of Naples and Sicily. Now it was im- 
possible for the pope to administer and to de- 
fend these countries himself, and the thought 
suggested itself, to reward the defection of 
Pescara with this crown. The very act v/ould 
have bound him closely to the Italian powers. 
The unity and the freedom of Italy would have 
been obtained at one stroke. 

Geromino Morone, the confidential minister 
of Sforza, Vv^ho had evinced so much prudence 
in preparing, and so much energy in effecting, 
the restoration of his master — who also held 
all the threads of the intrigues now going on 
in his hand, one day took courage to open the 
matter to the marquis ; first extorting from him 
a solemn promise, not to disclose to any human 
being what he was about to say to him.. Hav- 
ing fully discussed the political state of Eu- 
rope, he touched on the possibility of freeing 
themselves from a foreign yoke which now 
offered itself to the Italians (among whom he 
included Pescara) : he spoke of the confidence! 
he inspired ; of the great deed expected from 
him, and, lastly, he mentioned the prize by 
which that. deed was to be rew^arded.^ 

Such a proposal was calculated to excite a 
storm of contending emotions in the breast of 
Pescara. The prospect opened to him was 
brilliant and boundless, and he had just causes 
of displeasure with the court : on the other 
hand, he was incensed at the treachery of the 
Italians, and his old Spanish blood rose in his 
veins. He instantly saw the necessity, and 
felt the desire, to come to the bottom of the 
affair. The crafty warrior who had so often 
surprised the enemy at the right moment, and 
had never in his life laid him^self open to at- 
tack, showed all his wonted caution and self- 
command on this occasion. " It is a great 
thing which you say to me," replied he to 
Morone ; " and it is not less great that you say 
it to me." He admitted that he had cause to 



IT How far matters went is shown by the often-quoted 
answer of the emperor : "Cum audivisset rnarchio nun- 
cium ad id per Vestram Sanctitatem transmissum, eidem 
sui parte, nt ait, offerentem sub cujusdam apostolici 
brevis credentia regni nostri Neapolitani investituram 

et possessionem ut inde Sanctitas Vestra nos etiam 

ab omni imperiali dienitate depoiieret." — Ooldast Pol. 
Imp. 997. 



250 



PESCARA. 



Book IV. 



be dissatisfied; " but no dissatisfaction in the 
world," continued he, " could induce me to act 
contrary to the laws of honour. If I quit the 
emperor's service, it must be done in such a 
manner that the best knight in the world could 
not have behaved otherwise. I should do it 
only to show the emperor that I am of more 
importance than certain people whom he pre- 
fers before m^e."*" ' Expressions in which Mo- 
rone thought he perceived a leaning but slight- 
ly veiled, and by no means dubious. This 
opinion, coinbiding with the favourable intelli- 
gence from France and England, gave wings 
to all these projects. " I see the world utterly 
changed," exclaimed Giberti ; " Italy will 
arise out of the deepest misery to the highest 
felicity. "f Writers were employed completely 
to remove Pescara's scruples ; couriers were 
despatched to make communications to the 
allied courts: — the commencement of the 
work was impatiently expected. 

But, we may ask, were the means contem- 
plated really of a nature to lead to the desired 
end ] The independence of a people is so vast 
a good, that, when once lost, it can only be 
regained by straining every physical power 
and every moral faculty. In the present case, 
the need of it was first felt by the literary class 
alone; the mass of the nation were unconscious 
of it : they had no military point of honour to 
wound, nor had they to complain of violated 
legal or political rights ; the right of the em- 
peror was of the highest antiquity, and was 
incontestable. Hence, therefore, the leaders 
did not rely on the nation, in the proper sense 
of the word. They thought chiefly of the 
favourable conjuncture of circumstances, of 
foreign aid, and of this unlooked-for defection 
of Pescara : a lucky political ccimbination was 
to effect the whole. 

But this soon appeared doubtful. As early 
as the September of 15-25, Giberti remarked^ 
that the intention of the French was only to 
take advantage of the connexion with Italy, in 
order to obtain favourable terms from the em- 
peror. 

Whilst the French party continued to reckon 
on the defection of the imperial general, they 
learned that the fortified towns in the Milanese 
were repairing. A courier who had been des- 
patched to France had disappeared in that ter- 
ritory; nay, declarations reached them from 
the Spanish court, which seemed to contain 
some allusions to the matter. People knew 
not what to think. Was Morone a traitor] 
But what advantage could he propose to him- 
self, that would outweigh the detestation he 
bad to expect from Italy? Or was Pescara 
playing a double game 1 "I cannot believe 
it," says Giberti. " What he had done for the 
emperor, a kingdom could not requite; can he 
mean to use this occasion to crouch before him 

* Personal narrative of Pescara in a document, dated 
30th of July, 1523, in Hormayr's Archiv, for 1810, pp. 
29, 30, 

t Lettera a Ghinucci. Lettere di Principi, i. 170. How 
then could Giovio (Vita Piscar., p. 408), maintain that 
Giberti warned the pope against these things? 

X Al vescovo di Bajusa 4. Sett. Ibid. 



again, and beg for bis favour anew 1 It were 
a sin to imagine that so base a thought could 
find place in so noble a soul."§ 

And yet this was the fact. Pescara was 
born in Italy, but he had the soul of a Span- 
iard. All his forefathers had devoted their 
lives to the one object of establishing the Ara- 
gonese sovereignty in Italy. His great-grand- 
father, Ruy Lopez di Avalos, had attached 
himself to the person and fortunes of Alfonzo 
V. ; his son, Inigo, had been that king's confi- 
dential adviser; and his son, Alonzo, had per- 
ished by the hand of a Moor, in the attack of 
the French ;|| the existence of our hero was 
bound up with the prosperity of the same cause. 
His whole soul was devoted to the command 
of the Spanish infantry, which was entrusted 
to him : he knew every one of his men by 
name; was indulgent to all their offences, even 
their forbidden pillage, and spared them when- 
ever it was possible. It was enough for him 
if they fought bravely at the critical moment; 
and in this they never failed him. W^hen he 
marched at their head, with his broad shoes of 
German make, his waving plumes on his hat, 
and holding his drawn sword straight before 
him in both hands, he was at the height of his 
felicity and glory. The Italians, on the con- 
trary, he hated ; he held them for cowardly and 
untrustworthy ; there had even been examples 
at the conquest of a city, of his ordering all 
the Italian soldiers to be massacred. People 
asked him, " Why, — since they are your coun- 
trymen ?" " For that very reason," replied 
he ; " they are my countrymen, and yet serve 
the enemy." As, in his' capacity of general, 
he curbed his natural intrepidity by prudence 
and caution, so was he ambitious, high-spirited 
and arrogant, but always within the bounds of 
loyalty and honour. The character of the soul 
is determined, more than is commonly imagined, 
by the contemplation of some Ideal. To ideas 
like those which were prevalent in Italy from 
the study of classical antiquity, Pescara was an 
utter stranger ; but the notions and feelings of 
personal devotedness and fidelity which form 
the basis of a feudal state, and from which 
Italy was the first to emancipate herself, go- 
verned all his thoughts and feelings. He had 
grown up in intercourse with the heroes of 
Spanish romance ; perhaps he compared him- 
self to the Cid, who, though offended ^nd re- 
pulsed by his king, remained inflexibly true to 
him, without bating, for a single moment, one 
jot of his haughty bearing. Chivalrous feeling 
and feudal honour were thus opposed to the 
spirit of Italy, whose national feeling was the 
offspring of classical culture, and who had 
thrown off the political morality of the middle 
ages. That morality did indeed make one more 
struggle for existence ; but in doing so, it be- 
trayed how much it had already been affected 
by contact with the world of which Machiavelli 
was the organ and the representative. Pescara 
had not the refined moral culture which would 
have led lum to reject the proposals made to 



§ To Domenico Sauli. Ibid,, p. 174. 
II Zurita Anales de Aragon, v. 58. b. 



Chap. I. 



CONDUCT OF THE EMPEROR. 



251 



him with the disgust and scorn they merited. 
He thought, indeed, while listening to them, 
that Morone deserved to be thrown out of the- 
window; but he reflected that it was necessary 
to learn the whole plan in order to counteract 
it effectually. While, therefore, he kept up a 
good understanding with Morone, he commu- 
nicated the affair, from the very first day, to 
the imperial commissioners, and to his brother 
commanders, Bourbon and Leiva : he wrote 
instantly to Insbruck for succours, and sent a 
courier with the intelligence to Spain. While 
Giberti was amused with dreams of the dawn 
of a new freedom for Italy, he was already be- 
trayed. 

In September the emperor gave the marquis 
full powers to act in the matter before him as 
he should think necessary.* 

Nothing was, however, more necessary than 
to get a firm footing in Milan, and to annul all 
the claims of the Sforzcis. The imperial gen- 
erals thought that without the concurrence of 
the marquis thej'^ should all have been lost.:|' 

The first step was to secure the person of 
Morone. On the 14th Oct. 1525, when he paid 
a confidential visit to Pescara, Leiva was con- 
cealed behind the tapestry, for the purpose of 
overhearing the conversation ; and on Morone 
rising to take his leave, he was arrested. Pes- 
cara, however, requested the emperor to grant 
him the liberty of this man, who might still 
be of great use if an occasion offered for em- 
ploying him. 

Pescara now required the duke to deliver up 
the strong places of the duchy to the imperial 
troops — ^^a measure demanded, as he said, by 
the interests of the emperor's service. The 
duke, robbed of his minister, and conscious of 
his own treacherous conduct, did not venture 
to refuse ; especially since the two strongest, 
Milan and Cremona, were left him. 

But these were passed over in silence only 
so long as the others were not taken possession 
of: as soon as that was the case, Pescara de- 
manded the surrender of the citadels of Cre- 
mona and Milan. The duke made representa- 
tions. Pescara replied, that he knew from the 
letters of Domenico Sauli, the duke's plenipo- 
tentiary in Rome, that his excellency had 
offered the aid of his person and his state in 
the liberation of Italy from the imperial troops ; 
and insisted that at least the commanders of the 
castles should take an oath of fidelity to the 
emperor.:|: As Sforza refused to yield to these 
demands, Pescara had no hesitation in employ- 
ing force. He took possession of Cremona, 
and advanced to besiege the citadel of Milan, 
which employed three thousand Germans. § He 
immediately impeached the duke of felony. 
He announced to the emperor, that God and 
the world, and the dictates of common sense, 
required him to keep Milan in his own hands. 
The emperor declared his resolution of letting 

* Pescara to Archduke Ferdinand, 4th Oct. Bucholtz, 
iii. ii. 

t Letter of Leiva in Hormayr, 29, 30. 

t Pescara to Ferdinand, 4th Nov. Bucholtz, iii. 14. 

§ Custode. Continuation of Varri from the national 
chroniclers, p. 29. 



the prosecution take its course, and abiding by 
the sentence of the judges; though indeed of 
the nature of this there could be no doubt. [j 

Such was the result of this first attempt of 
the Italians to shake oif the yoke of foreign 
armies. As the principal element of their cal- 
culation was the treason of Pescara, their en- 
terprise was rendered abortive by the fidelity 
with which he adhered to the emperor. Charles 
could now reasonably entertain the project of 
keeping Milan in his own hands. 

But the matter was not yet decided. The 
universal hatred entertained for the imperial 
troops (who lived at the charge of the inhabit- 
ants) all over Lombardy, and the obstinacy 
with which the citadel of Milan defended 
itself, aff'orded a hope that what had not been 
accomplished by cunning might still be eff'ected 
by force. Another favourable circumstance 
was, that at this juncture the general, who had 
always inspired the most fear, and now with 
I good reason the bitterest hate — Pescara — died. 
i Above all, the great questions at issue between 
the emperor and the King of France were 
treated in a manner that justified the most 
confident anticipations of fresh commotions 
throughout Europe. 

It was clear that the emperor, though he did 
not enter into the English plans, overrated the 
advantages which, might accrue to him from 
the king's captivity. I shall not enlarge on 
his want of magnanimity ; — though I hold it to 
be perfectly true, that the power of freely and 
cordially forgiving his enemies was not in his 
nature ; but it may also be said that his con- 
duct arose from a defect of judgment. He had 
conquered Milan and Genoa, and he, probably, 
thought that he might take advantage of the 
king's captivity to induce him to renounce his 
Italian claims. He had gained nothing what- 
ever from France itself; his attack on that 
kingdom having been completely repulsed. 
He nevertheless dem.anded, obstinately and 
peremptorily, the cession of Burgundy. Nei- 
ther the illness into which Francis fell from 
vexation and anxiety, nor the negotiations of 
his sister, who had travelled to Spain on pur- 
pose to obtain her brother's liberation, nor the 
arguments of his own councillors, made the 
slightest impression on Charles.^ He would 
hear of no indemnity; he would have back the 
heritage of his fathers, whence he derived the 
name and the arms he bore. But his victory 
was far from being complete enough for this. 
The principle of unity and nationality, which 
daily iDecame more and more powerful in France, 
had remained unshaken and unharmed, even 
by the defection of the constable; it was but 
slightly affected by the disasters in Italy. Ar- 
dently as the king's m.other desired her son's 
return, she declared that it were better that he 



II Sandoval, i. 668, asserts that he saw the instruments 
of infeudation which were already drawn up for Bourbon ; 
nay, that he had actually been invested with the fief with 
all due forms. 

tr We see from the Refutatio Apologise, p. 877, that 
the emperor was angry because the Duchess of Alencon, 
with a view to the machinations going on in Italy, would 
not agree to all chat the king had before pledged himself 
to ; chiefly because she wished to assist him in making 
his escape. 



252 



CONDUCT OF FRANCIS I. 



Book IV. 



should remain in prison for ever, than that the 
kingdom should be dismembered. 

On the other hand, purer conceptions of mo- 
rality and dignity would have taught the king 
rather to endure his imprisonment than to as- 
sent to conditions which he was predetermined 
not to adhere to. But this would have been 
asking too much of him : he felt his situation 
insupportable, and was ready to purchase free- 
dom at any price. 

At length, on the 14th of January, he signed 
the conditions submitted to him by the emperor. 
He promised to renounce all his claims on Italy, 
on the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois, and 
his alliances with the enemies of the emperor 
in .Germany, Wiirtemberg, ar^d Gueldres ; he 
consented to give up Burgundy. He did not 
reject the supposition that these concessions 
were to put an end for ever to all disputes, and 
contracted himself in marriage with the em- 
peror's sister, the widowed Queen of Portugal : 
but in the same day — the same hour — nay, one 
moment before — he had secretly signed a pro- 
test, in which he declared that he accepted the 
treaty only under the pressure of com})ulsion ; 
that all the stipulations contained in it wore, 
and would remain, null and void ; and that he 
intended nevertheless to maintain all the rights 
appertaining to his crown.* 

His ideas of religion did not prevent him 
from taking an oath at the solemn celebration 
of the mass, and with his hand on the Gospels, 
never to break the treaty all the days of his 
life. 

He now let the papal legate know that he did 
not mean to observe the treaty, [ while he him- 
self made overtures towards an alliance with 
the Italian powers : at the same time, he vv-ent 
to Illescas to celebrate his betrothal with the 
emperor's sister, which rested on the presump- 
tion that the treaty would be executed. 

The emperor and the king now saw each 
other more frequently, rode out together, were 
carried in the same litter, and called each other 
brother. They took leave near Illescas, be- 
neath a crucifix which stands at the point 
v/here the roads to Madrid and Toledo divide. 
•'Brother," said the emperor, "think on what 
we have promised each other." The king re- 
plied, " I could repeat the articles, without 
missing a word." "Tell me the truth," said 
Charles, "are you minded to keep them?" 
" Nothing in my kingdom shall hinder me 
from doing so," replied Francis. The emperor 
then said, " One thing, I pray you ; if you 
mean to deceive me in any thing, let it not 
concern my sister, your bride; for she," added 
he, " would not be able to revenge herself.":}: 

We see the lowering tempest which slum- 
bered behind this appearance of confidence. 

Immediately after, in a bark on the Bidas- 
soa, Francis was exchanged for his two sons, 
the dauphin and the future king Henry IL, who 
were to be left as hostages for the performance 

* Treaty and protest in Du Mont, iv. 1. 399, 412. 
t ^iherti to the Bishop of Bajusa, Lettere di Principi, 
ij. If. 31, b, 

I Narrative in Sandeval, i. 717. 



of his engagements. ' " Sire," said Lannoy, 
" your highness is now free ; fulfil now what 
you have promised." "All will be fulfilled," 
said the king, and sprang into the French boat. 
He was now once more among his own people, ' 
and saw himself received with all the marks 
of respect of which he had so long been de- 
prived : he felt completely himself again. 
Mounting, as soon as he touched land, a Turk- 
ish horse that stood ready caparisoned, he 
exclaimed, "I am the king, the king!" and 
galloped off.§ ' 

This was the moment for which the Italians 
had been waiting. 

When the terms of the peace of Madrid were 
reported to the pope, he declared that he ap- 
proved them, provided the king did not observe 
them: the only difference would then be, that 
the emperor would have the king's sons in his 
custody, instead of the king, which would avail 
him little. II He now absolved the king from 
his oath;*^ he caused it to be represented to 
him in common with the Venitians, what an 
excellent army was already in the field ; that 
it would not be very difficult to extort better 
terms ; that if he was but resolute, and would 
take up arms for the relief of his sons and the 
deliverance of Italy, the Italians too would 
show themselves men, and would not yield 
themselves up to the will of the emperor. 

For a moment the king paused : he hesifated 
to enter into this alliance. He convoked the 
notables of Burgundy ; and resting on their 
declaration, that the King of France, in virtue 
of the ancient compacts of the province with 
the crown, had no right whatever to cede it,** 
he repeated to the emperor his former proposal 
of giving an indemnity for it in money. He 
probably thought the ferment in Italy would 
induce Charles to accept this offer. j-f 

Let us pause to examine the situation of the 
emperor. At his court and among his most 
faithful servants the treaty had experienced 
great opposition, not on account of the exor- 
bitance of its demands, but of the slender secu- 
rity afforded for its observance ;, they said the 
conditions were very good as child's play, but 
nothing more : nevertheless, suppressing a se- 
cret anxiety which he too felt, he had concluded 
it: — he had already appointed a governor of 
Burgundy who was on the way thither ; his 
sister waited in Vittoria for the execution of 
the treaty in order to enter France as queen ; — 
and now he received this proposal, — the same 
he had before rejected. He saw that Francis 



§ Report in Sandoval, i. 738. 

II The BisJiop of Worcester to Wolsey, 12th Jan. 7th 
Feb. Raumer, i. 247. 

IT Sandoval, i. 746. " Embio el papa al rey de Francia 
relaxacion del juramento que avia hecho :"— There is in 
Rainaldus a similar release from an oath, dated 3d July, 
1526. XX. 4C0. 

** The emperor did not much regard this declaration ; 
Apologise dissuasorite Refutatio, p. 884. "Satis plane 
constat, eos duntaxat vocatos quos rex ipse aniea stipen- 
diarjos et juratos habebat." 

tt Official information in the Oratio ad Proceres Ger- 
mania; in fonventu Ratisbon 1527, in Goldast. Polit. i. p. 
902. "Conditionem ultro sibi delatam tantisper acci- 
pere sustinuit, dum legatis rursus missis ultimum expe- 
riretur. 



Chap. I. 



LEAGUE OF COGNAC. 



253 



thought he should compel him by the fear of 
hostilities in Italy : the consciousness that he 
had not condacted the affair well, the vexation 
at being deceived, the wounded feeling of 
knightly honour, the pride of power — all arose 
at once within him. He answered the king, 
that if he was prevented from fulfilling the 
conditions of his freedom, he had better return 
to his captivity, where a fresh agreement might 
then be made.* 

• In earlier ages this would have been done ; 
those times were past. The king did not hesi- 
tate to conclude his treaty with the Italian 
states on the 22d May, 1526, at Cognac. The 
terms proposed were, that the emperor should 
be required to give up the French princes forli 
ransom,, cede Milan to Francesco Sforza, and 
restore the States of Italy in general to the 
condition in which they were before the break- 
ing out of hostilities ; further, on his progress 
to his coronation he was to be escorted by no 
more troops than the pope and Venice thought 
fit to permit : the)'' thought to treat him as they 
had formerly treated IMaximilian. They deter- 
mined to lay these conditions before him as 
soon as they had equipped a powerful army, 
and if he refused to accept them, which did not 
admit of a doubt, to drive him out of Naples, 
the subsequent disposal of which the pope re- 
served to himself.f 

It was a combination of the whole of West- 
ern Europe to counteract the consequences of 
the battle of Pavia ; to check the preponder- 
ance, the vievv's and the fortune of the house 
of Burgundy. These objects had the concur- 
rence of England. The king and the cardinal 
exhorted Francis not to fulfil engagements 
which would make him the servant of Spain. +: 
They did every thing in their power to promote 
the Ligue,§ though Henry VIII. did not deem 
it expedient to become a member of it. 

At the court of Rome, the ideas which had 
been cherished a year before, now revived with 
redoubled strength. There was no longer a 
question of a struggle for the sovereignty of 
Italy between the two princes. Francis de- 
manded no more than Asti and the feudal su- 
periority of Genoa ; and hopes were really 
entertained that Italy would be restored to the 
state in which she was in 1494. The Vene- 
tians showed an enthusiasm not inferior to that 
displayed at Rome : their ambassador, Fran- 
cesco Foscari, boasts that it was he who had 
held the pope fast to his resolutions ; the Re- 
public promised to do wonders. The Floren- 
tines were completely at the pope's disposal, 
and it v/as reported from Piedmont that the 
duke wished to emancipate himself from the 
imperial domination. The papal party thought 
themselves secure of the assistance of the 



* Charles relates this himself in the before quoted Re- 
futation. 

t Traite de confederation, appelle la Sainte Ligue, in 
Damont, iv. i. 451. 

J Extract from Cheney's Instructions, in Fiddes, 380. 

§ "That the leegge shold be, by all meanys possibyll, 
sett forwardys." Clerk to Wolsey, 31st May, St. P., p. 
134. In a paper of the 9th Oct. (p. 130.) Wolsey ascril)es 
the league especially to the king. "Your Highness, by 
wliois counsaile this liege had been begon." 
W 



French, as the king had so strong a personal 
interest in the war; and they reckoned with 
greater certainty than ever on the Swiss, v,'hose 
diets would be subject to the combined in- 
fluence of the courts of France and of Rome ; 
the King of England, it was hoped, would 
accept the protectorate of the alliance, which 
was offered him, or at least consent to advance 
money. Could the imperial army possibly 
withstand so many united forces 1 Francesco 
Sforza still held out in the castle of Milan ; 
the people were ripe for insurrection ; they 
thought they could destroy the flower of the 
imperial troops on tiie spot.|| The letters of 
the Datarius Giberti, who at length saw him- 
self in the position he, had always desired, 
breathe all the d^etermination whicii a grand 
and noble enterprise inspires. In June, 1526, 
the emperor proposed the mildest and most 
moderate conditions to the pope. Clement 
VIL, having already joined the Ligue, rejected 
them without hesitation. *ir 

Open war once more broke out betwee^n the 
two greatest povvers of Europe. But, in the 
situation of things and the stage of civilization 
which now prevailed, it became evident that 
the emperor had other weapons within his 
grasp than had ever been wielded by his pre- 
decessors. These he determined to employ. 



CHAPTER II. 

DIET OF SPIRE, A. D. 1526. 

' The events of Italy necessarily reacted vi'ith 
no inconsiderable force on Germany. 

The attack on the emperor was an attack on 
the rights of tlie empire ; and Charles, v/ith 
great dexterity and tact, pointed the public at- 
tention to the fact that no mention was made 
of the' empire in the treaty of Cognac ; it 
seemed to be regarded indeed as already dis- 
possessed of all its rights. In all former 
years, it v/as its German forces which had 
decided its conquests in Italy. In the present 
war, more perilous than any preceding, it was 
to them it must look for efficient support. It 
could not be a matter of indifference to the 
nation whether the empire should have any 
significance in Italy, or none. 

Weighty, however, as this consideration 
was, it was in truth the less important side of 
the matter. 

yhe mind and heart of the nation was in- 

|( Giberti to Don Michele de Silva, 1st July. Lett, di 
Princ, i. 230. See Provisinni per la guerra che disegnö 
Pp. demente Vil. contra I'iniperatnre. Inform Politt. 
torn. xii. no. 46. [t appears from this that there was an 
intention of acting at the same time against IVlilan, 
Genoa, Naples, and Sienna, where the imperialist party 
prevailed ;— in Sienna with the aid of the exiled party; 
in Naples with the aid of the Orsini ; they were deter- 
mined to suffer no assemblage of Spaniards in the towns, 
and no correspondence withSpain. Tiiey were to accept 
the offer of the Duke of Savoy, so that the cause might 
appear to be that of the whole of Italy. 

TT Sanga to Sambara, 19th June. Ibid., 210. 



254 



IMPERIAL ADMONITION. 



Book IV. 



comparably more actively engaged in the spi- 
ritual interests, — -in the great questions which 
embraced the whole moral and intellectual fu- 
turity of the world. We know how mighty 
an influence political affairs had from the first 
exercised on the emperor's conduct with regard 
to these questions : the edict of Worms, the 
revocation of the summons for the assembly at 
Spire, had been the fruits of his alliance with 
the pope : to please him, he had assumed an 
air of strict adherence to the ancient church ; 
it remained to be seen w^iether he would main- 
tain it. 

In the spring of 152G, there was still every 
appearance that he would not depart from it a 
hair's breadth. Henry of Brunswick, who 
had just then arrived in Spain, obtained .from 
the emperor declarations v/iiich sounded as 
decided as ever. 

In fact he had arrived in a moment the most 
favourable that could be conceived for the pro- 
posal he had to make in his own name and the 
names of his friends. 

The peace of Madrid vv^as concluded; and 
the court was persuaded that t^e great dispute 
with France was thus settled forever.* Hence 
the views of the government w^ere rather di- 
rected towards Germany. If we examine this 
peace more nearly, we shall find that it in- 
volved not only the adjustment of personal^ 
and political disputes, but also an agreement 
upon a common enterprise against the Turks, 
and "against heretics who have severed them- 
selves from the hosom of the holy church;" 
the two contracting princes already entreat the 
pope to co-operate with them b}^ ecclesiastical 
concessions."!" It was left to the good pleasure 
of the emperor with which of these under- 
takings to begin, and when to set about them. 
It was Francis's own voluntary offer, that if 
the emperor would make war either upon the 
infidels or the Luiherans, he would bear half 
the cost and accompany the array in person. ± 

In the days in which people still believed 
in the execution of this treaty, — when the king 
returned to his kingdom, Leonora prepared to 
follow him, and Orange to take possession of 
Burgundy, — that, in th^ midst of all the mag- 
nificent solemnities of the church with which 
the marriage of the emperor with a princess 
of Portugal was celebrated at Seville, the pro- 
posals of Duke Henry were brought under dis- 

* " Nach dem langen Trübsal und Krie?," writes Hein- 
rich von Nassau from the Spanish court to iiis brother in 
Dillenburg, " hat uns Gott den heiligen Frieden wieder- 
gegeben." — " After the long misery and war, God has 
again given us blessed peace." Toledo, 22d Jan.: Ar- 
iioldi, p. 20:?. 

t Pour dresser tons les moyens convenables pour ies 
dites emprises et expeditions tant contre les dits Turcs et 
infideies que contre les dits her6tiques alien6s du greme 
de la sainte 6glise. Art. 26. 

J Apolngiffi DissuasoriiE Refiitatio, in Goldast. Pol. Imp. 
884. " Q,uod inquit (autor apoiogiie), quocumque profi- 
cisceretur Caesar, illuc etiam maxima cum milituin manu 
regi eundum erat,"—" on the part of the French this was 
one motive for refusing to carry out the treaty,"— " hie 
profecto se proprio gladio percutit, quum potissime rex 
ipse id obtulerit, ut si Caesari adversus hostes fidei eundum 
esset aut in Lutheranos moxendum,isdimidinm impensje 
custineret, et si Cajsari gratum esset, cum eo personaliter 
adesset, quam oblationemCassar pro Christiante religionis 
augmento respuendam non censuit." 



cussion in that splendid and stately court. 
They were extremely welcome, and he received 
the most encouraging answer. On the 23d of 
March, 1526,§ the emperor issued an admoni- 
tion to certain princes and lords of the empire, 
to remain steadfast in the old faith, arid to use 
their influence with their neighbours, that the 
heretical doctrines which were the cause of all 
the disturbances might be wholly eradicated. 
In this document he commends the anti-Lu- 
theran alliance which had been concluded be- 
tween Duke Henry, Duke George, Elector 
Albert, and some other princes. He announces 
his intention of shortly going to Rome ; after 
which he would resort to every measure for 
the radical extirpation of heresy. Admonitions 
of this sort were addressed to the Counts of 
Nassau and Königstein, to the Bishop of Stras- 
burg, and Duke Erich of Calenberg. The two 
former were to communicate with the counts 
on the Rhine, in the Westerwald, and the Ne- 
therlands ; the bishop with the princes of Upper, 
and the duke with those of Lower Germany. j) 
The emperx)r, as we perceive, entirely shared 
the ideas of the orthodox party in Germany, 
which indeed was observed to display unwont- 
ed spirit and boldness from the time of Duke 
Henry's arrival. Duke George was reported 
to say that if he liked he could be elector of 
Saxony.^ His chancellor one day in Torgau 
expressed himself to the effect, that the Lu- 
theran affair would not last long; people had 
better take care what they were about. 

This, however, necessarily obliged the op- 
posite party to rally all their forces, towards 
which, indeed, they had already taken some 
steps. The alliance which had been talked 
(?f at the end of the former year was now really 
brought to bear. 

It is commonly called the league of Torgau, 
but it was only ratified on the side of Saxony 
in Torgau ; it was concluded about the end of 
February, 1526, at Gotha. 

Here, in pursuance of the arrangement made 
by their several envoys at Augsburg, the Elec- 
tor of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hessen 
met, and agreed to stand by each other with 
all their might, in case they were attacked on 
account of the w^ord of God, or the removal 
of abuses. According to the first draft, the 
union was to subsist only "until a christian 
and equitable adjustment should be effected at 
the next diet of the empire." It seems, how- 
ever, that this clause was afterwards thought 
too restrictive, and it was omitted. It was also 
specified that they would afford each other the 
needful help " at their own cost and damage." 
As the reigning princes treated in person, no 

§ The exchange of Francis I. took place on the IGth 
March. The first letters must have arrived about the 23d : 
in tiiese Francis still promised to hold to the treaty. Even 
in Cognac, Francis I. said to the viceroy, Lannoy, that 
the protest of the Burgundians was of no importance. — 
ßefutatio Apologiee. 

II In the Weim. Arch. See Rommell, Urkundenbuch, 
p. 13. 

TT See Rommel, Ind. p. 22. From Duke George's answer, 
it appears that he had only said that the councillors could 
be electors of Saxony if they willed it, i. e. they couiri 
administer the aflairs of the electorate. It appears as if 
he merely sought to explain away what he had said. 



Chap. IL 



MEETING AT MAGDEBURG.— DIET QF SPIRE, 1526. 



255 



protocol was taken of their conferences ; but 
thus much is clear, — that in the course of their 
deliberations the ties between them were gradu- 
ally drawn closer.* 

But the alliance of two princes, although 
among the most powerful in the empire, could 
effect little: they immediately determined, ac-, 
cording to their former intentions, to try to 
induce other states of the empire to join 'them. 
Each of them accordingly began with his near 
friends and old allies ; Philip, with those of 
the Oberland ; Elector John, with the Low 
Germans. 

Their success was very unequal. In the 
Oberland, public opinion was not yet favour- 
able to a positive league. The Nürnbergers 
had shown themselves well disposed at the 
last diet, but in Gotha they declared, *' they 
would respectfully await the time of his Impe- 
rial Majesty and the next diet." They feared 
the emperor might conceive displeasure against 
them and abandon them to their enemies. The 
Landgrave then applied to Frankfurt, but the 
council declined the proposal ; and an alliance 
with the people, who, the Landgrave was as- 
sured, would find means to force the council 
to do as they would have it, would have been 
a dangerous precedent.- The Elector of Treves 
v/as out of the question; he abandoned, at this 
very moment, the place in the opposition which 
he had hitherto held, and accepted a pension 
of 6000 gulden from the emperor and his bro- 
ther.f It was impossible to bring the Elector 
Palatine to a resolution : at a fresh interview 
with the Landgrave, he declared, indeed, that 
he would venture person and property in the 
cause, but he did not accept the proffered alli- 
ance ; he only held out the hope that he would 
join it at the diet ; he also raised sopae objec- 
tions to the draft of the treaty .± 

On the other hand, the negotiations of the 
Elector of Saxony in Lower Germany were 
eminently successful. There Vv-ere a number 
of princes who had always been attached to 
the house of Saxony, some of whom were nearly 
akin to it. After some preliminary negotiations, 
Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, Philip of Gruben- 
hagen, Henry of Mecklenburg, Prince Wolf 
of Anhalt, and Count Albert of Mansfeld, re- 
paired, on the invitation of the elector, to Mag- 
deburg. § On the appointed day, 9th June, 
Elector John with his son and his cousin also 
arrived at Lüneburg, AU were alarmed at the 
admonition issued by the emperor from Seville, 
which had only now come to their knowledge. 
On the 10th of June, the proceedings were 



* The documents in the Weim. Arch. The ratirication 
at Torpau took place on the 4th March. See Hortleder, 
i. viii. 1. 

t Excerpt of the treaty in BuchoUz, ix. 5. 

J " Da wolle man, saste er, die N'otel weiter stellen," — 
" It was intended, he said, to extend the terms." Letter 
of tlie Landgrave to the Elector, Wednesday after Palm 
Sunday, 28th March. W. A. 

§ It rnns thus : " In Meinung und in Sachen des gött- 
lichen Wortes, damit, so der Reichstag Fortgang gewönne, 
die Sache in christlichen Bedenken zuvor berathschlagt 
wäre." " In the opinion and cause of the Word of God, 
so that as the diet proceeded, the affair should first be 
subjected to Christian deliberation. " Instruction for 
Caspar V. Minkwitz, which was sent to George of Bran- 
denburg, who, however, did not appear. W. A. 



opened ; Electoral Saxony spoke first : he re- 
minded the assembled princes of the danger 
which threatened them from the alliance formed 
at Mainz, and from the document in question; 
and of the necessity of giving in an unanimous 
declaration at the next diet. The compact 
entered into by Saxony and Hessen was then 
laid before them, together with the proposal to 
join it. They were all willing : on ihe 12th 
of June they signed the treaty, as it had been 
drawn up at Gotha and ratified at Torgau, and 
appended their several seals to it.|| 

It is especially remarkable that the princes 
did not disdain to receive into their alliance a 
city, which, it is true, enjoyed great franchises, 
but had by no means the rank or charactfer of 
an immediate imperial city — Magdeburg, where 
their meeting was held.'if It was important to 
them as a central point for all the States of 
Lower Germany ; and moreover it was desir- 
able for them that it should be able to maintain 
itself against the archbishop without their aid. 

Such was the first formation of a compact 
evangelical part}-; in presence of the imminent 
danger which threatened them from the union 
of the emperor with their antagonists, they 
united to defend the truth they acknowledged, 
and above all, to prevent the passing of any 
hostile resolution at the ensuing diet. It v.as 
an extension of the old Saxon alliance from 
religious motives. 

Such were the preparations made on either 
side for a decisive struggle, when, in the sum- 
mer of 1526, the diet was convoked at Spire. 
The Proposition was laid before the diet on 
the 25th of June, and brought the affairs of 
the church immediately under discussion.** It 
was couched in terms which might be satisfac- 
tory to both parties. The States were herein 
exhorted to consult as to ways and means, 
" whereby Christian faith and well-established 
good Christian practice and order might be 
maintained until the meeting of a free council." 
Measures were proposed for insuring obedience 
to the im.perial edicts and the decrees which 
were now about to be passed. It is remark- 
able how gently the edict of Worms is alluded 
to in this last passage. |f 



i! Haiuilung uf den Tas zu Magdeburg. The Proceedings 
at the Diet at Magdeburg,— properly, instructions for the 
proceedings at this meeting. " Ferner ist bedacht, das 
Bundniss so uns. gn. Herr mit dem Landgrafen zu Gotha 
aufgericht, den Fürsten freundlich und vertraulich zu 
zeigen, und wo I. F. Gn. auch darein willigen und schleis- 
sen wollten, als u. gn. Hr. sich genzlichen versehen auch 
frundlich bitten thäte, sollt alsdann solch Bundniss durch 
eine Beschreibung immaassen mit u. gns'<^° Herrn vorge- 
lueldt (dem Landgrafen) auch aufgericht und vollzogen 
v/erden." " Further it is intended to show in friendship 
and confidence to the princes, the treaty which our gra- 
cious lord has made with the landgrave at Gotha : and 
should the princes a^ree and be willing to enter into it, 
as our gracious lord fully expected and cordially request- 
ed, then should this treaty be concluded and ratified, by a 
written contract to that intent with our gracious lord 
aforementioned (the landgrave)." 

IT "At your humble seeking, praj'er, and request," says 
the elector, " we have included the burgheripaster, coun- 
cillers, and guildmasters of the old city of Magdeburg in 
this Christian agreement, because we know that by God's 
grace they are well inclined to the godly word." 

** According to the report of Esslingen of the 1st of 
April, signed, " Ferdinandus Archi. Aust. C. in Imp. Lo 
cut," F. A. vol. xli. 

tt Extract in Neudecker's Actenstiicken, p. 21. 



256 



BIET OF SPIRE, 1526. 



Book IV. 



The deliberations began in the Colleges of 
the Princes, and in them, too, the first resolu- 
tions were indifferent. It was laid down as a 
principle that, in affairs of faith, no decision 
should be come to, and that the old established 
good customs should be observed ; — a principle 
which each party might interpret in its own 
sense. But it was different when they came 
to speak of the abuses which must be reformed. 
The clergy required that this matter should be 
referred to a council ; it could not, they said, 
be within the competence of a diet to separate 
the good from the evil. On the other hand, 
the laity did not choose to be again put off: 
they declared that the common people were so 
far instructed that they would no longer suffer 
themselves to be led with the same simple cre- 
dulity as heretofore. They had on their side 
the cogency of circumstances, the reasonable- 
ness of their purpose, and even the words of 
the Proposition — that good customs should be 
maintained and evil ones severed from them 
and rejected. In spite of the vehement resist- 
ance made by the clergy, who appeared in 
great numbers, it was at length resolved to dis- 
cuss the reformation of abuses, and to enforce 
universal obedience to whatever might be 
agreed on. The clergy had the consolation of 
thinking that they would have their share of 
influence in determining what the abuses were 
which it was desirable to remove.* 

But it instantly became evident that they 
were at a great disadvantage even here. 

The cities to which the resolution of the 
princes was communicated on the 30th of June, 
received it with joy; but the interpretation 
which they instantly affixed to it was quite 
nnequivccal. In their answer they declared 
that, by good customs no other could be under- 
stood but such as were not contrary to faith in 
Christ. But it w^as notorious to all how many 
directly opposed to this, had, to the universal 
corruption, crept into the church. It was a 
great joy to them to learn that these were to 
be abolished."]- 

On the 4th of Julj^, when the bishops took 
their seats in the council of princes, they op- 
posed the reception of this declaration : they 
maintained that the disturbed state of the people 
arose not from the alleged abuses, but from se- 
ditious writings and discourses; in the heat of 
debate, one of them let fall the expression, that 
it would be better if all the books that v/ere 
printed were burned every eighth year. Such 
exaggeration and violence could of course in- 
jure only themselves ; they were reproached 
wath v.'ishing to stifle all science, art, and 
reason,' The answer of the cities w'as accepted 
as it stood. 

* The judgment in the Frankf. Acten, vol. xlii. Otto von 
Pack gives to Dtike Georfre of Saxony an account of the 
'proceedings. Vis. Mar. 2:1 July. (Dresrien Arch.) "1st 
daruf gestanden, class der einig Artikel den Reichstag solt 
zutrennt haben, wenn dy Geystlichen nicht bewilligt das 
»y von den IVIissbrauclien wollten handeln lassen." "It 
is agreed, that the only circumstance which should have 
power to dissolve the diet should be, the clergy not con- 
senting to any arrangement concerning the abuses of the 
church." 

t The answer of the cities, printed by Kapp and Walch, 
xvi. 24ti. 



Upon this the whole diet of the empire was 
now broken up into various commissions, for 
the reform of spiritual abuses ; — one of electors, 
one of princes, and one of cities — in the same 
manner as had been formerly adopted at Worms, 
for the discussion of the charges against the 
papal see. 

The sentiment of dislike and distrust of the 
clergy which reigned in the nation became 
also the prevailing one in the diet. " The 
clergy," says the Frankfurt envoy, " seek no- 
thing but their ovfn advantage, and neglect the 
public good."q;: We find the same complaints 
in the letters of the envoy of Ducal Saxony, 
notwithstanding the strict Catholicism of his 
master. "The greater part of the clergy," he 
says, "have only their own aggrandizement 
in their eye; they cannot deny the mischief 
created by the abuses tha^ have crept into the 
church, yet they Vvdll eradicate none. There 
is more solicitude for the true interests of 
Christianity to be discerned among the laity 
than among the clergy. "§ 

It may be easily imagined how greatly this 
disposition of the public mind was heightened, 
by the arrival of the allied princes of the evan- 
gelical party. 

The Elector of Saxony appeared with the 
state befitting the most puissant prince of the 
empire. He rode in at the head of a numerous 
retinue of horsemen : seven hundred persons 
lived daily at his charge, and his followers 
boast how well they fared in his service. He 
was good-humoured and magnificent. One diy 
he gave a banquet, at which twent5r-six princes 
dined with him ; they were seated at four tables, 
their nobles and councillors at separate ones ; 
some went awa)'' early, others stayed till ten 
o'clock, and played high. The Landgrave, on 
the other hand, with his earnest and learned 
zeal, made a great impression : he showed him- 
self more deeply versed in the Scriptures than 
any of the bishops. [j Both these princes had 
admonished their people, that since they had 
taken a name after the Gospel, they should ab- 
stain from all levities. They had preaching in 
their houses every other day, which, on Sun- 
days and holydays, thousands resorted to hear. 
The armorial bearings over their doors were 
encircled with the words, " Yerdum Dei manet 
in sternum." 



J Hammann von Holzhusen, 1st ed. : "Die Geistlichen 
hearheiten sich heftiglich urn iren eignen und vergessen 
den gemeinen Nutzen." — " The clergy exert themselves 
vehemently for their own, and forget the common inte- 
rests." 

§ Otto von Pack. " Ist am Tage, wenn die Geystlichen 
genieyna Christenheit also meinten wy dy Laien, so biib 
Gottes Ehr, alle gute christliche Ordnung, und bliben 
darzu sye selbst mit aller irer Kab Ehr und Gut, denn ich 
liab bisher keyn Leyen vermerkt der da wolt ein Buch- 
staben von den guten Kirchenordnungen abthiin adder 
dpr Gevstlichen Güter um einen Pfennig schmälern. 
Nicht v/eiss ich was der Churfürst von Sachsen und Hes- 
sen bringen werden." "It is evident that if the clergy 
meant the same common Christianity as the laity, the 
honour of God and good Christian order, as well as they 
themselves with all' their wealth, honour, and property, 
would remain unhurt ; for I have as yet seen no layman- 
who wished to take away an iota from the good discipline 
of the Church, or to diminish its possessions by one 
penny. I knov/ not what the Elector of Saxony and 
Hessen will bring about." 

II Annales Spalalini in Mencken,. 659. 



Chap. IL 



DIET OF SPIRE, 1526. 



S57 



Such were the influences under vrhich the 
reports of the committees of the diet were 
made. All the old complaints and charges 
ag-ainst the encroachments of Rome were re- 
vivedt; among- others, that it exacted far too 
much subservience from the bishops, since they 
were also 'councillors of the empire; against 
commendams and annates, the monstrosity of 
the mendicant orders, &c. It was thought that 
never had language so free been directed against 
the pope and the bishops. The cities pressed 
especially for a better provision for the parishes 
out of the funds of the church, and the right 
of every civil government to appoint priests to 
officiate in them; they demanded that the 
clergy should be subject to the civil burdens 
and tribunals.* 

But by far the most remarkable thing was 
the report which issued from the committee of 
the princes, consisting of the bishops of Würz- 
burg, Strasburg, Freisingen, and of George 
Truchsess for the spiritual; and of Hessen, the 
Palatinate, Baden, and the Count of Solms for 
the temporal bench. | I have not been able to 
discover which of them had the predominant 
influence, whether the well-known moderation 
of the Bishop of Freisingen, or the ardent 
earnestness of the young landgrave, turned the 
scale : be that as it may, in the discussions of 
this committee, the original idea of erecting 
one norm or standard equally binding on both 
parties was kept steadily in view ; and vras, in 
fact, realised in a resolution passed to that 
effect. There was as yet, spite of all the strug- 
gles between the ruling powers, no actual divi- 
sion in the nation itself. The different races 
of Germany stood on nearly the same stage of 
civilisation : all without exception — as we had 
latel}^ occasion to observe of Tyrol — whether 
in the north or the south, had the same ten- 
dency to reform, though their ideas respecting 
the means b)'' which it was to be effected might 
differ. But since these were not yet fixed, they 
might still be moulded into more than one form. 
It might be imagined that a well-conceived 
endeavour to establish a good understanding 
throughout the nation might yet perhaps de- 
stroy those elements of discord, and reconcile 
those wide divergencies of opinions, which lay 
in the league of Regensberg and its conse- 
quences. In such a spirit of conciliation were 
these propositions conceived. They particu- 
larly insisted on the expediency of permitting 
the marriage of the clergy, and granting the 
cup to the laity. It was proposed to leave 
every man free to receive the Holj^ Sacrament 
in one kind or in both ; and it was represented 
to the emperor that it were better for the priest- 
^lood to contract matrimony than to live with 
women of ill fame.ij: The committee proposed 

* Pi-Iemorial of the free and imperial cities against the 
clergy, iu Holzhusen's handwriting in the Frank. A., vol. 
xlii. 

t Report of the Hessian delcgrate, Schrauttenbach, 
Thursday after St. Udalric (5th July), in the acts of the 
diet. Weimar Archives. They are in other respects very 
confused, and aflurd but little information for this year. 

I " Zuzulassen, dass die Empfahung des hochvvürc^igen 

Sacraments unter einer oder beiderlei Gestalten eines 

Jeden Gewissen und Freiem. Willen heimgesetzl wurde, — 

dass niitlerzeit gegen den ehelichen Priesterti von keyner 

33 w2 



that the severity of fasts and confession should 
be mitigated, private masses abolished, and at the 
ceremonies of baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
the Latin and German languages be used joini- 
l)'' ; that the other sacraments should not, in- 
deed, be discontinued, but be administered 
i gratuitously. In regard to preaching, the for- 
mula of 1523 was repeated ; — that God's word 
should be preached according to right and 
sound uiiderstandincr, and according to the in- 
terpretation of the expositors acknowledged by 
the Christian church ; but with an addition 
which evinced a still stronger inclination to 
reform and to the sentiments of Luther ; viz. 
that Scripture must always be explained by 
Scripture. § 

Such were the propositions which issued 
from a commission composed of an equal num- 
ber of spiritual and temporal members. We 
clearl}'' perceive that if the Council of Regency 
formerly showed itself favourably inclined to 
reform, this was not the effect of caprice, nor 
even of choice : the necessity of this step arose 
out of the situation of things, and the strength 
of that universal conviction from whose influ- 
ence no man can withdraw himself. 

After so many abortive attempts and danger- 
ous agitations, the nation once more showed 
the possibility of preserving its unity on the 
most important concern that can occupy the 
mind of man. 

On the 1st of August, a committee chosen 
from all the States was appointed to submit 
this project to final discussion — a discussion 
that promised to be of the greatest interest. 
There is no doubt that the project would have 
experienced much opposition, since the evan- 
gelical party protested against retaining the four 
sacraments, about which nothing is to be found 
in Scripture;'! nor were the catholics satisfied. 
Duke George remarked that the worst abuses 
were yet untouched ; the origin of all the evil 
lay in the bad manner in which the prelates 
found entrance to the church — by the right door 
or the wrong — by the help of powerful kindred : 
in short, the most vehement debates would have 
taken place ;^ but there is no ground for doubt- 
ing that there would have been a decided ma- 
jority, and that it would have passed definitive 
resolutions, binding on the whole empire. 

It was a crisis like that which had occurred 
two years before, when universal preparation 
was made for a national assembly. The diffi- 
culties were now greater, because on both sides 
independent fonns of thought and culture had 
begun to take root; but it was the more im-^ 
portant to oppose some check to their growth, 
and it vras yet possible to do so. 



Uberkeyt geistlichs oder weltlichs Standes etwas streflichs 
werd fiirgenomen."— " To concede, that the reception of 
the most venerable Sacrament under one or both kinds 
should be allowed to every one according to his conscience 
and free will.— that meanwhile no punishment ^should be 
inflicted on married priests, either by the ecclesiastical or 
temporal authorities." 

§ Judgment of the eight commissioners in the Dresden 
Archives. 

II Treatise in Walch, xvi. 258. A reply to the principles 
laid (down by the eight commissioners, partly agreeing 
with, and partly comliating them. 

•C" Letter of Duke George in the acts of the imperial 
jiiet, Dresden Archives. 



258 



DIET OF SPIRE, 1526. 



Book IV. 



Again, however, did that power intervene 
which had forbidden the national assembly, 
and had so often thwarted the resolutions of the 
collective empire. The emperor seemed deter- 
mined to adhere infiexibl}'- to his old policy. 

At the same time that he published the ca- 
tholic admonition, which we have already men- 
tioned, at Seville, he issued instructions to his 
commissioners, commanding them to assent to 
no resolution of the diet that might run counter 
to the established doctrine or practice of the 
church, and again urged the execution of the 
edict of Worms,* This affair is involved in 
some obscurit}^ The instructions must have 
arrived long before, for a considerable time had 
elapsed since Duke Henry's return; and it is 
not easy to see how the commissioners could,, 
nevertheless, feel themselves authorised at first 
to produce others; — unless we suppose that 
they did so in pursuance of a hint subsequently 
given to the archduke. Be this as it may, it 
was not till this advanced stage of the business 
that the instructions in question were produced, 
at the instigation, as it was asserted in Spire, 
of certain powerful ecclesiastics, and not with- 
out corruption and intrigue {'■''Finanz und Hin- 
terlist^) : they created an extraordinary sensa- 
tion. The great committee preserved its firm- 
ness and composure: it declared that it would 
adopt sach a course as it could answer to the 
world ; but it seemed impossible to effect any 
thing, since every new ordinance they might 
frame would be met by the clear, express words 
of the emperor. 

' There was a general persuasion that nothing 
more whatever was to be accomplished. Many 
dedared they v/ould not stay a moment longer : 
■the evangelical party feared that recourse would 
be had to force. For this cause mainly, the 
cities now inclined to the union with Saxony 
and Hessen, in order to have a support and de- 
fence in case violence should be resorted to 
against them.f Nürnberg, Strasburg, Augs- 
burg, and Ulm, now gave their assent to the 
proposal of the princes. 

The complication was most singular. Whilst 
in Italy the pope Avas employing every means 
of attack on the emperor, and stirring up- an 
European war against him, the imperial power 
was once more rendered subservient to the 
maintenance of the authority of the papal see 
in Germany. 

But such a relation was too wide a departure 
from the ordinary nature and course of human 
affairs to endure long. 

In Germany people had already ceased to 
believe in the sincerity of the opinions expressed 
in the instructions. Though their attention was 
chiefly engrossed by internal affairs, they knew 
of tlie treaty of Cognac, and of the misunder- 
standings between the pope and the emperor. 
Thö cities first remarked how very remote was 

* Commission of the 23d March, in the Fr. A. vol. xlii. 
p. 32. 

t Then would " solch Ansuchen und Fulgung zu gross- 
em Nutz gereichen" — "such applications and following 
he of great use." Letter of Holzhusen, 21st August. The 
other cities had their answer by the 25th August. They 
waited to see what the deputies would accomplish before 
tliey came to a final decision. 



the date of the instructions. At that time, 
indeed, the emperor and pope were on a good 
understanding, but now the pope's troops were 
in the field against the emperor. They were 
told that every improvem.ent must be reserved 
for the decision of a general council ; but how, 
under the present circumstances, was it possi- 
ble to expect one] Were' the emperor present, 
he vv'ould see that they could not observe his 
edict, if they would. 

It was rumoured that a caution had been sent 
to the Lady Margaret in the- Netherlands, to 
handle all matters connected \vith the evan- 
gelical religion gently. In the persuasion that 
they were acting in accordance with the empe- 
ror's real sentiments, the cities therefore pro- 
posed to send a deputation which should repre- 
sent to him the state"~of afFairs, and pray him, 
either to grant a national council, or at least to 
recall the order that the edict of Worms should 
be executed. This proposal found a ready- 
hearing in the great- committee, in which an 
anti-ecclesiastical majority had instantly de- 
clared itself. During the discussion of the 
grievances of the common people, the abuses 
of the clergy had, in spite of their opposition, 
been expressly designated as the chief cause 
of the late insurrection. People now called 
to mind that the imperial edict had been oc- 
cepted, only in so far as it should be found 
possible to execute it ; — but it was found utterly 
1 impossible. Nobody was forthcoming who had 
executed it, nay, whose conscience would allov/ 
{ him to execute it, according to the letter.ij: And 
\ how were they to furnish succours against the 
Turks, if they saw danger im.pending over them 
at home 1 The great committee assented to 
the proposition of sending a deputation to Spain, 
and immediately drev/ up instructions for it, 
wherein it ascribed the religious divisions of 
the country more especially to the prohibition 
of the national assembly, and prayed the em- 
peror as soon as possible to call a council of 
the nation at least; and, until then, graciously 
to suspend the execution of the edict, w^hich, 

t A rough draft of the instruction in the Dresden Ar. 
chives proves that these were the motives alleged; the 
petition runs thus : " Der Kaiser wolle die Execution der 
Peen und Straf desseihigen Edictes bis uf ein künftig 
Concilium in Ruw stehn lassen, Ursach es haben die 
Stennd das Edict nicht anders angenommen dan so vi! 
In iriÜ!,dich, wie die kaisserliche Instruction selbs mit ir 
bringt^ und nachdem Etlichen unmüglich gewesen das 
Edici zu halten, so seyen sie auch nicht in die Peen ge- 
fallen, zum andern so man die Buchstaben besieht, so ist 
kain Fürst oder Bisehof der das Edict geballten oder der 
nicht ein Entsetzen hat dasselbise ad literam zu halten." 
— " The emperor wished to let the execution of the pains 
and penalties imposed by this edict rest until a future 
council ; therefore the estates did accept the edict only so 
far as it was possible to carry it out, as was set forth in 
the imperial instruction; and as some had found it im- 
possible to enforce the edict, they were not subjected to 
the penalties:— on the other hand, if the letter of the 
edict be looked to, it were impossible that any prince or 
bishop could enforce it, or not have a horror of enforcing 
it ad literam." Then follows the instruction itself. The 
Frankfurt deputies say, in a letter written from this diet, 
"So wollen wir auch_E. F. W. nicht bergen, dasa auch 
das kais. Edict so ao 21 zu Worms ausgangen, allhie 
auf diesem Reichstag von Fürsten Grafen Herrn una 
Stedten hochlich und fast als unmöglich in allen Puncter 
zu hallen angefochten wird." "We will not concea 
from your princely worships that tlie imperial edict pub- 
lished at Worms, anno 21, will be opposed at this diet by 
princes, counts, lords, and cities, as being almost impos- 
sible to be enforced in all points." 



Chap. IL 



DIET OF SPIRE, 1526. 



259 



to some, was impossible on conscientious 
grounds; to others, because they had reason 
to fear it would cause a rebellion among their 
subjects ; and to a third party, for these rea- 
sons combined. 

It is very remarkable that while such were 
the resolutions come to in Germany, they were 
met by corresponding ideas from Spain. 

We know the point of view' from which the 
imperial court from the first regarded the Lu- 
theran opinions. It had opposed them so long 
as it w' as in alliance with the papacy ; but its 
devotion to the church did not go the length of 
requiting the war wdiich Clement VII. made 
upon it in Italy, with friendly offices in Ger- 
many. Immediately after the battle of Pavia, 
when it first became apparent how^ little reli- 
ance could be placed on the pope's good inten- 
tions, the Grand Chancellor, Gattinara, pro- 
posed to demand a council ; not, as he said, 
really to convoke it, but only to force the pope 
to show a more compliant spirit in his negoti- 
ations.* England at the same time, begn;ed 
Clement to consider how easily any partiality 
shown to France might cost him the obedience 
of that portion of the States of the empire which 
3'et adhered to the church. j But the hostility 
to him had now become far more decided. 
From Germany itself he had been apprised that 
the diet would be more unfavourable than ever 
to his cause : he himself indeed expected no- 
thing else.:}: Long-^-almost too long — did the 
emperor hesitate to declare himself. At length, 
however, after tlie latest negotiations had failed, 
ho assumed a more resolute bearing. After 
many consultations in the council of state 
which he had just then constituted for affairs 
of Spain and German}'-, he wrote to his brother 
on the 27th July, that a proposal which he nov/ 
subjoined had been submitted to that body, for 
abolishing the penal clauses of the edict of 
Worms, and for submitting the truth of the 
evangelical doctrines to the decision of a coun- 
cil. The pope would not have cause to com- 
plain, since it was only the secular, and not 
the spiritual punisliments that it w^as proposed 
to abolish. It was to be hoped that the em- 
peror might then obtain efficient succours, in 
liorse and foot, against the Turks or against 
Jtaly, for the good of Christendom. § 



* The decree in Bucholtz, ii. p. 281. 

t Extract of a letter from Wolsey to the Bishop of Bath 
immediately hefore the battle of Pavia (before Parma, is 
flnabtless a clerical error). Fiddes, Life of Wolsey, 32. 
VVols-?y thought that the course adopted by Campeggi 
promised to kad to the desired end, but " that Germany 
being now so nuich infected with the Lutheran heresy, 
such members of it as still continue in the communion 
of the churcli, may be provoked to withdraw their obedi- 
ence, should his holiness appear to act in favour of the 
French king against tlie emp'eror." 

t Albert da Carpi au Rni de France, 2-Uh June, ]?26, in 
Molini Docum. stor. i. p. 20?. : " que d cette heure se feroit 
le tout le pis que se pourroit contre luv et la ste. siege." 
From a declaration of the Elector of Treves of the 9th 
June. 

§ Extract in Buchoftz, iii. .37L " In his council a draft 
of a well-constructed and well-grounded edict was made, 
the fruit of which was to be, that those who adhered to 
the errors of Luther were to be drawn away from them 
by mildness and leniency ; and a way be atforded them by 
which the truth of the evangelical doctrine might be decided 
ly a good council, which the -pove iioio feared; at the same 
lime they would support Ferdinand against the Turks or 
against Italy, for the common good of Christendom." 



Under these circumstances — the emperor 
himself having made the concession wliich 
Germany urgently demanded — who v/ould not 
have expected that it would be definitely granted 
and proclaimed ] It appears from the original 
documents that Markgrave Casimir of Bran- 
denburg, one of the imperial commissioners, 
zealousy advocated this abolition of penalties. || 
It unquestionably depended on Ferdinand 
alone ; but he was not favourable to it. 

His chief ground of opposition was doubtless 
the fear of displeasing those states of Germany 
w^hich were inclined to the ancient faith. 
Charles, indeed, had remarked in, the letter 
above mentioned, that a part of his council 
thought it expedient to put off the repeal of the 
edict, which might otherwise convert the adver- 
saries of Lutheranism into enemies of his go- 
vernment.^ Ferdinand doubtless knew even 
better than his brother how necessary it was to 
conciliate them. The idea had at this moment 
been suggested at Rome of offering the Roman 
crow'n to soine antagonist of the emperor :** and 
Duke William of Bavaria had already begun 
to canvass the most influential electors with a. 
view to obtaining that dignity. To wrest from 
the catholic princes the edict upon which they 
principally based their persecution of the Lu- 
therans, might have converted them into the 
most resolute and dangerous enemies. He too 
thought it prudent to suspend the repeal of the 
edict of Worms. He thought that when the 
emperor w^as once more within the limits of tha 
empire, and had established his powder there on 
a solid basis, this measure might be cafried 
into effect with advantage, and w-ithout any 
shock to the established religion : then too he 
might obtain a good sum of money from the 
Lutherans in return for this act of grace and 
lenity. j-f But if he w^as not disposed to hasten 
the revocation of the edict of Worms, he had 
just as little inclination or power to urge its 
general execution. A complete triumph of the 
pope's adherents v/ould have, been extremely 
injurious to the house of Austria. 

As, therefore, it seemed neither expedient to 
execute tbe edict nor to repeal it; as no pro- 
posals of a middle course had an)»- chance of 
acceptance ; a principle came into action which 
had already influenced the course of events, 
though rather beneath the surface, and without 
as yet exciting general attention. The princi- 
ple of the development of the several territorial 
powers now prevailed even in the affairs of ^ 
religion. I find that the cities were the first to 
bring this into public notice and discussion. 
They alleged that it was no longer possible to % 
re-establish entire the ceremonies of the church : 
that in m.anj'' places these had been altered, in 
others, had been left wholly untouched; that 
each party thought that his way was the right ; 



II See the Lith. Erlänterung, p. 172. 

IT Cause, " d'estre jnauvais avec les autres." Bucholtz. 
372. Pity the whole letter is not printed. 

** In the Provvisioni per la guerra di demente VII. 
Inform, polit.) this is described as a desirable measure. 

tt Excerpt of a letter from Ferdinand, 22d Sept. There 
is no question that the letter of 27th July arrived in the 
middle of August. Letters from Spain were generally a 
fortnight on the joad. 



260 



DIET OF SPIRE, 1526. 



Book IV. 



that it was impossible in this case to resort to 
force ; and that nothing remained but to leave 
every man to the form of religion he had adopt- 
ed, till such time as a free council should be 
able, by the help of the divine word, to decide 
the matter:* — A proposal fundamentally at 
variance with the nature of a diet of the empire, 
which represented unity, and with the former 
decrees of the empire, which had always been 
of universal application and validity ; but v/hich 
was imperiously commanded by the state of 
things. It was equally impracticable to with- 
draw the edict of Worms from the catholic 
states, or to impose it on the evangelical : the 
thought of granting to every district and every 
state j;he independence in regard to religion 
Vv'hich it had, in fact, begun to enjoy, speedily 
gained ground. It was the most easy and na- 
tural solution of the difficulty : nobody had any 
thing better to advise. The impulse towards 
religious separation which had grown up since 
152-1, triumphed over all attempts to preserve 
and to cement unity by means of reform. The 
committee decreed that " each state should act 
in such wise as it could ansvv^er it to God and 
the emperor; — that is to say, it should do as it 
thought expedient. The committee immedi- 
ately inserted this resolution in the instructions 
for the deputation to the emperor. 

There is a moment at which all the interests 
of Europe at large, and Germany in particular, 
converge and become implicated with each 
other; a moment which, though it appears un- 
important, was in fact the point at which the 
early history of Germany ends and the modern 
begins : — the moment when the Archduke Fer- 
dinand accepted the report of the committee, 
sanctioned the sending of the deputation, and 
approved the instructions drawn up for it. It 
was ordered in the Recess, that until the gene- 
ral or national assembly of the church, which 
v/as prayed for, should be convoked, each state 
should, in all matters appertaining to the edict 
of Worms, " so live, rule, and bear itself as it 
thought it could answer it to God and the em- 
peror."j- 

The reader must pardon the repltilion of 
these words, in consideration of the infinite 
importance they afterwards acquired. They 
contain the legal foundation of the constitution 
of the national churches of Germany, and at 



* P.Iemorial of the cities. Frankf. A. A. vol. xlij. 

t " Demnach haben wir (die Commissarien) auch Chur- 
fiirsten Fürsten und Stände des Reichs und derselben 
Boitschafter uns jetzo allhie auf diesem Reichstag ein- 
Hiüthialich verglichen und vereiniget, mittler Zeit des 
* Concilii oder aber Nationalversammlung nichts desto 
)ainder (d. i. ohne die Rückkunft der Gesandtschaft zu 
erwarten) mit unsern Unterthanen ein jeglicher in 
Saclien, so das Edict, durch Kais. Mt. auf dem Reichstag 
7.:\ Worms gehalten ausgangen, belangen möchten, für 
sich also zu leben, zu reineren und zu halten, wie ein 
jeder seiches gegen Gott un Kais. Mt. hoffet und vertrauet 
ziuverantworteii." " Thereupon have we (the commission- 
f-.rs), aiso the electors, princes, and estates Qf the empire, 
and the ambassadors of the same, now here at this pre- 
sent diet, unanimously agreed and resolved, in the midst 
of the sitting of the council or national assembly (j. c. 
without waiting for the return of the deputation) with 
our subjects, on the matters which the edict published by 
liis imperial majesty at the diet holden at Worms may 
^ concer9, each one so to live, govern, and carry himself as 
lie hopes and trusts to a'nswer it to God and his imperial 
majesty."-- -JVew Qollection of Recesses, ii. 274. 



the samxc time they involve (although leaving 
open the possibility of a future reunion) the 
separation of the nation into two great religious 
parties. They are the words which decided 
the fate of German}^ Catholicism v/ould not 
have been able to maintain itself if the edict 
of Worms had been formally repealed. The 
evangelical party would not have been able to 
constitute itself legally, if the emperor and the 
States had insisted on the execution of that 
edict. The future existence and development 
of both hung on this point. ■ 

Generally considered, it was the immediate 
and necessary consequence of the division be- 
tween the emperor and the pope. Their al- 
liance had produced the edict of Worms : that 
alliance being broken, the emperor and his 
brother revoked the edict in so far as its revo- 
cation was consistent with their own interests. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONQUEST OF ROME, A. D. 1527. 

While these deliberations were going on 
in Germany, in Italy war had already broken 
out. 

The allies had taken the field in June; un- 
questionably not with the necessary prompti- 
tude and decision ; since the imperialists had 
gained time sufficient to put down the insurrec- 
tion of the Milanese, and had at length suc- 
ceeded in taking the citadel. On the ether 
hand, however, the allies took Lodi and Cre- 
mona ; the Swiss, so long expected in vain, at 
length arrived in considerable numbers, and a 
brilliant corps of French men-at-arms joined 
the army. In September the Ligue were evi- 
dentl)'- masters of the country, while the im- 
perialists, cooped up in a city inclined to re- 
hellion, ill paid, and almost cut off from the 
surrounding country, found themselves in a 
very critical situation.:}: 

But the emperor had means of resistance 
and of retaliation at his command, even in 
Italy itself. 

In June he once more made overtures of 
peace to the pope ; at the same time charging 
his plenipotentiary, ügo Moncado, in case he 
received a refusal, to find means of diverting 
the forces, of the enemy from Mil an. § This 
was not difficult to accomplish v the state, the 
city, nay, the Vatican itself, was filled witli 
partisans^ of the empire. When the imperial 
envoy, the Duke of Sessa, rode home from the 
last fruitless audience, he took a fool behind 
him on his horse, who by a thousand antic 
tricks and buffooneries gave the people to un- 
derstand that there was nothing to be done.jl 

X From a letter of Guicciardini to the Datarius, 24th 
Sept., 15-2G, it appears that there was an idea of making 
a new attempt to drive the imperialists oat of Milan. 

§ Letterfrom Charles: Bucholtz, iii. 52. 

il Albert da Garni to Francis I. Molini, Documente 
1. 205. 



Chap. III. 



WARLIKE PREPARATIONS IN GERMANY, 



261 



The pope's open enemies held meetings under 
his own eyes in the houses of the Colonnas. 
In order to fulfil the intention of the emperor, 
the)' resorted to what we may be permitted to 
call the lowest cunning-. They began to make 
"warlike preparations on the frontiers of Naples, 
in the dominions of the Colonnas ; upon which 
the pope too took up arms. They then ofiered 
to enter into a treaty with him. Clement con- 
sented, and was now so devoid of all solici- 
tude, that he discharged a great number of his 
troops in Rome. This was exactly the mo- 
ment they waited for. Having lulled him into 
security, they determined to attack him. — 
Pompeo Colonna — the warlike cardinal who 
had once rent his stole and gone forth to decide 
a quarrel by single combat — who had always 
displayed a bitter personal hatred to Clement, 
now made common cause with Don Ugo, as 
Sciarra Colonna had done with Nogaret. On 
the 19th of September, the troops of Colonna 
appeared before the walls of Rome, and en- 
tered without resistance. The city was utterly 
defenceless : the people did not stir ; they 
•were curious to see whether Colonna would 
really do what he said — take possession of the 
Vatican in the name of the Roman emperor.* 
There was no one to prevent his fulfilling this 
threat ; and the pope, who had fled to the cas- 
tle of St. Angelo, was compelled, in order to 
have his palace restored to him, to consent to 
a truce, not only with Ntiples and the Colon- 
nas, but with -\lilan and Genoa ; in short, in 
respect of all his own troops by land or sea."|" 
It was only on these terms that Colonna's 
army left the city, from which it carried off a 
booty of 300,000 ducats. 

Clement must sorely now have perceived the 
feebleness of his resources and the magnitude 
of the danger ; he must have heard the voice 
that foretells the fall of the avalanche; but 
again he was under the dominion of exaspera- 
tion and vengeance. The obligations which 
he had so solemnly and publicly taken upon 
himself were, as his plenipotentiary, Guicciar- 
dini, wrote to him, far more sacred than these 
conditions, extorted from him by force ;4: nor 
was he disposed to observe the truce an hour 
longer than expediency required ;§ no sooner 
was he in some degree prepared, than he 
attacked the Colonnas and the Neapolitan ter- 
ritory ; in a short time he received French and 
English subsidies in money, and the celebrated 
defender of Marseilles, Re'nzo da Ceri, under- 
took to lead the papal army into the Abruzzi. 
Meanwhile, his other troops served against 

* Contemporary account, in Euder, Sammlunff, unee- 
druckter Schriften, p. 503. Ne;;ri 'o Micheli, iith Sept. 
Lettere di Piincipi, i. 234. (The ilaie in the printed copy 
is wrong.) 

t Conventione di demente VII. con Ugo di Moncada in 
Molini, i. 229. 

tGuicciardini to Datarius, 2Tth Sept. Lett, di Prin. 
ii. 14. He expressed himself very ctiaracteristically : 
''Neil os^ervare la triegua veggo vergogna. iion si fiigge 
spesa et si auirumenta il pericoio: perciie quanto all' ho- 
nore. piu e obligato N. S-^ ad una lega faHa volontaria- 
mente et con tante solennith per salute publica, che ad 
un' accordo fatto per forza et con ruina del mondo." 

§ Excerpt of a letter wherein Clement declares that the 
Treaty is not b.nding on him. 



! Milan and Genoa, just as they had done before 
I the truce. 

j At this moment, however, a new and far 
j greater danger arose in another quarter : the 
I emperor had forces at his disposal of a ver}'- 
: different character from any that Italy could 
I produce. 

I In that letter of the 2Tth July, 1526, which 
; was so decisive for the issue of the diet, 
i Charles had invited his brother either to go to 
' Italy in person, (in which case he meant to give 
, him no instructions, but merely full powers, as 
his alier ego,) or at least to fit out and send a 
strong army.;| 

Ferdinand was prevented from going in per- 
son by the affairs of Hungary, which urgently 
demanded his presence ; but he addressed him- 
; self to the man who had always led the Lands- 
i knechts in Italy to victory — George Frunds- 
' berg of Mindelsheim, who was ready once 
j more to devote all the vigour that age had left 
{ him to the service of the emperor. The great 
: difficulty was to raise money.«;" Ferdinand 
; gave his plenipotentiaries full powers to mort- 
' gage land and people, castles and cities ; he 
declared himself ready to send his jewels to 
pawn in Augsburg. Frundsberg, too, pawned 
his wife's jewels, and offered his own lands 
! to mortgage,** The Italian commanders, who 
declared that they could only hold out for a 
' short time unless they received succours, sent 
! some ready money ; at length enough v.as got 
I together to give the men at least their march- 
j ing money and half a month's pay. Hereupon 
I the drum was beat in all the imperial cities of 
the Oberland, and troops flocked to the standard 
; from all quarters. 

j We run no risk of error in affirming that it 
was not mere martial ardour that now drew 
them togetlier ; they knew that they were to 
march against the pope. 
j This had been foreseen in Rome. Giberti 
' remarked, in the preceding July, that nume- 
rous bodies of men might easily be collected 
in Germany, " on account of the natural hatred 
I which they cherish against us, and of the hope 
i of plunder.-' 

I The emperor's exhortations were conceived 
I in the most insidious terms. His brother, he 
! said, had only to give out that the army he was 
; levying was to march against the Turks : every 
\ body would know what Turks were meant. 
j In a manifesto published by the emperor in 
September, 1556, he expressed himself in a 



\, Excerpt in Bucholtz, iii. 42. 

^ From the report of Otto von Pack, who was sent to 
Insbruck to collect money for Duke George, we see what 
dilEculties he encountered : the Weisers were not in 
funds; the Fuggers wanted the cash that was in their 
hands in order ta dissolve their partnersiiip after the 
death of Jacob Fugger (Dr. A.). According to a letter of 
Ferdinand's to Charles, 2Sth October, löiG.^^Gevay, Docu- 
ments and Acts, part i. p. 22,) it appears as if nothing 
whatever was to be obtained from the money-changers. ~ 

** "Voire que luv mesraes a voulsu engaiger et mectre 
ez mains des fouckres les terres et biens qail a a lentour 
daugspurg, ne luy a este possible sauoir deulx ny autre- 

ment recouurer argent Neantmoins affiii que Je 

tout ne se perde . . . non obstant mes grans atfaires iay 
enuoye audict messire george ce dargent quay peu tintr, 
tplleiiient que de ceste heure il passe audict'ytalie auec 
X"^ bons pietons et vne bonne bände dartülerie." 



262 



FRUNDSBERG'S MARCH. 



Book IV. 



manner which no follower of Luther would 
have needed to disown : he testified his sur- 
prise that the pope should be willing to' cause 
hloodshed for any possession whatsoever ; a 
thing- wholly at variance Vvith the doctrine of 
the Gospel.* In October, he begged the car- 
dinals to remind the pope that he was not 
raised to the pontifical throne "in order to bear 
arms, nor for the injury of the people of Chris- 
tendom :" he again proposed a council, and 
urged the cardinals, if the pope continued to 
refuse it, to call one in his stead : he declared 
that he at least v/ould be guiltless, "if injury 
should accrue to the Christian republic from 
its denial. "f As to Frundsberg, there is no 
doubt that he had for some time cherished 
evangelical opinions, and had, moreover, con- 
ceived the bitterest hatred against the pope 
during the late war4 Immediately after.,the 
battle of Pavia, he had proposed to march into 
the States of the Church, and attack him on 
his ovm ground. He was encouraged in this 
way of thinking by his secretary and compa- 
nion, Jacob Ziegler, who had long been resi- 
dent at the court of Rome, and whose biogra- 
phy of Clement VII. is still extant. From 
this we learn what the Germans there thought 
and said among themselves of the pope; — of 
his illegitimate birth, which ought from the 
lirst to have excluded him from the priesthood ; 
his cunning and craftiness, and his insatiable 
and scandalous rapacity. They accused him 
of a connection with poisoners, and of the most 
shameful vices. They caught up and repeated 
all the rumours of the court, true or false, to 
feed the national antipathy of which they were 
themselves full. These stories, combined v/ith 
the hostility shown by Rome to the emperor, 
which was esteemed most unjust, awakened in 
the Germans, both leaders and common men, 
the same politico-religious zeal against the 
pope, which had been fatal to so many bishops 
in the Peasants' V^'ar. George of Frundsberg 
was thoroughly imbued with it ;§ added to 
which, he was sorry, he said, for "the good 
honest fellows" who were besieged in Milan 
and Cremona. II He declared that he was re- 
solved "to make an end of the affair, and to do 
the pope a mischief, if he could get him into 
his hands." 

If the emperor's policy seconded the reli- 
gious efforts of the Germans, the religious 



* Rescriptum ad Papas Criininationes. " duod tamen 
gti v^a'^ non placuit, it is said (Goldast, Constit., i. 489, 
nr. l^i), licet credere non possemus, eura qui Christi vices 
in terris serit, vel unius guttce humani sanguinis jactnra 
quamcunque secularem ditionena sibi vendicare velle, 
cum id ab avangelica doctrina prorsus alienum videretur." 

t Epistola Caroli ad Collegium Cardinalium Vl'a Octo- 
bris. Goldast, Pol. Imp., p. 1013. 

t See the passage quoted at p. Ö6. 

§Sc!ielhorn, de Vita et Scriptis Jacobi Ziegleri, § 21. 
He reters to an unprinted work of Ziegler's "magnanimo 
heroi, G. F-i in expeditione Italica versanti euni fuisse vel 
a consiliis vel ab epistolis." 

II Letter from Frundsberg to Marrgaret, 19th Sept., 1526, 
" . . ^ u'here the want of money was such a hinderance 
to such help and succour, that it was to be feared the 
good honest fellows would be abandoned, and not only 
the duchy of Milan Tost, but Naples, Calabria, and Sicily 
also ; and likewise that the hereditary and other domi- 
nions of his imperial Majesty must be reduced to great 
extremity." 



spirit by which those efforts were prompted 
was favourable, on the other hand, to the 
policy of the emperor. No sooner did he show 
the smallest leaning to the inclinations of the 
people, than they tendered their whole powers 
to his assistance. 

In November, nearly 11,000 men assembled 
on the mustering g-round at Meran and Botzen :«?[ 
they were joined in Trent by the garrison which 
had just evacuated Cremona, under Conradin 
of Glürns : they were all willing, spite of the 
poor pay they received : about 4000 more 
joined them on their march without any pay 
whatever; " a choice army, such as had not 
been beheld in Italy in the memory of man." 
The great and immediate difficulty was to 
get there ; to cross the Alps, and then to effect 
a junction with the troops in Milan. 

Frundsberg had no mind to waste his time 
and strength on the w^ell-garrisoned fortress of 
Verona : he took the far more difficult road 
over the Sarka mountain, towards the domains 
of his brother-in-law, the Count of Lodron. 
Here, again, two roads lay before him : the 
one on the right practicable for an army, but 
commanded by the fortress of Anfo ; the other 
on the left, a mere footpath between precipices 
and chasms, which a single peasant could have 
rendered completely impassable, but which the 
enemy had n^t observed. Along this path 
Frundsberg began his march on the 17th of 
Novemiber. His brother-in-law, who knew 
every pass and defile of the neighbourhood of 
his hereditary castle, gave him escort for three 
j miles, up to the summit of the mountain. They 
could take but few horses, and even of these 
some fell over the precipices : of the men, 
some perished in the same manner; and the 
j boldest did not venture to cast his eyes into 
I the abyss below. A few sure-footed lands- 
I knechts, forming a sort of railing with their 
long spears, guarded the steps of their veteran 
leader; and thus, holding on one before him 
and pushed on by another, he traversed the 
terrific pass. They reached Aa in the evening, 
and on the I8th arrived atSabbio, without en- 
countering any resistance. On the 19th they 
appeared at the foot of the Alps, at the village, 
of Gavardo, in the territory of Brescia. Their 
provisions were just exhausted, but here they 
found good Farnazio wine ; and having driven 
together 8000 head of cattle, they made m.erry 
after their long privations.** 

TT From the diary in Hormayr's Archiv., 1812, p. 424, 
we see that the army consisted of 10,050 men, and re- 
quired for its maintenance, and that of the various offi- 
cers and followers attached to it, 25,900 gulden (with the 
exchange, 34,842 gulden). The commissaries lent Frunds- 
berg 2000 gulden, " that he might have something in 
hand." He accepted it " with overflowing eyes." 

** Reissjier Frundsberge, 86. Thun, in Hormayr, 428. 
Very minute details of this whole enterprise are to be 
found in Jacob Ziegler'n unprinted work. Acta Paparura 
Urbis RomaB, of which I intend to give a fuller account 
in the Appendix. I shall only remark here, that it is the 
main source whence Reissner has taken his book, which 
it surpasses in brevity and distinctness. It says of the 
march upon Mantua, " Vnd dieweil gfiirlich vnd schwär 
fur die grosse stett press vnd Bergom vber die grossen 
wasser, die allenthalb verlegt durch die gwaltigen hauffen 
der feind, den nechsten auf Mailand zuziehen, hat ersieh 
auf Mantua gewendt."— " And then with danger and 
difficulty, past the great cities Brescia and Bergamo, 



Chap. III. 



JUNCTION OF THE IMPERIAL ARMIES. 



263 



Their intention had been to effect an imme- 
diate junction with the army at ^lilan. But 
the enemy was far too strong ia the field to 
allow this. The Duke of Urbino, commander- 
in-chief of the Ligue, appeared on their right 
flank, and kept them oif from Oglio. They 
saw the impossibility of attacking any of the 
neigiibouring cities, which were all in a good 
state of del'ence, while they themselves were 
without artillery : nothing remained but to en- 
deavour to cross the Po, where the enemy was 
not so strong, and where Bourbon might in 
time be able to join them.* Thither Frunds- 
berg took his way, in three close columns. The 
allies had not yet courage to make a serious 
attack on him ; they merely annoyed him with 
their light cavalry, or with their musketeers, 
who lay in ambush behind hedges or in ditches. f 
Once only he was in serious danger. As he 
entered the fortifications round Mantua, over a 
long and narrov/ dam, the enemy attacked him 
in the rear, and at the same time moved for- 
ward to" occupy the bridge over the Mincio, 
which he had to pass at Governolo. He would 
have been lost if he had suffered himself to be 
hemmed in in this most unfavourable place. 
Frundsberg, however, though chiefly conspicu- 
ous for his rough soldier-like bravery, was by 
no means without a simple and efficient S3^stem 
of tactics. He had secured this bridge exactly 
at the right moment: the attack in his rear was 
repulsed by the musketeers; and, just as a 
considerable body of the enemy's troops ap- 
peared on the other side of the river and seemed 
about to contest the passage with him, fortune 
favoured him so far that one of his first shots 
inflicted a mortal wound on their captain, Gio- 
vanni de Medici, t in whom the Italian soldiery 
put implicit trust. He was a man completely 
after the tastes and opinions of Italy at that 
period— accomplished, prudent, addicted to all 
the vices and debaucheries of the south, but at 
the same time energetic and daring, and gifted 
%vith every other quality of a good leader. 
Hereupon Frundsberg crossed the Po at Ostig- 
lia, and marched up the right bank as far as 
the Trebbia. On the 2Sth of December, he 
arrived in the neighbourhood of Piacenza. 
" Here we are,"' he writes to Bourbon ; " over 
the high mountains, and tfie deep waters, 
through the midst of the enemy, in hunger and 

across the great water, which was obstructed on all sides 
l)y the strong bands of the enemy; in order to take the 
nearest way to Milan, he turned upon Mantua." 

* Bourbon wrote to Frundsberor that lie could not fix a 
route for him. Frundsberg was determined, if necessary, 
to fisht, but otherwise "to put himself in no peril." — 
Letter in if, p. 424. 

t Leoni ; Vita di Francesco Maria d'Urbino, p. 364. 

X The incident that this was exactly the first shot out 
nf tli;^ falconet just arrived from Ferrara, is first found in 
Ziegler. Reissner also used Jovius (Vita Alfonsi, p. 189) 
and Gnicciardini (b. 27, p. 34), who expresses more clearly 
what Zie'j:ler tells somewhat obscurely: "he (Giov. de 
Medici) had one le? shot off at the knee, by a shot from 
a falconet." " Roppe una gamba alquanto sopra al g\- 
nöcchio." AccordinjT to the diary in Hormayr, two fal- 
conets and two culverins arrived from the duke, together 
with 1000 gulden. " Had I," says Frundsberg, " had 400 
or 500 horse, I would, with God's help, have won no slight 
honour for his imperial majesty and his princely highness. 
You may, in short, believe that I never in my life saw a 
more hurried retreat." The enemy lost five hundred 
horse. 



want and misery, we have arrived safe and 
sound. What shall we dol" 

Bourbon required the whole of January to 
reduce Tslilan to such a state of tranquillity as 
that he could entrust it to a part of his troops, 
and march with the remainder to join the Ger- 
man forces. On the 12th January the junction 
was effected near Firenzuola.§ There could be 
no doubt as to the course which it was expe- 
dient for them to pursue. We are already ac- 
quainted with the dispositions of Frundsberg; 
nor can it be matter of wonder that Bourbon 
now hated the pope more than any man living; 
since the emperor's demand that he should be 
created Duke of Milan, to which Clement 
Vvould never accede, was the condition which 
had hitherto rendered. all negotiations abortive. 
Their sole ally in Italy was the Duke of Fer- 
rara, who cherished a bitter hatred to the pope, 
having been incessantly menaced, even in his 
hereditary domains, both by Leo and by Cle- 
ment : he supplied the troops with provisions 
on their march, and urged their leaders not to 
lose a mioment, and to seek their common ene- 
my in Rome itself. || On the 22d February, 
the combined army, 20,000 strong, in six divi- 
sions, Vv'ith some cannon and a small body of 
light horse, broke up their camp at Firenzuola 
and took the high road to Rome. Leaders and 
men were equally persuaded of the fact that 
the pope had begun the war afresh : they knew 
very well that if the emperor allowed them to 
be without pay it was only from vrant of means, 
and they determined to go and seek it for them- 
selves in Rome. Religious antipathy, and the 
desire to avenge the emperor — perhaps to re- 
establish the ancient power of the empire in 
Ital}^ ;1 — the just notion that a war is only to 
be concluded in the enemy's capital ; the eager- 
ness to get possession of their well-earned pay, 
and the rumour of treasures brought from all 
parts of the globe and accumulated in Rome 
for centuries, — all these various feelings and 
motives were blended into one mass of pas- 
sionate determination to conquer and to plunder 
Rome. 

At the very first obstacle that placed itself 
in their way, this temper — now become inde- 
pendent and untameable^burst out v/ith the 
most violent explosfon. 

At the end of February and the beginning of 

§ Frundsberg was very discontented at the long delay. 
He began to suspect treachery : what is told him, he be- 
lieves " like St. Thomas." Letter passim, 430. 

II As early as November, the Duke of Ferrara had ad- 
vised him to establish the Bentivogli in Bologna ; if tliat 
was impossible, " to undertake the campaign against the 
pope ; if Bourbon could raise no money, then to levy con- 
tributions on the towns and villages for the support of the 
landsknechts." 

ITZiegler: " Desshalben aus inanigfaltiger getrungner 
not alle^einhellig beschlossen, das sie eilends den papa, 
den anfaher dess kriegs vnd dieser bundtnus, vberfalleu, 
daselbs bezalung suchen weiten: wann das haubt be- 
zwungen, so wurden sich die stott vnd das land selbs 
ergeben, wo es ihnen dand gluckhen vnd dem kaiser 
geliebt sein wurd, so wolten sie gantz Jtalia wieder zum 
reich bringen."—" Therefore from manifold urgent need, 
all unanimously determined, that they would suddenly 
\ fall upon the pope, the beginner cf tlie war, and upon 
' this league, and would there seek pay : wlien the head was 
subduecf, the city and the country would surrender of 
themselves: if they had luck, and the emperor pleased, 
1 they would bring back the whole of Italy to the empire." 



264 



MUTINY IN THE CAMP. 



Book IV. 



March the papal troops had gained some ad- 
vantages in the Neapolitan territory, and the 
viceroy had actually determined to conclude a 
truce with the pope ; in which, however, the 
sum of money that was to be contributed to 
the support of the army was either not men- 
tioned at all, or very vaguely ; though its re- 
treat into Lombardy was distinctly stipulated.* 
It was not very likely that this treaty would be 
latified by the emperor, or accepted by the 
leaders of the army ; nor, indeed, that it would 
be executed by the papal general ; since the 
army of the Ligue threatened in that case to 
separate itself entirely from the papal troops. | 
But the mere rumour of such a thing, the sight 
of an envoy coming from Rome and returning 
thither directly, threw the Avhole army into 
agitation.:}: The Spaniards murmured first. 
They threatened that they would go over to 
another master who would satisfy their claims 
better; — an empty threat — for vvhom could 
they find 1 Since the emperor owed them eight 
months' pay, nothing remained but to stand by 
their leader. It was fortunate for Bourbon that 
he was able to make his escape; his tent was 
plundered, and his best garment found the fol- 
lowing day in a ditch. The Spaniards instant- 
ly communicated their own mutinous spirit to 
the Germans : their incessant cry v;as, Lanz ! 
Lanz ! Geld ! Geld ! (Lance ! Lance ! Money ! 
Money !) this was all the German they knew ; 
it was like the inarticulate cry of passion. 
Frundsberg, however, did not as yet see any 
ground for fear; he still trusted to his well- 
tried personal influence over the landsknechts. 
He ordered the drums to beat, a ring to be 
formed, and had the courage to go into the 
middle of it, accompanied by the Prince of 
Orange (who had followed the army from Ger- 
many) and the chief commanders : he thought 
he should still be able to effect something by 
means of a few words of reason. He called 
upon them to remember how he had always 
been their friend ,§ and had never left them in 
good times or in evil : he promised that he 
would always be true to his good landsknechts; 
he reminded them that they had sworn to 
stand by one another in life and in death, till 
they should all be paid and satisfied ; then he 
meant to stop : the emperor's foe, the beginner 

* Treaty in Bucholtz, iii. fi05. The contents of this 
treaty as jjiven by Guicciardini ^xviii. 5), do not exactly 
correspond wiüi this ; e. g. there is no mention in Biicholz 
of the 60,000 dncats which, according to Guicciardini, 
were to be paid. Ziegler says, too, " Er welt si'clitzig 
tausent ducaten, iedeni knocht, das sie ans dem land 
ziehen, ainen monatsold geben ;'" — " he would give sixty 
thousand ducats— the amount of a month's pay for all 
the landsknecht whom they brought out of the country," 
which is adopted word for word by Reissner, p. 103. I 
am inclined to think, however, that there were some 
secret articles, as in the Ligue of Cognac. Vettori speaks 
of 65,000 ducats. 

t These uncertainties reduced the papal agents to 
despair. "Si e sempre consigliato lo accordo, ma s'in- 
tende.va un accordo che fiisse fermo e non dubio e intriga- 
to, come questoche si e fatto in Roma e non osservato in 
Lombardia." 

X Sepulvedo, vi. 1. 

§ In a former letter from the army it is said, " Die 
Knecht sind vast wohl mit im zufrieden: er ritt auch 
unter ihnen um wie ein Held, und ist allvveg der fördriste 
beim Haufen." Wittenbach, 4th Feb. 27, in Hormayr's 
Oestreichischer Plutarch, xiii. 112, 



of the war, he would carry off with them.|| 
But reason has little power over congregated 
masses of men, nor is their violence to be con- 
trolled by any arguments. The rational ad- 
dress of their leader, whom every man of them 
individually loved and honoured, they answered 
with the cry. Money ! Money ! which ran like 
the muttering of a storm through their ranks : 
they levelled their lances against the command- 
ers in their centre as if they meant to transfix 
them. Never could such a moment have pre- 
sented itself to the imagination or the fears of 
Frundsberg. It was with him that the organ- 
ization and tactics of the landsknechts had 
mainly originated ; they called him, and with 
justice, their teacher and father. He had fought 
at their head in almost all the wars of the house 
of Austria during that century; he had con- 
quered the most powerful enemies, spite of 
every inferiority of numbers or disadvantage of 
position. His reputation did not rest on the 
mere animal courage of a soldier ; he com- 
manded respect by his coolness and presence 
of mind in the midst of danger ; by the prompt- 
itude v»-ith which he took a salutary resolution, 
and the dauntless valour with which he exe- 
cuted it. His homely sayings are very charac- 
teristic : " Kriegsrath mit der That" (Counsel 
in v.-ar, with action) ; " Viel Feinde, viel Ehre" 
(Many enemies, nmch honour); they inspired 
both the officers and men who served under 
him with boundless confidence. His command 
fully justified their obedience. He still hoped 
by their aid to effect every thing; he did not 
even despair of beating the Turks, and of driving 
them to the frontiers of Europe. Like a true 
partisan and servant of the empire, he embraced 
with a glance Rome and Constantinople. His 
loyalty never v/avered, although, spite of all 
his services, he, was sometimes ill at court; he 
gave vent to his dissatisfaction in a few rhymes, 
and at the next trouble or disaster that befel 
his master, he took down his armour from the 
wall : he held to the great Idea of the empire 
with unshaken constancy. He had now to 
encounter this unlooked-for resistance. He was 
a man of extraordinary personal strength ; on 
one occasion he had pushed aside a very pow-' 
erful adversary \^ith one finger, as if in sport; 
fear he knew not, nor had any sudden mishap 
ever had power to throw him off his gliard ; — 
but that those should (rebel against him whom 
he had made what they vvere, — that they should 
turn against him the spears which he had 
taught them to wield — this was too m.uch for 
him. Its effect was such as no one could have 
anticipated ; in the same moment — ^"at one stroke 
— he lost utterance and consciousness, and 
sank down upon a drum ; he bald reached the 
goal of bis heroic career. Singular catastro- 
phe! He died on the field, but not by the 
hands of the enemy; not in the heat of the 
battle which he had come forth to wage : his 
simple heroic spirit, which had striven, with 
all its honour and all its earnestness, to stem 

II Reissner Frundsberge, 104. (Barthold's Frundsberg, 
I presume.) True and short account in Buder, p. 526.; 
and in Goldast, Polit. Reichshändel, p. 443. : there are 
some small differences which can hardly be reconciled. 



Chap. III. 



MARCH ON ROME. 



the rising- torrent of rebellion in the troops by 
whom he had so long been implicitly obeyed, 
sank when he saw that the tempest was un- 
governable — the passion of revolt triumphant ; 
— it was a sight that struck him with instant 
death. It has been affirmed, that the crafty 
enemy who was now advancing against him 
had stirred up the fire of mutiny by secret prac- 
tices and emissaries. And as against himself, 
no other weapon was needed. If, however, 
the pope thought to gain any thing by these 
means, he was greatly in error. The re-action 
produced in the army by this sudden calamity 
was violent as had been the conduct that caused 
it. It effected what no persuasion, no reason 
could have (Jone. The lances were taken up 
again, the wild tumult was stilled ; the words 
of the chiefs once more found a hearing; the 
whole disorderly mass dispersed. Four days 
after, Frundsberg recovered His speech, but he 
could no longer lead the army. He could only 
beg the Duke of Bourbon not to draw back; 
hitherto, he said, God had guided them ; he 
would not abandon their cause to the end. 
Some money arrived from Ferrara for the Span- 
iards;, the landsknechts had ceased to clamour 
for it; they themselves entreated Bourbon to 
lose no more time : — all they asked was to be 
allowed to march. 

Had Bourbon intended to retreat, he could 
no longer have induced the army to do so.* 

The violence of the hatred entertained against 
the pope by his enemies, was equalled by the 
cool indifference manifested by his friends. 
The army of the Ligue followed the imperial- 
ists at a distance, and seemed rather intended 
to obstruct their retreat than their progress. 
All the great towns of the Ecclesiastical States 
were in as good a state of defence a-s those of 
Lombardy, while the army possessed nothing 
but the road along which it marched ; yet it 
found nq obstacles save those presented by in- 
clement weather and alpiue passes : it encoun- 
tered no enemy. Bourbon advanced slowly : 
on the 5th of April we find him at Imola, after 
taking and plundering smaller towns. He then 
turned to the right towards the Alps, and took 
the road of Val di Bagno.j The larger guns 
he sent to the Duke of Ferrara, the smaller were 
dragged up the mountains ; there was some- 
times a scarcity of bread, but never of meat and 
wine ; the heights were ascended without much 
toil in the neighbourhood where the Sapio, 
Folia, Metora, and several other tributaries of 
the Arno rise, and where numerous springs 
meet and form the sources of the Tiber.:^ On 

* According to Macchiavelli, Speditione a Francesco 
Guicciardini lettera XIV. 29 Marzo, Bourbon expressed to 
the legate, " quanto egli ha desiderato la pace, e la fatica 
ch' egli ha durata per far contenti quelli soldati a questa 
tregua, e che in effetto non ha potuto fargli contenti, 
mostrando che bisogna piu danari, ne dice il numero." 

t Foi>cari, Relatione di Fiorenza, 1527, says that Bour- 
bon could pass either the Val di Latnone, or the Via della 
Maria, from Riinini or the Val di Bagno. Only the mid- 
dle and easiest road was fortified. The others might also 
have been fortified with very little trouble, "si fatadeum, 
si mens non IfEva fuisset." From Macchiavelli's letters 
it appears that when the army broke up its quarters at 
San Giovanni it was thought that it might still return, 
and take the road to Lucca, or attack Ravenna. 

X Plinius, Hist. Nat,, iii, 175, ed. Lugd, Flavius Blon- 
dus, Italia illustr,, p. 344. ^ 

34 X 



the 18th of April the imperialists appeared at 
Pieve di San Stefano, whence they threatened 
at the same time the valleys of the Arno and 
the Tiber, — Florence arid Romej and left it 
impossible for the enemy to decide on which 
side they would first direct their attacks. The 
whole of this region was panic-stricken. 

The pope now perceived that the treaty lie 
had concluded with Lannoy was too favourable 
to be executed. He could no longer refuse 
what the imperialists had always demanded of 
him — money to satisfy the troops. He saw 
that his own safety depended on their disposi- 
tions. He commissioned Lannoy to repair to 
Florence to see what could be raised there. 
Lannoy obtained the assurance of 150,000 
scudi, to be paid at stated terms, and hastened 
towards the Alps, in order if possible to induce 
the army by this promise to retrace its steps.§ 

On the 21st of April he arrived at the camp, 
where he staid three days. He was seen to 
eat and drink with Bourbon; all their misun- 
derstandings were at an end ; but it was clear 
that the offer of the Florentines was not suffi- 
cient for their wants ; they declared that they 
must have at least 240,000 scudi to induce the 
army to return. 

Whether even then they would have found 
this possible — whether they would have seri- 
ously attempted it, — is, I think, extremely ques- 
tionable. The tumults of that camp were too 
fresh in men's minds. Nor do I find that they 
received any encouragement from the emperor. 

The situation of the emperor, we must re- 
mark, is once more extremely singular. 

The expressions of paternal kindness and 
filial obedience which are traditional in the 
Catholic world, had been frequently and osten- 
tatiously exchanged between him and the pope ; 
the emperor still occasionally spoke of the ex- 
tirpation of the Lutherans ; in respect of Italy, 
he gave assurances of which the pope said, he 
would have given the vv'hole world and his own 
soul into the hands of the emperor upon the 
faith of them,!| But Charles's directions to 
his generals have a totally different tendency. 
Lannoy was admonished in February, by no 
means to allow himself to be the dupe of any 
treaty whatever; if he supported Colonna's 
party on the one side, and if, on the other, 
Bourbon came up with his German troops, 
many great and good things might be accom- 
plished. " We see clearly," says he in a let- 
ter, "that they (in Rome) will do no good 
unless they are well thrashed. It will be ne- 
cessary to cut thongs out of foreign leather 
{i.e. to raise money to pay our troops) wherever 
we can lay our hands on it; and we must not 
forget Florence, which has also deserved a good 
castigation."l[ These are nearly the opinions 
which prevailed in the army. The letters to 
Bourbon are in the same tone. The emperor 
tells him to do every thing he can to make up 



§ Instruction of Lannoy in Hormayr's Archiv*. 1812, p 
377. The Excerpts in Bucholtz, p. 71, are taken from the 
same papers. 

11 Instruttione a Farnese, Ranke's Histoi y of the Popes, 
vol, iii. Appendix, p. .19. 

TT Excerpts in Bucholtz, iii. 57. 



266 



MARCH ON ROM|]. 



Book IV. 



the accounts of the war. " You see, the game 
lasts long ; you will neglect no means of 
bringing it to a close."* He did not, it is true, 
break off the negotiations ; he even caused a 
ratification of the truce, and full powers for 
concluding a peace, to be drawn up ; but he at 
the same time commanded the viceroy to de- 
liver up the ratification only in case no change 
in the state of affairs had been brought about 
in the mean time by the army, which might 
render it possible to make better terms. At the 
distance at which he was, his instructions could 
only arrive very late and produce a general 
effect. But it is most remarkable that on the 
very same day when Lannoy and Bourbon 
were together — on the 23d of April — after 
Charles must have knov/n of the truce — he 
did not say a single word to his commander- 
in-chief about observing it. " I see, cousin, 
that you are advancing on Rome," said he, 
carefully avoiding any expression of disappro- 
bation; on the contrary, he insinuated that a 
truce or a peace might best be negotiated there ; 
that he would not send him the full powers, 
although his was the first name that occurred 
in them, in order that it might not appear as 
if he came to sue for peace, so that people 
might know he would compel it by force. f In 
one word, the emperor was well content that 
his army marched on Rome to extort its pay 
there as it could, and to dictate a peace to the 
enemy. 

Let us observe, too, that at this moment, the 
pope was no longer inclined to observe the 
truce which separated him from his allies. At 
the very same time — 25th April — whether it be 
that he had already learned the new demands 
of the army, and had thought them such as it 
was impossible to comply with, or that he was 
determined by the general aspect of politics — 
he concluded a xi^w alliance with the Ligue, 
the terms of which were kept secret, but which, 
we learn from his own declaration, contained 
much that was unfavourable to the emperor-ij: 

In short, both the emperor and the pope were 
determined to try their fortune in war. 

The imperialists, who had felt their hands 
tied by the former truce, were now set at liberty. 
Bourbon delayed not a moment to take advan- 
tage of this change. After some demonstra- 
tions against Florence and Arezzo, in which he 
was supported by Siena, on the 28th of April 
he took that high road to Rome which for cen- 
turies had been trodden alternately by hostile 
armies and pious troops of pilgrims from the 
north. The cavalry of the Ligue was close at 
his heels, but before him he found no obstacle. 
On the 2d of May he was in Viterbo, where 
he was welcomed by the German leaders; on 
Ihe 4th he drove the first papal troops that en- 
countered him, under Ranuccio Farnese, out 
pf Romiglione ; on the 5th he traversed the 
Campagna, and appeared tov/ards evening, 



* 14th Feb. and 31st March. Bucholtz, p. 67. 

t Extract in BuchoUz, p. 67. 

J Instruttione al C Farnese, App. p. 31: " consentendo 
a molte conditioni che erano in pregiudicio della M^ 
Cesarea." 



from the side of Monte Mario, before the walls 
of the Vatican.§ 

The German army thus reached Rome in the 
same state as it had quitted Tyrol and Swabia, 
without having encountered the slightest re- 
sistance, and having seen all its enemies dis- 
perse before it ; its hatred exasperated by the 
Spaniards and Italians who had joined it, and 
who sought in Rome pay and vengeance ; led 
by a general who had already quitted the usual 
path of the morality and policy of his age and 
country, and who hated in the pope the most 
formidable opponent of all his claims and pro- 
jects. 

It would be utterly inexplicable how it hap- 
pened that the prudent Clement did not seek 
by every possible means to avert this storm, 
werfe it not clear that he always believed him- 
self to be the stronger. In Naples he had 
gained ground, in Lombardy he had lost none ; 
the enemy's unresisted advance he imputed to 
his own imprudence in concluding a truce 
which had perplexed his allies : now, as he 
had recalled this measure and renewed the 
Ligue, he did not doubt that its army, which 
was already in Tuscany, would still come to 
his assistance in time : till then, he thought, 
Rome would be in no danger; the walls were 
well furnished v/ith cannon, and five thousand 
arquebusiers were taken into pay : the defence 
of the city vv^as entrusted to the very captain 
who had so successfully repulsed the same 
leader with a similar army from Marseille. 

It remained to be seen how the event would 
justify his security. Bourbon summoned the 
pope to open the city, over whichj he said, the 
bishop had no right, to the emperor, to whom, 
as head of the Roman empire, it had of all 
time belonged. The pope sent for answer to 
the trumpet, that if he did not instantly be- 
gone, he should be shot. 

Hereupon a council of war was called, the 
issue of which could not he doubtful. The 
leaders saw very clearly, that they must not 
allow themselves to be overtaken before these 
walls by the well-commanded enemy who was 
marching on their rear. They resolved to com- 
mend themselves to God, and at once without 
delay to storm Rome ; even though the victory 
should be dearly bought. 

During the night they did not neglect to 
keep the enemy in breath by incessant alarms. 
Meanwhile, every thing was prepared for 
storming. 

Bourbon gave his confessor a commission 
which affords a tolerable insight into the sphere 
of ideas in which his mind moved. He de- 
sired him to tell the emperor, in the first place, 
for the future to keep his troops in good humour 
— especially the Germans, without whom he 
could not hold Italy 4n check: in the second, 
to cause himself to be crowned in Rome, which 
would be yery advantageous to him for securing 
peace with the pope, and obedience from the 

§ In the 21st hour (between 4 and 5 o'clock). The Com- 
mentarius captce urbis says, that the army arrived before 
Rome on the 4th. A part of it must indeed have appeared 
there at that time, if it is true that it was exposed for a 
day and two nights to the fire of the Roman artillery. 



Chap. III. 



CONQUEST AND SACK OF ROME. 



267 



princes of the empire. As to himself, he de- 
clared that his intention was only to force the 
pope to grant him a loan for the payment of his 
troops, and to prepare the coronation of the 
emperor. It is evident that he felt himself en- 
tirely a soldier of the emperor ; he thought to 
hold Rome garrisoned by his victorious and 
contented army, and to procure for his master 
the rank and dignity of an emperor of anti- 
quity. 

It is a remarkable fact, that the sentiments 
of a portion of the population within the walls 
were of the same kind. Rome possessed no 
compact body of citizens, held together by he- 
reditary rights, such as was at that time to be 
found in almost every other city in Europe ; 
the mass of the inhabitants were recent settlers 
from other parts, who lived upon the business 
of the court. As there had been a great and 
continual falling off in its consideration and 
revenues, they would not have been sorry to 
see the government of the priests superseded 
by the court of a puissant emperor, which 
would have afforded them the same or greater 
advantages.* 

On the morning of the 6th of May — on a 
Monday — the imperialists advanced to the as- 
sault of the walls surrounding the Vatican. 
They had got a quantity of trellises from the 
gardens, which they had converted into scaling- 
ladders, by binding them together with willow 
rods. The right side, towards the Porta Santo 
Spirito, was to be stormed by tlie Germans; 
the left, towards the Porta Pertusa, immediately 
behind St. Peter's church, by the Spaniards. 
A thick fog rendered it impossible for the ene- 
my to direct his fire from the distant castle of 
St. Angelo against them, or even to see their 
approach. At the point of their attack, the 
walls were low and the entrenchments thrown 
up in haste. Meanwhile the fire of the carron- 
ades, culverines, and falconets, which were 
planted on the fortifications, was so effective, 
that the first assault of both troops was re- 
pulsed. They, however, instantly prepared for 
a second. The Germans were animated by the 
exhortations of Philip Stumpf, who led them 
to a more favourable spot. Bourbon himself 
was seen to lead on the Spaniards, upon whom 
the first repulse had made some impression, 
and to seize a ladder with his own hand. The 
forlorn hope of the Germans, though under a 
heavy fire of musketry, now succeeded in car- 
rying the mound and the entrenchments. From 
this time they encountered no resistance. Glaus 
Seidensticker, a veteran captain, was one of the 
first to mount the walls with his huge battle 
sword in his hand ; Michael Hartmann, with a 
few comrades, leaped down ; at last they found 
so little steady resistance that they themselves 
hardly knew hov/ they had got over; in their 
fanatical ardour, they thought that God had 
crone, before them in the mist. 



Their leader, Bourbon, was struck at the mo- 
ment in which he was mounting the ladder, by 
a bullet, whether from the hand of an enemy, 
or an accidental shot of one of his own troops, 
is uncertain. I He was destined only to eon- 
duct events to the point at which they mig4it 
be left to their own spontaneous movement; 
they now passed over him, following their own 
unaided and ungoverned courses. But the fury 
of the Spaniards was roused, by the loss of 
their leader, to a pitch which nothing could 
withstand ; shouting Espaila, they too scaled 
the walls. The papal guns were easily taken, 
and the gates and sally-ports opened to the 
crowd that pressed on behind ; a few hundred 
Swiss, who here too were opposed to the lands- 
knechts, were routed without difficulty ; the 
Bbrgo-was conquered before the pope actually 
knew that the attack had begun : he had only 
just time enough left to seek refuge in the 
Castle of St. Angelo. ij: The original, text of 
one of the oldest accounts states that Bourbon 
was carried, still living, in front of St. Peter's 
Church ; here he must have felt the full sense 
of victory — and here he breathed his last. The 
body was carried into the Sixtine Chapel. 

The army was sufficiently well disciplined" 
to preserve its order after his death ; to abstain 
at first, from plunder, and to propose further 
terms to the pope.§ A few months before, Lan- 
noy had demanded 200,000 scudi ; and Bourbon, 
a few days before, 240,000. The generals now, 
under the eyes of the pope, demanded 300,000; 
and, as security for payment, the Transteverine 
city. The pope, who lived in the hope that 
every moment would bring the arm}'' of the 
Ligue — some pretended that they already de- 
scried its advanced guard — and that the city, 
properly so called, would be able to hold out 
till its arrival, even at this mom.ent rejected all 
proposals. 

After four hours' delay, the troops once more 
set themselves in motion to bring their Vv'ork to 
a conclusion. They took the Trastevere with- 
out drawing a sword ; the fire of the match- 
locks sufficed to clear the battlements, and some 
blocks that served as battering-rams, to force 
the gates off their hinges ; the bridges that led 
to the interior of the city were feebly defended : 
the conquerors advanced unopposed through 
the deserted streets ; vthe inhabitants had all 
taken refuge in their houses. At an hour after 
sunset the whole city was in their hands. Until 



The task of the Spaniards was not so 



easy. 



* Vettori : Sacco di Roma, scritto in dialogo. "Gli 
Roniani si persuadevano che I'imperatore avessi a pigliare 
Roma e farvi la sua residenza, e dovere avere quelle 
medesime comoditä e utile che avevano dal domino de' 
preti." 



t According; to the Ferrarese account in Hormayr,'437, 
Bourbon fell\^ither the first or tlie third; a musket-ball 
broke his ribs, and penetrated the intestines ; in half an 
hour he was dead. 

J Vettori, Storia d' Italia, relates what he witnessed as 
follows. " La mattina delli sei appresentö (Borbone) la 
battaglia tra il portone del borge, che e drieto alia casa 
del C'Cesis, e'quelto di S. Spirito, dove ne' piü di luoghi 
non e muro, ma bene vi era facto qualche poco di riparo. 
Era la mattina nebbia grande, che causava che I'artigliria 
non si poteva in modo indirizzare che necesse alii inimici 
i quali dettono la battaglia, e quelli di drento si difende- 
vano ^gliardamente, ma furono tanti quelli di fuori che 
con le mani guastavano i ripari, che erano di terra e de- 
boli, e si ridussono a combattere a piano." See Sepulveda, 
who was also present, and fled into the castle with Al- 
berto Carpi, vii. 7. 

§ The Ferrarese 'account relates that only the camp 
followers plundered at this moment. The attack had cost 
20Üraen. . 



268 



CONQUEST AND SACK OF ROME. 



Book IV. 



midnight they remained in the order in which 
they had been posted ; the mass of the Span- 
iards remained on the Piazza Navona ; that 
of the Germans, on the Campofiore, — at that 
time the most frequented part : at length, as 
no enemy appeared either in the city or near it, 
they rushed forth to plunder the houses. 

For the last seventy or eighty years, uncount- 
ed treasures had flowed in a continual stream 
into Rome : ecclesiastical revenues from every 
country' on earth ; gifts of pilgrims ; proceeds 
of jubilees; incomes of benefices held by the 
prelates : the money for which every spiritual 
favour had been bartered :* and all these riches 
now fell into the hands of naked, hungry, ra- 
pacious soldiers, who had so long been only 
kept in heart by the hope of this hour. 

Within the first day or two, twenty thousand 
persons paid contributions : those of the impe- 
rial party, Ghibellines, were as little spared as 
the Guelfs; the churches as little respected as 
private houses. The great basilics before the 
gates of San Lorenzo and San Paolo were 
plundered ; the tomb of Saint Peter was ran- 
sacked, the ring torn from the body of Julius 
II. : it was calculated that the value of ten 
millions of gold had fallen into the hands of the 
army.f 

The Spaniards made the richest booty ; they 
might be said to scent gold ; they showed equal 
skill in discovering the most hidden treasures, 
and in extorting them by torture. 

']'he Neapolitans were personally yet mme 
ferocious and malignant.ij: Fortunately, after 
some days Pompeo Colonna arrived ; he strove 
to protect the Roman nobles, at least from the 
most revolting outrages, and opened a sort of 
asylum in his house. 

The Germans were satisfied with having 
once more enough to eat and drink ; where 
they found no resistahce, they were rather good- 
natured than otherwise. § They allowed the 
Jews to make their profit without grudging. 
There was much gambling in Campofiore; 
men had grown so suddenly rich, that they 
staked hundreds of gulden on a throw\ Many 
came laden with vases of gold, which they lost 
to more successful players. Or they feasted 

* Francesco Vettori, Storia d' Ttalia, MS., adds: " Ro- 
mani vendevano tutte le loro entrate caro et affittavano 
le loro case a gran pregj ne pagavano alcana tassa o ga- 
bella." He also mentions the profit of each calling : " li 
artiiriani, il popolo ininuto, le ineretrici," Never was a 
richer city plundered. 

t Nova quomodo Roma capta sit relatio in Schardi- 
us, ii. 611. " Per decern integros dies ecclesias gynecia 
monachos moniales et cardinales episcopos prelates ban- 
carios spoliarunt, dcditos ceperunt, libros et registra lace- 
rarunt," &c. Vettori : "La uccisione fu poca, perclie 
rari si uccidono (luelli che non si vogliono defendere, ma 
lapreda fu inestimabile di danari contanti, di gioie, d'oro 
e d' argento lavorato, di vestiti, d' arazzi, paramenti di 
case, mercantie d' ogni sorte e di taglie." 

X An Italian, Jovius, Vita Pompeji Columnae, pp. 191, 
192, draws this distinction. 

§ In the Sacco di Roma, ascribed to Francesco Guicci- 
ardini, or to one Jacopo Buonaparte, these details are 
given at length. At first I did not venture to make use 
of them, as I was not quite sure as to the origin of the 
work; but after further investigation, I think «the facts 
may be as related. I shall give, in the Appendix, my 
views as to the author of this writing, as well as of the 
book called " Memorie storiche dei principali avvenimenti 
politici d' Italia seguiti durante il pontificato di demente 
VII. opera di Patrizio de' Rossi, Roma, 1837." 



Simon Battista, who had been imprisoned by 
the papal government for prophesying the pil- 
lage of the city. But though they had set him 
at liberty, he predicted no good to them ; he 
told them that soldiers' riches and priests' lands 
went the same way. " Take all you can, plun- 
der and spoil," exclaimed he, " you will soon 
lose it all again !" Their anti-catholic feelings 
vented themselves in unseemly jests. Soldiers 
dressed as cardinals, with one in the midst 
bearing the triple crown on his head and per- 
sonating the pope, rode in solemn procession 
through the city, surrounded by guards and 
heralds : they halted before the Castle of St. 
Angelo, where the mock pope, flourishing a 
huge drinking glass, gave the cardinals his 
benediction ; they then held a consistory, and 
promised in future to be more faithful servants 
of the Roman empire : the papal throne they 
meant to bestow on Luther.|| 

Occasionally discords broke out between the 
several nations. A committee was then chosen, 
consisting of three Spanish and three German 
officers, who patroled the streets all night on 
horseback, to keep order.^ 

The leaders lay in the Vatican ; the Prince 
of Orange occupied the pope's chamber. Every 
man kept his horse as near him as possible, 
that it might not be stolen. 

Meanwhile, the viceroy had arrived in Rome 
and renowned the former negotiations. For a 
time, the pope hoped for succour ; the Duke 
of Urbino appeared in the neighbourhood, and 
three times every night signals were made from 
the castle that the garrison still held out. But 
he appeared to fear that tlie Germans would 
defend themselves with more vigour than would 
be shown in attacking them.*"^ 

Nor was it likely that he would be inclined 
to incur any great danger for the sake of the 
pope, since, but a few years before, he had been 
involved in a struggle for life and death with 
the house of Medici, and driven by them out 
of his own dominions. He retreated again, 
without making the slightest attempt at a res- 
cue. The pope was at length com.pelled to 
accept, in a greatly aggravated form, the terms 
he had so often rejected. He now promised to 
pay 400,000 scudi by instalments : as a pledge, 
he allowed the allies to garrison some of the 
strongest places which still held out ; in Lom- 
bardy, Modena, Parma, and Piacenza ; and in 
his own states, Ostia and Civita Vecchia. On 
the 15th June this treaty was concluded, and 
the following day Spanish and German soldiers 
mounted guard in the Castle of St. Angelo. 
Two hundred of the handsomest and stoutest 



K Reissner. Wahrhaftiger Bericht. Much more violent 
effusions of Grüiiewald's against the pope, " who acts 
contrary to the word of God," are related by Cochlseus, 
and repeated by Rainaldus. 

If "AXwfftf Romse, in Hofmann, Nova Collectio, p. 535. 
The Germans would not alloyv the Spaniards to commit 
their abominable outrages,— for example, on the persons 
of female children ; the Spaniards, on the other hand, 
forbade the Germans to mock at the priests, which they 
declared one of the most ungodly of sins. 

**The Germans, at least, were much inclined to march 
against him. Schwegler writes (Hormayr, passim, p. 446), 
in the camp of the enemy there is hunger and discontent; 
if they come nearer, we will seek them in the field. 



Chap. IV. 



FALL OF HUNGARY. 



269 



landsknechts were picked out to do duty about 
the person of the pope. 

The emperor now thought his designs on 
Italy accomplished. He doubted not that his 
army would be able to make an advantageous 
convention w^th the Florentines, who, in the 
general confusion, had driven out the house of 
Medici, and deserted the cause of the pope : it 
was then to march against Venice and encamp 
in the territory of the republic, in order to com- 
pel that state also to make peace. In this 
enterprise, the assistance of Ferrara would be 
valuable."^ 

The title of apostolic, was already exchanged 
in Rome for that of imperial, chamber. 

The Germans had here an opportunity of 
seeing distinctly how the empire had been the 
prey and the dupe of the popes; people showed 
them the ruins of the emperor's palace, and 
explained to them all the stratagems by which 
he had been stripped of the country and the 
city, and eyen of his own imperial residence 
within its walls. But they consoled them- 
selves with the thought, that the man who had 
exalted himself to the station of a god on earth 
would now be brought low by the might of the 
jealous and offended God of heaven. They 
were persuaded that He had opened to them a 
way across the Alps, over the steep rocks 
which they had climbed like the wild goat ; 
He had preserved them unhurt at Mantua, 
where their enemies had thought to catch them 
as in a net; He had commissioned the first shot 
to lay prostrate the pope's ablest captain ; and, 
lastly, having led them by all the large cities, 
in face of the enem}^ and once more over the 
trackless mountains, safe and sound, to Rome, 
He had gone before them in the mist across 
the strong walls. Thus did the mighty God 
strike Antichrist with the lightnings of his 
judgment. I They indulged the hope that now 
times were changed, and the beloved young 
emperor Charles would rule by his mild virtues 
according to the word of our Redeemer alone. :[: 



CHAPTER r 



OCCUPATION OF BOHExMIA AND HUNGARY. 

■ At the moment of this signal success, the 
warlike power of Germany, taking another 
channel, poured itself over Hungary; and here 
also, for the aggrandizement of the house of 
A.U stria. * 

* Letter of Charles's of t'.m 3()th of June, in Hormayr,' 
181'2, :iSl. His intention was to appoint the Duke of Fer- 
rara captain jjeiieral : Milan, Charles could not promise 
to any body, but must wait till Sforza's process was de- 
cided. In a letter of Angerer's of the 1st of July, it is 
said, if 6000 men were but now sent to the assistance of. 
leiva, "all Italy would be won and conquered." 

t Ziegler's Acta Pp. contain these reflections. 

i Words of the Wahrhaftiger Bericht. (True Report.) 
't concludes, " In order that our souls, over which God is 
j_,ord, at our temporal departure may be taken to eternal 
joy, therefore did the Lord Jesus come down into this 
world, and died on the cross for tlie love of all men. This 
may the Lord God grant us!" 



If we would form a clear conception of the 
origin and import of this event, we must bear 
in mind, above all, that the three eastern mo- 
narchies of western Christendom, — Hungary, 
Bohemia, and Poland, had only attained to a 
somewhat stable government, and to a share in 
the benefits of Christianity and civilisation, by 
German influence under various forms. At the 
end of the fourteenth century, it once more 
seemed as if this connexion were indissolubly 
restored. The most powerful house of Germany, 
that of Luxemburg, possessed Bohemia and 
Hungary; while the heiress of Poland Was 
educated as the affianced bride of an Austrian 
prince. 

But in all these countries there also existed 
tendencies opposed to German interference. 
The most formidable enem)'^ of the Germans, 
the Grand Prince Jagjel of Lithuania, succeed- 
ed in driving the Duke of Austria from the 
throne of Poland ; he afterwards sent his ne- 
phew, Koribut, to Bohemia, and his son ob- 
tained the crown of Hungary. The race of 
Jageilon thus consolidated its power throughout 
the east of Europe ; on the one side it presented 
a bulwark against the incursions of the Otto- 
mans, and on the other, excluded all German 
influence : in spite of many turns of fortune, 
it still maintained itself in the beginning of the 
16th century. Sigismund I. ruled over Poland 
and Lithuania ; Vv'ladislas II. over Bohemia 
and Hungary. 

But it no longer possessed any internal 
strength. VVladislas II. was by no means the 
man to curb the stormy nobles of Hungary. § 
He was fitted only for the simplest private life. 
Those about him remarked that he spoke of 
the affairs of daily life with a certain degree 
of good sense, but that this deserted him as 
soon as the discourse fell on matters of state. 
He would not believe any thing bad that vras 
told him of any m.an, and could vrith difficulty 
be brought to sign a sentence of death ;|| every 
body, therefore, did what he liked. Under King 
Matthias, tlie public revenues had exceeded 
800,000 ducats ; under Vvladislas, they gradu- 
ally fell off to 200,000 ; soon after his death, 
there was not money enough to pay the ex- 
penses of the royal kitchen. Every thing fell 
into ruin and decay. " Two things," it is said 
in the Maxims of Tolna of the year 1518, "are 
required for the maintenance of every kingdom 
— arms and lav>-s ; in our kingdom of Hungary 
we have neither the one nor the other."ir 

Under these circumstances, the Jagellons 
gradually saw the expediency of attaching 
them^seives again to the nearest and most pow- 
erful German famil}'- — to the house of Austria. 

§ They would fein have driven away Matthias too. TJje 
Relatio Nuncii apostolici of IS-iO, in Engel, ii. 14, t^ays 
expressly, " Li Baroni cercano di cacciarlo del reame." 

\i Relatione di Sebastian Zustigiian venuto orator di 
Hongaria in Sanuto, iv., 1503, "II re e homo granrie di 
persona e di degnissima genealogia : devoto e religiose, 
e si dice, nunquam habuit concubitura cumrauliere, emai 
si adira, mai dice mal di niun, e se niun dice mal di nnal- 
cuno, dicit rex ; forsan non est verum. .. .Dice assa ora- 
tion, aide tre messe al zorno, ma: in reliquis e come una 
statu a Est piü presto homo rectus quam rex." 

TT Ex Ludovici XL decretis Tolnensis conventus in Ka- 
tona Hist. cric. Ungarice, xix, p. £9. 



27: 



JOHN ZAPOLYA. 



Book IV. 



The Emperor Maximilian, who, as he said, had 
never lor a momeni lost sight of " his own 
rights and those of the German nation" on 
Hungary and Bohemia, had at length, in the 
yearlsiS, the singular satisfaction of receiving 
both kings — Sigismund and Wladislas — at his 
court, and of concluding the strictest alliance 
with them, Wladislas betrothed his son and 
daughter to a grand-daughter and grandson of 
the emperor ; Sigismund promised to marry 
Bona Sforza, who was also related to the house 
of Austria. The year after, "Wladislas died, 
and Louis II. ascended the throne, under the 
joint guardianship of Maximilian and Sigis- 
mund, By degrees, a German party took firm 
root at the court; especially after the marriage 
between Louis and the grand-daughter of Maxi- 
milian, Mary of Austria, had actually been con- 
cluded (a. d. 1521). All was, however, still in 
the greatest confusion. Heberstein cannot find 
words to describe how the great nobles, spi- 
ritual as well as temporal, vied with each other 
in insolence;* how the frontiers were without 
defence, while their armed bands obstructed 
the streets of the capital ; how the loud trum- 
pets called the magnates to dinner, while the 
king sat almost alone ;— all places were distri- 
buted by favour, and the currency was deterio- 
.fated. At length the intelligent queen, at least, 
formed plans for reviving the authority of the 
state ; but already had a power arisen capable 
of opposing a formidable resistance to the 
court. ' 

Under King Matthias the house of Zapolya, 
so called from a Slavonic village near Pos- 
chegfa, whence it originated, rose to peculiar 
eminence. To this house, in particular. King 
Wladislas had owed his accession to the throne; 
whence, however, it thought itself entitled to 
claim a share in the sovereign power, and even 
a sort of prospective right to the throne. Its 
members were the wealthiest of all the mag- 
nates ; they possessed seventy-two castles ;f 
the chief seat of the family being Trentsin, a 
fortress perched on a steep rock overhanging 
the Waag, adorned with the most beautiful 
gardens, watered from wells dug a hundred 
fathoms deep by Turkish prisoners, and de- 
fended by strong fortifications. It is said that 
a prophecy early promised the crown to the 
young John Zapolya. Possessed of all the 
power conferred by his rich inheritance. Count 
of Zips, and Woiwode of Transylvania, he 
soon collected a strong party around him. It 
was he who mainly persuaded the Hungarians, 
in the 5^ear 1505, to exclude all foreigners from, 
the throne by a formal decree ; which, though 
they were not always able to maintain in force, 
they could never be induced absolutely to re- 
voke. In the j^ear 1514, the Woiwode suc- 
ceeded in putting down an exceedingly formi- 
dable insurrection of the peasants with his own 
forces ; a service which the lesser nobility 
prized the more highly, because it enabled 

* Rerum Moscoviticarura Commentarii, Basil, 1571, p. 
146. 

t According to Turnschwamb (Engel, i. p. 193), many 
of them were confided only to trusty hands, such as 
Father John and Stephen Zapolya. 



them tß reduce the peasantry to a still harder 
state of servitude.:!: His wish was, on the 
death of Wladislas, to become Gubernator of 
the kingdom, to marry the deceased king's 
daughter Anne, and then to await the course 
of events. But he was here encountered by 
the policy of Maximilian. Anne was married 
to the Archduke Ferdinand ; Zapolya was ex- 
cluded from the administration of the kingdom ; 
even the vacant Palatinate was refused him 
anil given to his old rival Stephen Bathory. 
He was highly incensed : indeed, at the meet- 
ing of the Rakosch, in 1518, the emperor kep.t 
a few thousand men ready to come to the aid 
of the Hungarian government in ease of any 
violence on the part of Zapolya. § But it Avas 
not till the year 1525 that Zapolya "got the 
upper hand at the Rakosch. The king having 
nevertheless rejected his proposals, his fol- 
lowers summoned an extraordinary diet at 
Hatwan, at which they made an attempt to 
exclude all strangers, to alter the whole go- 
vernment, and take it into their ovv'n hands. 
Tiiey deposed the palatine, Bather}'', and 
elected in his stead the VVoiwode's most inti- 
mate friend, Stephen Yerböcz. As to Zapolya, 
no one entertained a doubt that he aimed at the 
throne. " The Woiwode," says a Venetian 
report of 1523, " has a good head, he is very 
clever, and universally beloved : he would be 
glad if the kingdom suffered some disaster ; he 
would then reconquer it with his own forces 
and make himself king."i| '• He strives," says 
another, of the year 1525, "\\^th all the powers 
of his mind after the crovrrf, and prepares every 
thing so that he may be able to seize it." 
. In order to arrest these hasty and undis- 
guised strides of a vassal towards the final 
goal of his ambition, his opponents, who had 
every thing to fear from his success, rallied 
more closely round the court; declared, at a 
national assembly, the decrees of Hatwan null 
and void, reinstated Bathory, and requested the 
king at length to exert his authority. This 
the queen was fully prepared to do. She de- 
manded complete liberty in the administration 
of the finances, and the direct dependence of 
the frontier troops on the government. She 
warned the papal nuncio not to put too much 
fuel on the fire. 

But before any thing was accomplished — on 
the contrary, just as these party conflicts had 
thrown the country into the utmost confusion, 
the mighty enem}^, Soliman, appeared on the 
frontiers of Hungar}'', determined to put an end 
to the anarchy. Ottomans and Jagellons had 
long stood opposed to each other on the eastern 
verge of Europe : the propitious moment had 
at length arrived, in which the Sultan might 
hope, at least as far as Hungary was concerned, 
to fight out this long pending duel. Five years 

t Tile revolt was directed precisely against the nobility. 
Zeckel called himself, in one of his proclamations, " Regis 
HiingariiB tantummodo subditus et non dominorum."-— 
Katona, xviii, 720. 

§ Maximilian's Instructions to Hebersteiu in Senken- 
berg's Sammlung ungedructer Schriften, iv. p. 20. 

l Relatione del S"- d'Orio, 12th Dec. 1523. " Saria con- 
tento che quel regno si perdesse e poi lui con il favor de 
Transilvani ricuperarlo e farsi re." 



Chap. IV. 



BATTLE OF MOHACZ. 



271 



before, he had conquered Belgrade ; which, it 
was said, had fallen, partly because the Hun- 
o-arian government could not raise the fifty 
rrulden necessary for the transport of the am- 
munition lying ready at Ofen. Since then, the 
strong places on the frontier of Croatia had 
fallen into the hands of the pachas, and the 
plain country was laid open to a great blow. 
Such an one the sultan now felt himself en- 
couraged to strike, both by the internal state 
of , Hungary and the general distraction of Eu- 
rope. In his prison at Madrid, Francis I.- had 
found means to entreat the assistance of Soli- 
man ; urging that it well beseemed a great 
emperor to succour the oppressed. Plans were 
laid at Constantinople, according to which t!ie 
two sovereigns were to attack Spain witli a 
combined fleet, and to send armies to invade 
Hungary and the north of Italy.* Solinian, 
without any formal treaty, v/as by his position 
an ally of the Ligue, as the king of Hungary 
was, of the emperor. On the 23d of April, 
1526, Soliman, after visiting the graves of his 
forefathers and of the old IMoslem m.artyrs, 
marched out of Constantinople v/ith a mighty 
host, consisting of about a hundred thousand 
men, and incessantly strengthened by fresh 
recruits on its road. He understood the art of 
keeping lüs troops under the severest discipline. 
His diar}'' shows that he ordered men to be be- 
headed for having driven the horses of the pea- 
santry, or destroyed the standing corn in a Vil- 
lage. j Still in the bloom of youth, he dis- 
played those brilliant qualities of energy and 
love of conquest Vv'hich had raised his ances- 
tors to greatness. 

"What power had Rungar}', in the condition 
v/e have just described, of resisting such am 
attack ] 

Ibrahim Pacha had already laid siege to 
Peterwardein before the Hungarians had taken 
any measures for defence. The troops had not 
long before been called out, but none had ap- 
peared : contributions had been dem.anded, but 
scarcely any^ thing had been raised. With 
great difficulty, Anton Fugger had been in- 
duced to advance fifty thousand gulden on the 
Neusohler mines. The young king took the 
field v/ith a following of not more than three 
thousand nrien.:|: 

Ibrahim had conquered Peterwardein, and 
had welccmed his sovereign on the Hungarian 
soil with an olTering of five hundred heads. 
The Ottoman array was now nearly three hun- 
dred thousand strong, and had begun to ascend 
the Danube : Soliman caused it to be proclaim- 
rd through his camp that his object was Ofen. 
Meanwhile the troops of some Gespannschafts 
(counties) and a few magnates collected around 
the king; a fev/ companies hired by the pope, 
Bud a few by Poland, also joined him.^ On 

* Narratjv," of Ibraim (the fniberi-Wascha) in the Re- 
port liy Larr.bers- and Jiiri^^chitr? iii Gfvay's Urkunden 
mid i-A(t.:'ii^iackeii zur Gescbicbte der VorJiriltnisse zwi- 
schen Ot's-terreich Ungern und der Pforte, 1530, p. 42. 
t Hammer's Geschichte der Gämauen, v. iii. p. 6^9, 
X Broderitlius: Descriptio cladis Mohaczian<B in appen- 
dice .Bonfinii ed Sambucus, p. 558. See Türnschwand, 
p. 204. I 



his arrival in Tolna, he might have from ten 
to tv/elve thousand men.§ 

The most pressing necessity was to defend 
the passage of the Drave^ whither the palatine, 
who Vv'as certainly not deficient in zeal, now 
hastened. But a number of magnates refused 
to advance vrithout the king. Soliman thus 
gained time to build a convenient bridge, over 
which his army marched without interruption 
for five days. King Louis said, " I see my 
head must be stuck up instead of yours ; well 
then, I will carry it thither myself!" He pro- 
ceeded to the fatal plain of IMchacz, fully re- 
solved with his small band to await in the 
open field the overwhelming force of the 
enemy. 

The troops of the kingdom were as yet far 
from being assembded ; the two miG:htipst vas- 
sals, the Ban of Croatia and the V. (iiv. ooe of 
Transylvania, were still missing; the Bohe- 
mian and rJoravian allies had not yet arrived ; 
— with all its recent additions, the array in 
luohacz amounted to from twenty to twenty- 
four thousand men. Few of them had ever 
seen a pitched battle. The command was in- 
trusted to a Muscovite friar, Paul Tomoiy, 
Archbishop of Colccza, vvho had formerly dis- 
tino-uished himself in a few marauding expe- 
ditions. Spite of all these disadvantages, the 
Hungarians still indulged the m.ost extravagant 
self-confidence. It would have been impossi- 
ble to induce them to retreat;!] the};^ would not 
even form a barricade of their v/agons. As 
soon as the enemy descended the hills in front 
of them, into the plain where they lay en- 
camped, wi:'r:nut a moment's pause they rushed 
upon him. Lut Soliman was as prudent as he 
Vvus daring. The Hungarians thought to de- 
cide the battle by an impetuous charge; "they 
trusted in their harness of the blue steel." Ill 
provided with infantry or artillei^?-, they made 
war in the spirit and manner of the past cen- 
tui}^ On the other hand, Soliman, barbarian 
as he might otherwise be, knew how to avail 
himself of the most recent improvements in 
the advancing art of war; he had planted three 
hundred cannon behind the heights Vv^e have 
m.entioned, and his janizaries were as well 
skilled in the use of the matchlock as any sol- 
diery in the world. The Hungarians found no 
difficulty in dispersing the advanced Turkish 
squadrons and occupying the hill. Already 
they thought they had conquered, but here they 
first beheld the boundless camp of the Osmans. 
They rushed forward headlong, as if the im- 
possible were possible to their valour, and 
were received by a tremendous fire; the right 
wing, from the artillery, the centre from the 
musketry of the janizaries, while the Sipahi 
horse attacked them on both flanks. Here per- 
sonal valour could avail nothing. The Hun- 
garians were immediately thrown into disor- 
der,f their best men fell, the others took to 

§ Among them, 4000 foot, Brod. 559. Ke does not state 
the exact number of the cavalry. ^ 

II Ongari si havea potuti ritrar salvo verso Buda. Copia 
di nil aviso avutodaConstantinopoli in Hammar's Wiens 
erste aufgehobene türkische Belagerung App., No. viii. ■; 
a simple but good statement. 

fr Extract from the Heiduck -Nagy's History of the 



272 



PLANS OF THte DUKES OF BAVARIA. 



Book IV. 



flight. The young king was compelled to flee. 
It was not even granted him to die in the field 
of hattle ; a far more miserable end awaited 
him. Mounted behind a Silesian soldier, who 
served him as a guide, he had already been 
carried across the dark waters that divide the 
plain ; his horse was already climbing the 
bank, when he slipped, fell back, and buried 
himself and his rider in the morass.* This 
rendered the defeat decisive. The leader of 
the nation — the king — and a great part of the 
magnates had fallen, j" For the present, no fur- 
ther resistance could be thought of The land 
was ravaged far and wide; the keys of Ofen 
were carried to the sultan, who celebrated the 
Beiram there. 

Soliman had gained one of those victories 
which decide the fate of nations during long- 
epochs. The great power at the head of which 
he stood, the power which had carried the prin- 
ciples of Islam, such as they had been estab- 
lished in Asia, under Tartar influence, into the 
other quarters of the globe, had been raised by 
him to complete ascendency in eastern Europe. 
Who was strong enough to overturn it ] Trou- 
bling himself little about the defence of the 
places he had taken, he turned back and placed 
the trophies of Ofen on the Hippodrome and 
"the mosque of Aja Sofia. 

That two thrones, the succession to which 
was not entirely free from doubt, had thus been 
left vacant, was an event that necessarily caused 
a great agitation throughout Christendom. It 
was still a question whether such a European 
pov.-er as Austria v/ould continue to exist ; — a 
question which it is only necessary to slate, in 
order to be aware of its vast importance to the 
fate of mankind at large, and of' Germany in 
particular. Before the nature of the relations 
which might subsist between Europe and the 
Ottoman empire could even be discussed, this 
great question had to be decided. 

The claims of Ferdinand to both crowns, 
unquestionable as they might be in reference 
to the treaties with the reigning houses, were 
opposed in the nations themselves, by the right 
of election and the authority of considerable 
rivals. 

In Hungary, as soon as the Turks had re- 
tired, .lohn Zapolya appeared with the fine 
army which h'e had kept back from the con- 
flict: the fall of the king vras at the same time 
the fall of his adversaries. The faction which 
had framed the resolutions of Hatvvan was 
now omnipotent; and, at an assembly at To- 
kay, they determined that, as nothing could be 
undertaken without a king and ruler, thej^ 
would immediately proceed to elect one, and 

Campaijrii of Moliacz, presarved in Petschewi's Ottoman' 
HiPtory (the lingular pxampie of a really useful Oriental 
narrative froiii an Oriental work): communicated by 
Hainsner, in Hnra:iayr's Archiv, for IS27, No. 15. 

* This account (in ,]Vac:y and otliers) is confirmed by 
the letter in Katona, xix. p. GüT., concerning the discovery 
of the body. 

fKatona, p. 703. " ?.Ta,7na dohinc revTim conversio 
sectita fuit, pluribus et prtesulibus et proceribus una Iiac 
dimicatione exstinctis.-" 



to that end convoke a diet at Stuhlweissen- 
burg.:|: Even in Tokay, however, John Zapo- 
lya was saluted as king. 

Meanvv^hile, the Dukes of Bavaria conceived 
the design of getting possession of the throne 
of Bohemia : in this they were encouraged by 
several obsequious nobles of that country ; and 
in September they despatched their councillor 
Weissenfelder to Prague, who found their 
prospects so promising that they determined to 
send a solemn embassy to Bohemia. 

Nor was it in the two kingdoms alone that 
these pretenders had a considerable party. 
The state of politics in Europe was such as to 
insure them powerful supporters abroad. 

In the first place, Francis I. was intimately 
connected with Zapolya: in a short time a 
delegate from the pope was at his side, and 
the Germans in Rome maintained that Clement 
assisted the faction of the Woiwode with 
money. § Zapolya sent an agent to Venice 
with a direct request to be admitted a member 
of the Ligue of Cognac. 

In Bohemia, too, the French had long had 
devoted partisans. We find that, in the year 
1523, they had the project of attacking Austria 
from the side of Bohemia, and had carried on 
a correspondence with an ancestor of Wallen- 
stein, with that object.|| As the King of Po- 
land, who had for some time withdrawn him- 
self from the Austrian alliance, and likewise 
': set up pretensions to the throne of Bohemia, 
j found he had no chance of success, the Polish 
I as well as the French envoys promised their 
support to the agents of Bavaria. 
j By this political combination, Duke William 
of Bavaria was encouraged to form still more 
ambitious plans. 

We have already observed, that Rome felt 
the necessity of, placing a kin^ of the Romans 
by the side of, or rather in opposition to, the 
emperor Charles. Meanwhile, -Duke William, 
one of the most devoted adherents of the Curia, 
had already conceived the thought of raising 
himself to this high station, and had actually 
taken steps in consequence. 

At the same diet of 1524, in which the Coun- 
cil of Regency was overthrown, the houses of 
Bavaria and the Palatinate,- engaged in a com- 
mon struggle against the nobles, laid aside 
their old hostilities and concluded a-new here- 
ditary alliance. Leonhard Eck addressed ami- 
cable reproaches to the elector, that at the last 
vacancy of the imperial crown he had forgotten 
his own pretensions, and had subsequently 

X Among the contradictory accounts of tlie chroniclers, 
the only trustworthy docinnont is the al!^=uer of the King 
of Poland to the invitation sent to liim from Toivay. 
Dogiel and Katona, xix. p. 7-18. 

§ Ziegler, Vita Ciem. Vit., in Sclielhorn's Amoenitateel 
ii."308: " Ea pecunia (he is-?i)eaking of exactions) Trents- 
chinii factionein contra Ferdinandum regem aliquamdiu 
juvit." 

II Lettera di Franc. Massario in Sanuto, torn, xxxv., 
calls him " Waldestein, barone e gran capitano di Bohe- 
mia, volentier. vcniria a servir la S^ia nra cum 10, 20, 3C«> 
persone. Questo c quel capitano che '1 re X™"' TOleva 
condurre." 



CöAP. IV. 



ELECTION TO THE THRONE OF BOHEMIA. 



273 



ceded his right to the Vicariate to the Council 
of Regency.* 

Shortly afterwards, when the princes met at 
the cross-bow match at Heidelberg, which we 
have already mentioned, Dake William no 
longer concealed that he aspired to the Roman 
crown for himself. 

At an interview at Ellwangen, soon after, 
they again discussed the matter. Duke Wil- 
liam appeared willing to give the precedency 
to the elector; but as that prince had taken no 
measures towards the accomplishment of such 
an object, he commenced negotiations without 
scruple on his own account. In the autumn 
of 1526, overtures were also made to the Elec- 
tor of Saxony, though without success, since 
that prince belonged to a party professing 
opinions radically different.-j- 

The consequences that must have resulted, 
had this scheme succeeded, are so incalculable, 
that it is not too much to sny ihej would have 
completely changed the political history of 
Europe. The power of Bavaria would have 
outweighed that of Austria in both German 
and Slavonian countries, and Zapolya, thus 
supported, would have been able to maintain 
his station; the Ligue, and with it high ultra- 
montane opinions, would have held the ascen- 
dency in eastern Europe. Never was there a 
project more pregnant with danger to the grow- 
ing power of the house of Austria. 

Ferdinand behaved with all the prudence 
and energy which that house has so often dis- 
played in difficult emergencies. 

For the present, the all-important object v/as 
the crown of Bohemia. 

His situation as husband of a Princess of 
Hungary and Bohemia, and as brother of the 
widowed queen, brought him into frequent per- 
sonal contact with the most puissant nobles. 
He perfectly understood the art of turning to 
his own advantage every favourable disposftion 
arising out of these circumstances, and of ex- 
tinguishing every germ of antipathy by favours. 
The influential High Burggrave, Low von 
Rozmital, received the assurance that the ac- 
count which he was bound to render of his 
administration would either be altogether dis- 
pensed with, or very slightl}^ inspected. Im- 
portant concessions were also made to Schwan- 
berg, Schlich, Pflug, and the Duke of Mün- 
sterberg. The Chancellor Adam von Neuhaus 
had hastened in the retinue of the Austrian en- 
voy, to use his influence in favour of Ferdinand. 
While a certain number of Bohemian nobles 
were quickh/ induced b}'' these measures to 
declare that they would acknowledge no other 
master than the archduke,:j: no means were ne- 
glected of conciliating the mass of the popula- 
tion. Though thoroughly convinced that his 
wife (and therefore he himself) had an unques- 
tionable hereditary right to the throne, he care- 

* Meraoires de la Vie et dos Faicts de Frederic I. (Comte 
Palatin), in Hoffman's Sammlung ungedructer Nachrich- 
ten, ch. xlii. , 

t" There are traces," says the Bavarian Staatsarchivar 
Stumpf, "that Pope Clement VII. and the King of France 
tried to forward the duke's designs." 

t Extract from a letter of Weissenfelder in Stumpf 
Baierns Polit. Gesch. i. p. 39. 
35 



fully avoided offending the pride which the 
nation felt in the belief that, in a case like the 
present, it had absolute freedom of election. 
He let it appear that his claim was by no 
means the chief motive for his ofi^ering himself 
to their choice. 

At first he thought of at once assuming the 
title of king, but this project he dropped at the 
advice of his envoys. He acceded to the de- 
mand of the Bohemians, that he would take 
upon himself a part of the public debt, incon- 
venient as that was in the straitened state of 
his finances. Nor did he disdain to give the 
most careful answers to all the objections which 
his envoys said were urged against him.§ 

In a word, all his measures were taken with 
such skill and prudence, that on the day of 
election, though the Bavarian agent had, up to 
the last moment, not the slightest doubt of the 
success of his negotiations, an overwhelming 
majority in the three estates elected Ferdinand 
to the throne of Bohemia. 

This took place on the 23d October, 1526. 
A solem.n embassy proceeded to Vienna to in- 
vite him to take possession of his new king- 
dom ; one of the fairest in the v/orld, including, 
as it did, Silesia and Lusatia. 

A very important question, deserving a more 
accurate inquiry, here suggests itself; — what 
influence religious considerations had in this 
election. 

All the countries subject to the Bohemian 
crown were filled with anti-papal elements. In 
Silesia and the Lusatias, the evangelical doc- 
trines were widely diffused ; in Bohemia and 
Moravia, the Utraquists formed a most power- 
ful community. It is hardly probable that, in 
the choice of a king, the interests of these dif- 
ferent confessions were disregarded. 

In this point of view, Ferdinand was infi- 
nitely to be preferred to a duke of Bavaria. 
The dukes were unqualified adherents of the 
papacy, and fierce persecutors. The archduke, 
on the contrar}^ however strict a catholic him- 
self, however careful to appear so (for in all 
the countries in question there was still a ver}'- 
considerable catholic party), had for some time 
showed great moderation in his hereditary do- 
minions. We have seen how little he was 
inclined to favour the secular claims of the 
clergy, and what equivocal decrees the German 
diet had passed under his influence. More- 
over, he was at this moment at open war with 
the pope; the Bohemian election took place 
Vv'hile the recruiting for Frundsberg's army was 
going on. 

We find no traces of the negotiations which 
were probably carried on with relation to re- 
ligious affairs ; but from the Recesses it appears 
that Ferdinand acceded to very remarkable con- 
cessions. 

It is well known that the court of Rome 
never fully recognised the Compactata of the 
Council of Basle (a line of policy it afterwards 
pursued with many treaties unfavourable to 
itself), and, since the time of Pius IL, had ex- 
pressly refused to confirm them. 

§ Extract from the Instructions and the Ambassador's 
Correspondence, Bucholtz, ii. p. 407. 



274 



ELECTION TO THE THRONE OF BOHEMIA. 



Book IV. 



Ferdinand now promised to give their full 
efficacy to the Compactata,* and to assume, 
in treating with, the pope, that they were con- 
firmed, f 

One of the greatest grievances of the Utra- 
quists was, that they had long been without 
bishops to ordain their priests, and that they 
had been reduced to many strange and even 
hurtful expedients to supply this want. Fer- 
dinand promised to procure for them an arch- 
bishop who should put in force the Compactata 
in relation to both spiritual and temporal affairs. 
In short, he solemnly undertook not only to 
protect the Utraquists, but to obtain for them a 
fresh recognition of their privileges. 

Tins was, perhaps, rendered less difficult by 
the fact, that a party hostile to Luther was now 
formed among the utraquists themselves; not- 
withstanding which, however, they were still 
treated as heretics. 

J^or were the general abuses and errors of 
the church entirely forgotten. Ferdinand pro- 
raised the Bohemians to take measures to pro- 
mote a Christian union and reformation — a 
promise which, indeed, either side might inter- 
pret in its own favour, — but which, as it related 
only to the conduct of the emperor, not to that 
of the pope, — to some assembly, of whatever 
nature, not to a general council in which all the 
nations of Christendom were to take part,:}: — 
could, in fact, hardly be understood in any 
other sense than that intended by the German 
diets. 

The Silesians expressed themselves still more 
plainly and unequivocally. 

At a meeting of the States at Leobschütz, on 
the 4th December, 1526, after they had recog- 
nised Ferdinand's hereditary right — though not 
without keeping up the appearance of a certain 
freedom — they commissioned the delegates who 
were to be the bearers of this recognition to 
Vienna, (among whom Vv'ere princes greatly 
inclined to evangelical opinions, — for example, 
Frederic of Liegnitz and George of Branden- 
burg,) to call the attention of the new king 
and archduke to the putting an end to religious 
dissension, "according to the gospel and word 
of God."§ In conformity with these instruc- 

* "Q,uod rursum ad suum vigorem pervenirent." Fer- 
dinanrii Liters, L5th Dec. 1526, ap. Dumont, iv. pp. 1. 469. 

t," Promisimus, cum siimßio Pontifice illud tractare, ac 
si Bohemis ac Moravis ilia (compactata) cum effectu es- 
sent confirmata." 

J Excerpt of the article inserted in the Landtafel, Buc- 
holtz, ii. p. 42U. 

§ The words of the instruction in Biickisch, Religion- 
sacten, MS., torn. i. p. 206, are as follows : — " Und nach- 
dem der allm. Gott aus seiner iröttlichcn Verordnunjr 
geschickt und verleiten, dass wir S. Kön. Mt. zu unserm 
Erbkönige einträchtijrlich angenommen, welcher einmüt- 
tigenund tröstlichen Meinung wir s. Allmächtigkeit billig 
Lob und Dank sagen, so befinden wir nun in Notturft 
unser Seel and Leibs glückseliger Wolfahrt, die jetzige 
vorfallende L-rung und Rweispalt, so sich in dem h. rhristi. 
Glauben zugetragen, bei S. K. M. anzuregen, damit die- 
selb aus solchem Irrthum und Zertrennung erhaben, und 
nach Verordnung der h. christl. Kirchen dem Evangelio 
und Worte Gottes gemäsg nach S. K. Mt. Ausssatz und 
durch unser aller einmüthig und freundliches Vergleichen 
in recht christl. Bestand und gleichförmigen Gebrauch 
g-ebracht würde, welches E. L. ihn und E. F. Gn. bei S. 
K. Mt. alles in UnterthUnigkeit bitten werden, auf dass 
S. K. Mt. dasselbe als ein christl. König zu Trost und Heil 
unrer Seelen Seligkeit, auch zu Dempfung erfolgenden 
Unraths nach dem h. Evangelio gnädiglich zu verordnen 



tions, the delegates entreated the king to take 
into consideration the establishment of a Chris- 
tian ordinance according to the standard of the 
gospel ; that so all might live together in peace 
and unity. Ferdinand replied, he v/ould do all 
that could conduce to christian unity and the 
praise of Almighty God.|| 

As opposed to the traditional opinion, it may 
sound like a paradox to affirm — what however 
the general combination of events warrants us 
in concluding, — that the bearing which the 
house of Austria had at this crisis assumed, — 
opposed to Rome in its political, and moderate 
in its religious views, contributed to secure to 
it the obedience of these countries, which were 
filled with such various elements of opposition 
to Rome. 

By a singular concatenation of circumstances, 
the high Romanist opinions, of which Bavaria 
v/as the champion, contributed, from the very 
first, to the defeat of their plans. 

On his brother's birth-day, the 24th of Feb- 
ruary, 1527, Ferdinand v/as crowned at Prague ; 
on the 11th of May he received the act of ho- 
mage and allegiance in the market-place in 
Breslau, and the German princes hastened to 
accept from the new suzerain a renewal of the 
fiefs which they held of the Bohemian crown. 
A Muscovite ambassador, who happened to be 
then at the court, expressed his surprise that so 
magnificent a kingdom should have passed into 
the hands of a new lord without a sword being 
drawn. T[ 

The affairs of Hungary were not so easily or 
so peacefully settled. 

That country offered a certain analogy to 
Bohemia in a religious point of view. Qf.een 
Mary, around whom the Austrian party gather- 
ed, was esteemed a friend of the new opinions : 
she did not keep the fasts, read Lutheran writ- 
ings, and had followers of Luther at her court. 
In November, 1526, Luther dedicated a psalm 
to her, for consolation under her misfortune. 
On the other hand, Zapolya's partisans affected 
strict orthodoxy : their chief organ, Verbocz, 
passed among the Lutherans for a great hypo- 
crite ; he had caused a covered way to be con- 
structed from his own house to the neighbour- 
ing Capuchin convent, that he might enjoy 
uninterrupted communication with it.** 

und zu verschaffen geruhe."— "And since Almighty God, 
in his divine providence, has ordained and granted that 
we have unanimously accepted H. R. M>'. to be our liere- 
ditavv king, for which unanimous and comfortable opin- 
ion we civ^e due praise and thanks to the Almighty, we 
now find it needful for the welfare of our souls and bodies 
to bring the errors and divisions which now prevail in 
the holy Christian faith .before H. R. My., whereby the 
same may be raised out of such error and division, and 
accordina to the ordinances of the holy Christian church, 
and aure^eably to the gospel and the word of God may, 
conformably with H. R. M^.'s pleasure, and by our una- 
nimous and amicable agreement, be brought to a true 
Christian understanding, and a uniform practice. Your 
princely graces will, in all submission, pray H. R. My., in 
order thnt H. R. Mr., as a Christian king, may be pleased 
graciously to order and procure the same to be done ac- 
cording to the Holy Gospel, for the comfort and benefit 
of our souls, and for the prevention of future troubles." 

|! Petition and Resolution, in Schickfuss, Schlesische 
Chronik, iii. 171. Also in the Appendix to Bucholtz, ii 
523. 

TT Herberstein E. M. C, p. 154. 

** Turnschwamb, in Engel, i. 197. " Stephen Verbocz 
amicus S"^" Relatio Actorum ; Engel, ii. p. 55. 



Chap. IV. 



OCCUPATION OF HUNGARY. 



2f75 



The political consequences of these conflict- 
in2: opinions were, however, not very obvious 
in Hungary. The inclinations in favour of a 
church differing in form from that established, 
were as yet too scattered, too insignificant, to 
produce any sensible effect. Ferdinand, who 
had been reproached with surrounding his wife 
with Germans, who, it was said, were all Lu- 
therans,* carefully endeavoured to maintain his 
reputation as a good catholic. On the Good 
Friday of 15-27, he took occasion to admonish 
his sister concerning her religious leanings.j 
On Corpus Chrisii day of the same year, he 
was seen following the procession through the 
streets of Vienna, in regal ornaments, with a 
sword girt at his side and a missal in his hand, 
looking around to see that every body paid due 
reference to the holy elements. From time to 
time he issued mandates for the maintenance 
of the ancient practices of the church. 

But in Hungary, superiority of force was 
at that time more important than questions of 
religion. 

It could not be said that the vrhole nation 
was split into two hostile parties ; rather, that 
two political tendencies existed in its bosom ; 
the one inclining to the court and the palatine, 
the other, to the opposition and Zapolya. After 
the disaster of Mohacz, they stood in the same 
relation to each other as before ; the prepon- 
derancy of either was dependent on the mo- 
mentary assent of the majority, who had at- 
tached themselves decidedly neither to the one 
party nor the other. 

At first, when Zapolya came forward, full 
armed and powerful out of the general deso- 
lation, he had the uncontested superiority. The 
capital of the kingdom sought his protection, 
after which he marched to Stuhlweissenburg, 
where his partisans bore down all attempts at 
opposition :t he was elected and crowned (11th 
of November, 152G) ; in Croatia, too, he was 
acknowledged king at a diet; he filled all the 
numerous places, temporal and spiritual, left 
vacant by the disaster of Slohacz, with his 
friends. We have mentioned the negotiations 
he set on foot in all directions. In Venice and 
Rome, in Munich and Constantinople, we find 
his agents. When some one showed him an 
address of Ferdinand's, exhorting the Hunga- 
rians to abandon him, he smiled, and said, 
"kingdoms were not conquered in that man- 
ner." 

But Ferdinand soon had recourse to other 
expedients. 

The party of the former court had still suffi- 
cient strength and im.portance to convoke a diet 
on behalf of Ferdinand, the husband of a Ja- 
gellon, who had so many ancient treaties in his 

* Diarium in Coinitiis Pestlianis, in Ensel, ii. 51. " De- 
dit ei GermanoS qui omnes fuerunt LuTherani." In Ka 
tona, xix. 515, Art. v. " Fiikkarii abiegentur : oratores 
Cesareus et Venetus (the latter only for the sake of the 
former, as the Venetian Kelation expresses) esmittaiitur ; 
Lutherani etiam omnes de regno extirpentur, — ubicuni- 
que reperti fuerint, lihere comburantur." 

t Correspondence in Bucholtz, ix. 

t So at least the Bishop of Nitra, Hodmanizky, excused 
himself for placing the crown on Zapolya's head. He says 
lie should havG been in danger of his life if he had re- 
fused—Diploma Ferdinaudi ; Katona, xix. p. 752. 



favour. It was held at Presburg — also in No- 
vember, 1526 — and elected him king. Stephen 
Bathory and Alexis Thurzo, the Bishop of 
Wesprim, were extremely active in his' service. 
There is a diploma of Ferdinand's, in which 
he names his adherents, expresses his gratitude 
to them, and promises his supporters the best 
posts and offices hereafter.§ Nor did he ne- 
glect to try the efficacy of gold ; mindful of the 
hint of his sister Mary, that he could accom- 
plish more with a gulden now, than in future 
perhaps with a large sum. Heavily as they 
pressed upon him, his gifts were still insuffi- 
cient to put an end to the waverings of the 
magnates. Ferdinand saw indeed — for he had 
too much good sense to indulge in any illusions 
— that the grand thing was superiority in arms. 
The acquisition of the crown of Bohemia gra- 
dually enabled him to obtain the necessary 
force, and he received some pecuniary aid from 
his brother. If he hesitated to reject the nego- 
tiations which the King of Poland set on foot at 
Olmütz, it was, as he expressly says in an ex- 
tant letter, merely in order to gain tim^e for his 
preparations. At length he had proceeded far 
enough. II 

On the 31st July, 1527, Ferdinand, reached 
the half-ruined tower on the high road between 
Vienna and Ofen, which m.arks the boundary 
between Austria and Hungary: he was re- 
ceived by the palatine and a few Hungarian 
horsemen. As soon as he touched the soil of 
Hungary, he alighted from his horse and swore 
to m.aintain the privileges of the kingdom. He 
had brought a noble army into the field. The 
grants of his new kingdom had enabled him to 
raise an excellent body of infantry: he was 
preceded by Katzianer; and he now distin- 
guished himself by the most rigorous discipline, 
which he enforced even on the Bohemians. 
Rogendorf, vrho had just returned from Spain, 
and the veteran captains, x^Iarx Sittich and Eck 
von Reischach, had brought up the most expe- 
rienced landsknechts. Besides these, the king's 
new vassals, Casimir of Brandenburg, George 
of Saxony, and the aged warrior, Erich of 
Brunswick, had been induced to send some 
squadrons of German reiters to his aid. Ca- 
simir, notwithstanding that he had adopted de- 
cided, though moderate, evangelical opinions, 
was invested with the chief command. Nicho- 
las von Salm, whose name we met with at the 
battle of Pavia, and Johann Hilchen, the com- 
panion of Sickingen, were with this army. It 
amounted to 8000 foot and 3000 horse. The 
king was advised not to expose his person to 
danger, lest he should share the fate of his 
predecessor ; but as at this moment he received 

§ Katona, xx. 19. " Prylaturas et dignitates et beneficia 
ecclesiastica ac bona et jura hereditaria et ofiicia qus ad 
collationem nostrara regiam— devolventur, prsefatis, con- 
siliariis et his qui nostras partes sequentur, pro suis cui- 
que meritis ante alios donabimus." — Ferdinand describes 
the circumstances of both elections in a letter to his bro- 
ther of 3Ist Dec. 15-26. (Gevay, .p. 30.) He asserts thar 
he was elected by a vast majority. 

Ii Ferdinand to Mary, 7th April. " Combein que nay 
nullement en voulente— riens traicter ny conclure, neant- 
moings— pour entretenir les affaires jusques a ce que sole 
de tout prest pour me mectre aux champs, . . , ie luy (au 
Roi de Pologne) ay bien voulu accorder icelle joura6e."— 
Gevay, p. 60. 



276 



OCCUPATION OF HUNGARY. 



Book IV. 



the intelligence that a son was born to him, and 
the succession thus secured, he insisted on ac- 
companying the expedition.* 

Nor did this assume a very formidable as- 
pect. The first fortified places, Comorn, Tata, 
and Gran, fell without much resistance : the 
excellent artillery, the red-hot cannon-balls, 
quickly reduced the garrison to despair. The 
Germans advanced without interruption ; and 
as soon as it appeared possible that Ferdinand 
might be successful, Zapolya's followers began 
to desert him. The fleet in the Danube went 
over first, — the military importance of which 
■was equal to its moral effect ; next the Ban 
Bathyany, who had already changed sides 
more than once, returned to that of Ferdinand. 
Peter Pereny, who is regarded as the first 
evangelical magnate in Hungary, and Valen- 
tine Török, suspected of being actuated by the 
desire to retain possession of some seques- 
trated church lands, appeared with splendid 
retinues.j" The example of these great men 
was followed by innumerable obscurer ones. 
Zapolya saw that his antagonist was the 
stronger, and neither ventured to meet him in 
the field, nor even to hold the capital against 
him, but retreated to his own dominions. On 
the 20th August, St. Stephen's day, Ferdinand 
made his entry into Ofen. 

■ V/hilst the States of the kingdom assembled 
about him in that city, the German reiters 
under Nicholas von Salrn — Markgrave Casimir 
having died at Ofen — pursued the Woiwode 
across the Theis. Never did the German 
troops display more bravery and constancy. :|: 
They had often neither meat nor bread, and 
were obliged to live on such fruits as they 
found in the gardens : the inhabitants were 
wavering and uncertain — they submitted, and 
then revolted again to the enemy ; Zapol3'a's 
troops, aided by their knowledge of the ground, 
made several very formidable attacks by night; 
but the Germans evinced, in the moment of 
danger, the skill and determination of a Roman 
legion : they showed, too, a noble constancy 
under difficulties and privations. At Tokay, 
they defeated Zapolya and compelled him to 
quit Hungary ; after which they had the honour 
to escort their royal leader and countryman to 
Stuhlweissenburg in silken and embroidered 
sureoats over their glittering armour. On the 
3d November, 1527, Ferdinand was crowned 
in Stuhlweissenburg : only five of the mag- 

* Ursiniis Velins de Bello Pannonico, ed. Kollar. From 
the collations in Katona, who has inserted this work en- 
tire, it is evident how inferior is Isthuausi and even Zer- 
megh to these contemporaneous and circumstantial ac- 
cou"nts. 

t Gebhardi Gesch. v. Ungarn, ii. 287. In Bucholtz, iy. 
323, there is a document concerning the submission of 
Pereny, which probably relates to this matter, and is ex- 
tremely remarkable. Pereny represents the following as 
his first demand :— " Inprimis cupit D. Petrus der S. W'^'^ 
assecurari, ne a religione sua unquam prohibeatur, quan- 
doquidem verum et honum Christianum se profiteatur et 
pcientem fidem Chanam ^gr Christum juxta evangelium.'' 
Ferdinand answers : " Concedit M. S. uti se gerat verum 
et bonum Ch=^i"m ut cujusque erga deum pietas fidesque 
nostra vera et catolica dictare et postulare videtur." A 
concession which, though very equivocal, seems to have 
satisfied Pereny. Witliout doubt, he thought himself also 
in possession of the fides vera et catholica. 

I Velius : " Hand unquam alias Germani militis virtus 
et patientia in bello magis euituit." » 



nates of the kingdom adhered to Zapolya. 
The victory appeared complete. 

Ferdinand, however, distinctly felt that this 
appearance was delusive. " Monseigneur," he 
writes in the same November to his brother, 
" I do not doubt that the nature of the Hunga- 
rians, — the fickleness of their will, is known 
to you.§ They must be held in with a short 
rein if you would be sure of them." It was 
not without great hesitation that he could re- 
solve to leave Hungary again at this moment. 

In Bohemia, too, his power was far from 
secure. His Bavarian neighbours had not re- 
linquished the hope of driving him from the 
throne at the first general turn of affairs. 

The Ottomans, meanwhile, acting upon the 
persuasion that every land in which the head 
of their chief had rested belonged of right J;o 
them, were preparing to return to Hungary; 
either to take possession of it themselves, or 
at first, as was their custom, to bestow it on 
a native ruler — Zapolya, who now eagerly 
sought an alliance with them — as their vassal. 

This was a state of things in which the 
most important events often hang on the fate 
of a battle. The house of Austria had no other 
means of maintaining the position it had 
reached, than the assistance of the empire, to 
which it was compelled incessantly to appeal. 

On the Germans now devolved the defence 
of Christendom against the Ottoman power. 



CHAPTER V. 

FOUNDATION OF EVANGELICAL STATES. 

So important, in respect of the foreign rela- 
tions of Germany, were the consequences of 
the events which coincided with the meeting 
of the diet at Spire. 

But that assembly at the same time gave 
rise to qther consequences, affecting the inter- 
nal affairs of the empire and the church, which, 
comparatively insignificant as they at first ap- 
peared, were intrinsically, and with relation to 
the whole future condition of Germany, of far 
higher and more unequivocal importance than 
any external acquisitions. Those of the States 
inclined to evangelical opinions undertook to 
form new ecclesiastical establishments in their 
territories, on the basis laid down by the Re- 
cess of the empire : they proceeded to sever 
themselves definitively from the world-embrac- 
ing hierarchy of the Latin church. 

But as it usually happens that, at the begin- 
ning of radical changes, the principles most 
strongly opposed to the existing order of things 
are the most prominent and influential, so, in 
the present case, the extremest objects were 
those most anxiously aimed at ; and the ideas 
most in favour were those most at variance 
with the absolute dominion of the papacy. 

Luther, at an earlier period, had contributed 



§"Leur muable et fragille vouloir." Gevay, p. 120. 
Bucholtz, iii. 114. 



Chap. V. 



NEW IDEA OF THE CONSTITUTION OF A CHURCH. 



277 



to this result. In* the year 1523, the Bohe- 
mians, having fallen into intolerable confusion 
and perplexity, in consequence of their adhe- 
rence to the necessity of episcopal ordination, 
he advised them to choose their pastors and 
bishops themselves without scruple. "First 
prepare yourselves by prayer," said he, " and 
then assemble together in God's name and 
proceed to the election. Let the most eminent 
and respected among you lay their hands with 
good courage on the chosen candidate, and, 
when this has taken place in several parishes, 
let the pastors have a right to elect a head or 
superintendent to visit them, as Peter visitfed 
the first Christian communities."* Ideas of 
this kind were at that time very popular and 
widely diffused, both in Switzerland and Ger- 
many. We find even an obscure congregation 
declaring to its new pastor, that he is not their 
master but their servant and minister ; peremp- 
torily forbidding him to apply to the bishop 
concerning any one of his congregation, and 
threatening him with dismissal, if he does not 
adhere to the single and eternal word of God.f 
The congregations began to regard themselves 
as the sources of spiritual power. Had these 
principles become universal, the edifice of a 
new church must have been raised on a purely 
democratical basis. 

And, in fact, the experiment was tried in 
one large principality of Germany. 

There is nothing in the history of these 
times more remarkable than the decree of the 
synod which Landgrave Philip of Hessen held 
with the spiritual and temporal estates of his 
dominions at Homberg. The objection raised 
by the guardian of the Franciscans of Marburg 
— that at so small an assembly no decision 
could be taken on affairs which properly be- 
longed to a general council — was easily over- 
ruled ; since even at the diet the impossibility 
of waiting for such a council had been admit- 
ted. On the other hand, Francis Lambert 
succeeded in establishing the contrary princi- 
ple — that every Christian is participant in the 
priesthood ; that the true church consists only 
in their fellowship, and that it is for this church 
to decide, according to God's word, upon arti- 

* L. de instituendis Ministris Ecclesire ad clarissimum 
Senatum Pragensem. Opp. Jen. ii. p. 554. " Coiix'ocatis 
et convenientibus lihere quorum corda Deus tetigerit, ut 
vnbiscum unum sentiant et sapiant, procedatis in nomine 
Domini et eligite quem et quos volueritis, qui digni et 
idonei visi fuerint, turn impositis super eos manibus illo- 
rum qui potiores inter vos fuerint, confirmetis et commen- 
detis eos populo et eccIesioB seu universitati sintque hoc 
ipso vestri episcopi ministri seu pastores. Amen." 

I Dorfmaister und Gemaind zu Wendelstains Fürhalten 
den Amptleuten zu Schwobach iren newangeenden Pfarr- 
lierrn gethan Mittw. nach Galli, 15-24. Abgedruckt in 
Riederer's Nachrichten zur Büchergeschichte, Slc. ii. .■?34. 
" Nachdem ainer christlichen Gemain gebürt, einhellig in 
sich in die Gemaind zu greifen nach einem erbarn unver- 
leumpten Mann, . . welchen auch dieselbe Gemaind JMacht 
hat wieder abzuschaffen. Der Widerchrist, der sie in der 
babylonischen Gefangenschaft halte, habe ihnen auch 
diese Freiheit entzogen," &c. — The master (magistrate) 
and parish of Wendelstain's charge to the functionaries 
at Schwobach, as to their new priest, Wednesday after 
Galli, 1524. Printed in Riederer's Nachrichten, &c., 334. 
" Afterwards it is incumbent on a Christian cnngreeation 
to look out unanimously for an honest and blameless 
man, . . . whom the same congregation has power to dis- 
miss again. The antichrist who holds you in Babylonish 
captivity has robbed you of this liberty among others," &;c. 



cles of faith.ij: The idea was formed of con- 
stituting a church consisting solely of true be- 
lievers. The following was the scheme drawn 
up to that effect.§ 

It was proposed that, after a sermon, a meet- 
ing should be held, and every one should be 
asked whether he was determined to submit 
himself to the laws, or not. Those who re- 
fused should be put out and regarded as hea- 
thens. But the names of those v/ho chose to 
be in the number of the saints, should be writ- 
ten down; they must not be troubled if, at 
first, they should be few, for God would soon 
increase their number : these would constitute 
the congregation. The most important busi- 
ness of their meetings would be the choice 
of their spiritual leaders (here simply called 
bishops). For this station any citizen of irre- 
proachable life and competent instruction should 
be eligible, whatever were his profession ; but 
he should be allowed to retain it only so long 
as he preached the genuine word of God. Each, 
parish or congregation should have some mem- 
bers who should perform military service, and 
a common chest or treasury, to which all should 
contribute, and out of which the poor, and those 
who had been driven from their homes for the 
Gospel's sake, should receive assistance. The 
right of excommunicating, it was affirmed, is 
inherent in every man: the crimes which draw 
down this punishment are specified : absolu- 
tion can only be granted after sin has been 
confessed and repented of. [We see that the 
most rigid church discipline is united with the 
fullest independence of the several religious 
communities. The pretensions set up are 
sanctified by the profound earnestness of spirit 
which dictates them.] Every year the church- 
es, represented by bishops and deputies, should 
assemble in general synod, where all com- 
plaints should be heard and doubts resolved. 
A committee of thirteen should be appointed 
to prepare the business and lay it before the 
meeting, to be decided according to God's 
word. At the general synod, the meeting of 
which was permanently fixed for the third 
Sunday after Easter, three visitors were to be 
chosen, v.^io were to examine the state of each 
individual church. 

It is very remarkable that the man who 
worked out these ideas into so complete a 
scheme of church government, was a foreigner 
— a Frenchman of Avignon — who, converted 
by Zwingli, had become deepl)^ imbued with 
evangelical doctrines in the school of Luther. 
The ideas are the same on which the French, 
Scotch, and American churches were after- 
wards founded, and indeed on which the exist- 
ence and the development of North America 
may truly be said to rest. Their historical im- 
portance is beyond all calculation. We trace 
them in the very first attempt at the constitu- 

J Paradoxa Francisci Lamberti in Scultetus, Annales 
Evang. p. Cb. Tit. vi. § 6. Tit. iii. § 1. 

§ Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassice juxta certissiman 
sermonuni Dei regulam ordinata in venerabili synodo per 
clemmum Hassorum principem Fhilippuui ao 1.526, d. 2üt£i 
Oct. Hombergi celebrata cui ipse princeps interfuit. 
Schmincke Monumenta Hassorum, ii. p. 588. Bickell 
Zeltschrift des Vereins für hessische Geschichte i. C3— 69. 



278 



PRINCIPLE OF THE 



Book IV. 



tion of a church ; they were adopted by a small 
German synod. 

It was another question, however, whether 
they could be carried into execution in Ger- 
many generally. 

Luther at least had already renounced them. 

In the first place, he found them attended 
with almost insurmountable difficulties. — 
Throughout the whole of his labours, he had 
fouud a powerful ally in the desire of the 
higher secular ranks to emancipate themselves 
from the immediate supervision of the clergy. 
People would not now consent to have an 
equally galling yoke laid upon them in another 
form. Moreover, Luther found that he had no 
men fitted for an institution of this kind. He 
v/as often highly incensed at the stubborn in- 
docility of the peasants, who could» not even 
be prevailed on to maintain their clergy. He 
said "the ordinances of the church fared as 
they might do if they had to be practised in 
the market-place, among Turks and heathen : 
the greater- part stood and gaped, as if they 
were only looking at something new."* In 
short, the whole state of things was not adapt- 
ed to such institutions. If these ideas, which 
^we may describe as ecclesiastically democratic, 
afterwards triumphed in other countries, it was 
because the new church rose in opposition to 
the civil power ; its real root and strength 
Vy^ere in the lower classes of the people. But 
it was far otherwise in Germany. The new 
churches were founded under the protection, 
the immediate influence, of the reigning au- 
thorities, and its form was naturally deter- 
mined by that circumstance. 

For the ideas which find their way into the 
world are modified by external circumstances. 
The moment of their production has an inevita- 
ble and permanent effect on their w^hole exist- 
ence ; they live on under the same conditions 
which attended their birth. 

It is worth while, at the point at which we 
are arrived, where we have to examine into the 
foundation of the evangelical church, to en- 
deavour to acquire a precise and comprehensive 
notion of the circumstances under which it 
took place. We shall thus be able to form a 
more exact estimate of the lawfulness of the 
measures adopted. The principle of the eccle- 
siastical law of the evangelical church, on 
v.'hich the whole structure is founded, may, if 
I mistake not, be arrived at by an historical 
deduction. 

The first and most important consideration 
which presents itself is, that the real origin of 
the movement is to be found in the internal di- 
visions of the church ; that the secession took 
place within her own proper domain. A uni- 
versity, with those nurtured in its bosom, set 
the example; the lower clergy through a great 
part of Germany followed ; they were the men 
who changed the opinions of all classes, the 
lowest as well as the highest — who carried all 
along with them. In innumerable places the 
established form of worship fell of itself. 



* Preface to the Book on the German Mass. Altemb. 
iii. 468. 



It was the immediate business of the spi- 
ritual power to repress this movement ; — but it 
was unable to do so. The pope's bulls were 
not executed. In one portion of the empire 
the secular power no longer lent its arm to 
enforce the ordinances of the bishops. The 
new opinions were become so strong in a num- 
ber of the princes of the empire, that they no 
longer regarded this as their duty. 

Hence the ecclesiastical power had address- 
ed itself to the emperor, and an edict had been 
published in its favour; but as this did not 
spring from any intrinsic necessity, but from 
partial political considerations, it had been 
found impossible to carry it into execution. 
After all the ebbs and flow's of the religious 
agitation, the diet had at length determined not 
to revoke it, but to leave to the discretion of 
every member of the empire, whether he would 
execute it or not. 

What under these circumstances could be 
the result in the territories infected with the 
ideas of the reformation ] Should their princes 
seek to restore an authority with which they 
had incessantly been at bitter strife, which had 
drawn upon itself the hatred of the whole 
nation, and whose ministry they deemed un- 
christian] The Recess of the diet did not 
enjoin this upon them. It said, that no man 
must be robbed of his goods or his revenues; 
the re-establishment of the spiritual jurisdiction 
was purposely passed over in silence. Or 
were they to wait till a council should be con- 
vened, and should restore order? It was im- 
possible to foresee when that might take place; 
— the diet itself had found it impossible. Nor 
could things be left to their own undirected 
course, or to chance. If the nation were not 
to be given up to a wild anarchy, the existing- 
lawful authorities must take measures for the 
restoration of order. 

If it be asked, how the princes of Germany 
were empowered to act thus, their warrant 
must not be traced to a sort of episcopal autho- 
rity ; at least not at the beginning. It was on 
this occasion that Luther expressly declared, 
" that the temporal power was not commanded 
to govern spiritually." Another opinion then 
put forward is more plausible; namely, that 
the church actually existing committed to the 
sovereign of the country the office of supervi- 
sion. Luther, however, w'ho maturely weighed 
all these things, and would do nothing without 
full certainty, only said, " that people prayed 
the princes, out of love and for God's sake, to 
take upon themselves this "affair." The new 
church was not yet itself constituted ; it is 
quite certain that it did not esteem itself com- 
petent to confer a right on others. 

The right, properly so called, is derived, if I 
mistake not, from another source. 

It were hardly possible to question the com- 
petency of the empire, in the prevailing state 
of confusion, to frame ordinances respecting 
ecclesiastical, as well as civil affairs, at a 
regular assembly like that intended to be held 
at Spire. It is true that scruples were urged 
from more than one quarter, but these scruples 
were at a subsequent period removed. Other- 



Chap. V. 



EVANGELICAL ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. 



279 



wise we must call in question the legality of 
the Religious Peace, as well as of the peace 
of Westphalia, neither of which was ever ac- 
knowledged by the papal power. 

Nor was the validity of the Recesses of 
1523 and 1524, which were so important to 
the cause of religion, ever doubted in Ger- 
many. 

Had the assembly of the empire, proceeding 
in this course, used its unquestioned right, and 
organized a reform for all classes, a total revo- 
lution must have been the result. 

The meeting of the empire could not, it is 
true, come to any such unanimous decision; 
but it did not on that account relinquish its 
powers, as is proved by the way in which it 
subsequently used them. At the time we are 
speaking of, the diet deemed it expedient — for 
that is the point on which the whole depends — 
to entrust the exercise of its rights to the terri- 
torial rulers. 

For what other interpretation can be put 
upon the liberty granted by the diet to the 
princes, to agree with their respective subjects 
whether or not they would obey the edict of 
Worms? — a matter necessitating the most de- 
cisive and sweeping measures.* What the 
assembly of the empire was not unanimous or 
determined enough to execute, it left to be exe- 
cuted by the several States, 

Thus 4he matter was understood by Land- 
grave Philip, when he invited his " subjects 
cf spiritual and temporal estate" to repair to 
Romberg, " in order to come to an agreement 
with them in affairs relating to the holy faith." 
IMarkgrave Casimir of Brandenberg takes the 
same ground, when, as a god-loving prince (as 
he calls himself) and a dutiful subject of his 
imperial majesty, he makes an arrangement 
with the deputies of his dominions, the spirit 
of which, notwithstanding a certain discreet 
reserve, is unquestionably evangelical. We 
possess a little treatise of that time, in which 
not only the competency, but the duty of 
princes to make regulations conformable with 
the standard of the Divine Word, concerning 
the whole Christian life and conversation (since 
the edict was intended to extend to them also), 
is deduced from the words of the Recess.f To 



* " Das ist Jp die Wahrheit, dass das kais. Edict anders 
nichts innen hült.deiin die Sachen unsern h. Glauben und 
Eeligion, auch die Irsallehren und Missbräuch so daraus 
entsprungen se.vn, belancjend. So denn an denselben, 
neniüch wie und was man glauben, was man lehren pre- 
digen und halten, was man auch in solchem fliehen und 
vermeiden soll, ein ^anz christlich Leben und unser einige 

Seligkeit ohne Mittel gelegen ist, so folset gewisslich, 

dass der angezeigte Artikel auf ein ordentlich christlich 
Leben Regiment und Wesen muss gezogen werden. Die 
hineingebrachten Wort des Edicts machen auch den Ar- 
tikel viel läuterer." (Worte der gleich anzuführenden 
Schrift.)— "That is the truth, that the imperial edict con- 
tains nothing but what concerns the affairs of our holy 
faith and religion, and the false doctrines and abuses that 
have sprung out of it. So then, as upon this, — namely, 
how and what we must believe, what should be taught 
and preached and held, also what should he eschewed and 
avoided, — a wholly Christian life and our own salvation 
immediately depend, so it of a certainty follows that the 
above-mentioned article must extend to the rule and na- 
ture of a proper Christian life. The words of the edict 
make the article much clearer." (Words of the writing 
in which the above edict is quoted.) 

f'Ein christlicher Rathschlag welcher gestalt sich 

alle christliche Personum von Obern und Unterthanen 



this Luther alludes when he mentions that the 
Emperor Constantino found himself constrained, 
during the prevalence of the Arian troubles, to 
interfere, at least so far as to summon a council 
in order to put a stop to further disorders. 

In a word, it was the incontestable right of 
the highest power in the state, on the breaking 
out of these dissensions in the church, to take 
measures for putting an end to them — the right 
of the whole collective body of the empire, 
transferred to the several States, — in virtue of 
which the evangelical princes proceeded to 
carry through the reform in their own domi- 
nions. 

Plence the democratical ideas we have men- 
tioned could not gain ascendency ; the exist- 
ing facts did not tend that way ; the church 
did not constitute itself from below. Nor had 
that community of true believers, answering to 
the idea of the invisible Church, to which the 
right of giving laws to itself might have been 
committed, any actual existence. Luther con- 
tinued to regard the Church as a divine insti- 
tution to be supported by all temporal autho- 
rities (as heretofore) ; instituted not for the 
purpose of representing the great Mystery, but 
above all, for the instruction of the people; 
"as a public incitement," as he expresses it, 
" to faith and Christianity." Whilst he de- 
nounced the bishops who had suffered the 
people to remain in such a state of barbarous 
ignorance, that they had not even learned the 
Lord's Prayer or the Ten Commandments, and 
knew nothing of the Christian faith, he, at the 
same time, combated the notions of some re- 
formers, who thought that education being 
rendered more accessible and general, the 
priesthood might be entirely dispensed with : 
in his view, the Church is a living, divine in- 
stitution, for the maintenance and the diffusion 
of the Gospel by the ministering of the sacra- 
ments, and by preaching: his idea is, as 
he says, " to drive the doctrine of the Scrip- 
tures into the hearts of men ; that so present 
and future generations may be replenished 
with it." 

These were the ideas which presided over 
the ecclesiastical institutions of the Saxon do- 
minions. 

The elector had nominated certain Visitors 
who should examine the state of each parish, 
as to doctrine and life. Instructions drawn up 
by Melanchthon, and approved, nay edited, by 
Luther, were sent in their name to the respect- 
ive clergymen. 

These are well worthy of attention. 

The opposition to the papacy, vehement as 
was the struggle still pending, had already 
fallen very much into the back-ground ; it was 
admitted that this was not a fit topic to be de- 
bated in the pulpit and before tKe people. The 
preachers were admonished not to use reproach- 
ful language concerning the pope or the bish- 

halten sollen, dass sie das nach Anzeigung eines sondern 
Artikels im Abschied des jüngstgehalferien Reichstaet^zu 

Speier mögen verantworten." — " A Christian counsel 

. ..what conduct all Christian persons, rulers, or subjects 
should observe, that they may answer it, according to Mie 
admonition of a particular article in the recess of tha 
last held diet at S^iie."—JforUeder, b. i, c. 2. 



280 



SAXON VISITATION. 



Book IV. 



ops, but to keep solely in view the wants of *he 
-many — the implanting of the evang-elical doc- 
trine in the minds of the common people. The 
greatest respect for all that was traditional and 
established was shown. It was not thought 
necessary positively to forbid the use of Latin 
for the mass : the administration of the sacra- 
ment in one kind was even deemed allowable, 
where any one from scruples of conscience was 
unwilling entirely to throw oil the ancient 
ritual; though the compulsion to auricular con- 
fession was rejected as unauthorised by the 
Holy Scriptures, it was declared salutary for 
every one to confess the sins by which he felt 
his conscience burdened, and about which he 
needed counsel '/nor were even all the festivals 
of the saints abolished ; it was enough if they 
were not invoked or their intercession prayed 
for. 

The idea which we have already frequently 
expressed — that the reformers rejected only the 
pretensions to infallibility and to exclusive 
saving power, which were the grovv-th of later 
centuries, but by no means abandoned the 
ground on which the Latin church stands, — 
here presents itself again in great distinctness. 
They sought only to get rid of the load of per- 
plexing traditions, to free themselves from 
hierarchical usurpations, and to recover the 
pure meaning of the Lloly Scripture — the re- 
vealed Word. ■* Whatever could be retained 
consistently with this, they retained. They 
took care not to perplex the minds of the com- 
mon people with difficult controversial doc- 
trines, especially those concerning good works 
and free will. Not that they had in the least 
degree fallen off from the convictions they had 
come to; — from the fundamental doctrine of 
justification by faith ; from the conflict with 
the error of seeking salvation in the observance 
of human ordinances : on the contrary, they 
repeatedly proclaimed these principles with all 
possible clearness, but they required at the 
same time penitence, contrition and sorrow, 
shunning of sin and piety of life. For it is 
unquestionably in the power of man to flee 
from evil and to do that which is right; the 
impotence of the will means only that it cannot 
purify the heart or bring forth divine gifts ; 
these must be sought from God alone. f The 
end they proposed to themselves was, to lead 
men to inward religion, to faith and love, to 
blameless conversation, honesty and good order. 
Far from departing on any point whatsoever 
from genuine Christianity, they made it their 
chief merit to imbue the minds of their hearers 
more and more deeply with its principles. Lu- 



* See Luther's Vorrede auf da? Büchlin des Herrn Li- 
centiaten Klingenbeil, 1528, Altenb. iv.458. " Wir haben 
die Schrift für uns, dazu der alten Väter Spruche und der 
vorigsn Kirchen Gesetze, dazu des Papsts selbst eigenen 
Brauch da bleiben wir bei : sie aber haben etlicher Väter 
Gegensprüche, newe Canones und ihren eignen Muthwil- 
len olin alle Schrifft und Wort Gottes."—" We have the 
Scripture for us, and also the maxims of the old father's 
and the laws of the early church, and likewise the usage 
of the pope himself— by that we abide : but they have the 
contrary maxims of some fathers, new canons, and their 
own wantonness, without any Scripture and word of 
God." 

f Instructions of the Visitatores to the parish priests 
of the Elector of Saxony. Altenb. iv. 389. 



ther deems it his highest praise that he applies 
the maxims of the gospel to common life. He 
made it his especial business to instruct the 
several classes of society in their duties, on 
religious grounds : the secular authorities and 
their subjects, the heads of families and their 
several members. He displayed a matchless 
talent for popular teaching. Lie tells the clergy 
how to preach with benefit to the common peo- 
ple ; schoolmasters how to instruct the young 
in the several stages of learning, — how to con- 
nect science with religion, and to avoid exag- 
geration ; masters of families how to keep their 
servants in the fear of God : he prescribes to 
each and all texts for the good ordering of their 
lives ; the pastor and his flock, men and women, 
aged people and children, men-servants and 
maid-servants, young and old ; he gives them 
the formula of the Benedicite and the Gratias at 
table ; of the morning and evening benediction. 
He is the patriarch of the austere and devout 
discipline and manners which characterise the 
domestic life of Northern Germany. What 
countless millions of times has his " Das wait 
Gott,":[: reminded the tradesman and the pea- 
sant, immersed in the dull routine of the v/ork- 
ing day, of his relation to the Eternal ! The 
Catechism, which he published in the year 
1529, — of which he said, that he repeated it 
himself with devotion, old doctor as he was, — 
is as childlike as it is profound, as intelligible 
as simple and sublime. Happy the man wnose 
soul has been nourished with it, and who holds 
fast to it! It contains enduring comfort in 
every affliction, and under a slight husk, the 
kernel of truths able to satisfy the wisest of the 
wise. 

But, in order to insure stability to this tend- 
ency tov/ards popular instruction, — this substi- 
tution of preachers for priests, — a new external 
establishment of the churches was immediately 
necessary. 

We must here bear in mind that the property 
of the church was menaced from every side. 
We have already remarked how the first disso- 
lution of convents originated in the high ca- 
tholic party, and what claims were made by 
the Austrian government on the secular admin- 
istration of the episcopal domains : these arbi- 
trary acts daily acquired a more open and violent 
character. Luther said, the papist Junkers were 
in this respect more Lutheran than the Luther- 
ans themselves ; he thought it his duty to com- 
plain of the measures of the Elector of Mainz 
against his convent in Halle. § Landgrave 
Philip, too, remarked that people began to 
scramble among themselves for the conventual 
lands : every man stretched out his hand after 
them, though in other respects they would not 

J Literally, that God rules or disposes ;— or, as we should 
say. As it please God.— Transl. 

§ Bericht an einen guten Freund aufs Bischofs von Meis- 
sen Mandat. Altenb. iii. 895. " Man nehme den Klöstern 
und Stiftern ihre Barschaft und Kleinodien, greife den 
Geistlichen in ihre Freiheit, beschv\'ere sie mit Schätzun- 
gen, laure auf ihre liegenden Grihide."— Report to a good 
Friend on the Mandate of the Bishop of Meissen. (Alt. 
iii. 895. "They strip the convents and abbeys of their 
money and jewels, assail the freedom of tjie clergy, op- 
press them with contributions, and lie in watch for their 
lands," 



Chap. V. 



REFORMATION IN HESSEN. 



281 



be called evangelical.* This disposition, how- 
ever, was not confined to Germany ; it showed 
itself all over Europe. In the two years 1524 
and 1525, Cardinal VVolsey dissolved more 
than twenty convents and abbeys in England, 
in order to endow with their funds the New 
College in Oxford, by which he looped to im- 
mortalize his name.f We must fully under- 
stand the general temper of the times, which 
was connected with the attempts at reform, be- 
fore we can be competent to judge the steps 
taken in the evangelical territories. In Saxony 
a great number of convents had dissolved of 
themselves ; the monks had dispersed, and the 
neighbouring nobles already stretched out their 
hands towards the vacant lands and houses. 

Luther's opinion was, that this ought not to 
be permitted. He said that as the lands were 
originally designed fcr the support of God's 
service, they ought in future to be applied to 
that destination. He required, above all, that 
the rural parishes, which were very poorly en- 
dowed, and, in consequence of the great falling 
off in the fe^s, could not maintain a priest, 
should be enriched from the funds of the vacant 
benefices. Whatever remained might be given 
to the poor, or used for the exigencies of the 
state. It was only to the highest power, " the 
supreme head," as he expresses it, that he as- 
cribed " the right, and at the same time the 
duty, of ordering these things after the papal 
yoke had been removed from the land." He 
once forced him.self into the apartments of his 
elector, to impress upon him the duty of pro- 
tecting the church property from the rapacity 
of the nobles. :|: 

The Visitors were now commissioned to order 
the new establishments conformably with these 
views. It must be acknowledged that they 
proceeded with great moderation. The abbeys 
and chapters w^hich had become evangelical, as 
for example, those of Eisenach and Gotha, re- 
mained untouched. In Hensdorf and Weimar, 
nuns were tolerated and allowed to adhere 
strictly to the old ceremonies. The Franciscan 
convents in Altenburg and Saalfield, which had 
made a violent resistance to the new doctrines, 
were yet suffered to remain ; they were only 
admonished, and, as the original report ex- 
presses it, "commended to God" {Goit he- 
fohlen).§ I havejQOt found any trace of the 
actual abolition of subsisting institutions. The 
commission only disposed of the estates of 
benefices already fallen vacant; these were 
applied to increasing the endowments of parish 
churches and schools ; the existing chapters 
were compelled to contribute to the same ob- 
jects. Some of the prelates, for example, the 
Abbot of Bosan, were very well inclined to 
this ; with others, it was necessary to use se- j 

* Letter from Philip to Luther, 1526. Rommel Hess. I 
Gesch. V. p. 8Ul; essey " viel Rappens um die geistlichen j 
Güter."— there was "much snatching at the church pro- 
pert.v." 

t Catalogue in Fiddes's Collection, No. 76. There are 
especially many Augustin convents. 

X Letter of Luther to the Elector, 22d Nov. 1526, in De 
Wette, iii. p. 137; and Spalatin, 1st Jan. 1527, ibid. 147. 
See p. 153. 

§ Extracts from the Visitation Acts ; Seckendorf, ii. p. 
102. I 

36 Y* 



vere compulsion. Instead of censuring this 
employment of power, we have only to wish 
it had been from the first more decisive — more 
large and sweeping in its plans and operations. 
In the first freshness and vigour of the religious 
impulse, much more extensive and beneficial 
changes might have been effected than could 
be attempted at a later period. What, then, 
might not have been achieved for the cause of 
religion and of civilisation, had the empire 
itself undertaken the guidance of this mighty 
revolution ! As things nov/ stood, the reform- 
ers were forced to content themselves with 
bringing matters to a tolerable condition, not 
inconsistent with the simple existence of the 
hew church. 

Nevertheless, even these institutions con- 
tained the germ of a vast development. 

In the centre of Latin Christendom — so es- 
sentially hierarchical— a new form of Church 
and State, emancipated from every kind of hi- 
erarchy, arose. If, on the one hand, an alliance 
had been formed in Bavaria between the civil 
sovereignty, the university and the papacy, 
which exercised supervision and control over 
the regular hierarchical authorities, on the other, 
a union was here effected between the prince, 
the university and the inferior clergy, which 
completely excluded the episcopal jurisdiction. 
The lower clergy acquired great independence. 
They might be said to govern themselves, by 
means of the superintendents whom the sove- 
reign chose out of their ranks, and to Miiom 
some of the functions of bishops were com- 
mitted. By rejecting celibacy, they secured a 
new influence over the mind of the nation. 
The body of married clergy became a nursery 
for the learned professions and civil offices ; 
the centre of a cultivated middle class. It is 
to the greater care which the tranquillity of a 
country life enables parents to bestow on the 
education of their children, and which the dig- 
nity of their calling in some measure imposed 
upon the country clergy, that Germany owes 
some of its most distinguished men. The sup- 
pression of monasteries and the restoration of 
their inhabitants to social life, gradually led to 
a very sensible increase of the population. In 
the year 1750, Justus IMöser reckoned that from 
ten to fifteen millions of human beings, in all 
countries and regions of the globe, owed their 
existence to Luther and to his example, and 
adds, "A statue ought to be erected to him as 
the preserver of the species. "|| 

Institutions of the kind we have been de- 
scribing were far more consonant with the situ- 
ation of Germany and the natural course of 
events, than the rash and subversive ideas, ill 
suited to the state of things, which had been 
put forth at Homberg. As the instructions to 
the Saxon Visitatores were adopted in Hessen, 
as early as the year 1528, the Saxon ordinances 
very soon followed ; in 1531, Landgrave Philip 
nominated six superintendents ;*|[ It was only 
in relation to church property, that the measures 
employed in Hessen were more sweeping and 

[j Lettre ä Mr. de Voltaire Osn. 6th Sept. 1750, in Abe. 
ken's Reliquien von Justus Moser, p. 88. 
TT Rommel Land. Philipp, ii. pp. 123, 124. 



282 



BRANDENBURG. 



Book IV. 



uniform than in Saxony. Landgrave Philip 
was still inflamed by the first ardour of religious 
and patriotic ideas : " I will help Hessen," 
exclaimed he once with enthusiasm; yet he 
did not disguise from himself the danger that 
" he might be overcome by the flesh, and led 
away from the right path." He conceived the 
design of placing the »monasteries under an 
administration dependent on the prince and 
states conjointly, — providing both for those in- 
mates who chose to remain, and for those who 
quitted them ; and of applying the surplus to 
the public wants, especially of a spiritual' na- 
ture : he himself would not have the right to 
touch this fund, without the consent of the 
states.* The interests of the country were here 
peculiarly powerful. 

As a motive for the confiscation of conventual 
property, it was alleged, that perhaps only a 
fourth part of the monks and nuns were natives; 
the rest were foreigners, and therefore such pro- 
perty was of no advantage to the country. Some 
monasteries which had embraced the evange- 
lical faith were suffered to remain, but by far 
the greater number were suppressed ; some, 
because they drew their funds from alms, which 
nobody v/ould now contribute; others, because 
the members dispersed, either from Christian 
motives, as they express it, — from conscientious 
scruples, — or because some favourable oppor- 
tunity presented itself. They accepted com- 
pensation in money or in kind; the surplus 
was, according to the regulations of a diet held 
in October, 1527, to be given in part to the 
nobility, f in part to an university which it was 
determined to found at Marburg, and the re- 
mainder to form a fund for the use of the prince, 
the nobles, and the cities ; but only to be re- 
sorted to with their joint consent. Many of 
these dispositions were altered in the course 
of the slow and gradual execution of them. 
Yet some great institutions were really found- 
ed : two endowments for young ladies of noble 
birth, four large public hospitals, and, above 
all, the university of Marburg, with*its Semi- 
narium theologicura. For this newly founded 
evangelical university was more especially a 
theological school; the other faculties were 
only slight and incom.plete beginnings. The 
synod of Homberg had decreed that nothing 

* " Das eine Oberkeit zu dem Kasten nit kommen kont 
one VtTwüli^ung der Landschaft, sonst so verkompt das 
Gut, und der OkeVkeit oder Landt wurd es nit gepessert." 
— " That no one of the authorities should be able to touch 
the fund without the cousent of the country; otherwise 
the property would he spent, and the government or the 
country not be the better for it." — Letter to Luther in Rom- 
mel, V. p. 862. 

t"S. F. Gn. wollen 30 Mannspersonnen (vom Adel), 
15 im Odern, 15 im nidern Furstenthumben, mit etlicher 
Steuwer an Frucht Korn und Habern Fiirsehunp: thun, 
damit sie sich in Rüstung erhalten und auf Erforderung 
desto stattlicher dienen mögen."— "His princely grace 
■will provide liO men (nobles), 15 in the upper, and 15 in 
the lower principality, with certain dues in wheat, rye, 
and oats, that so they may hold themselves in readiness 
and serve in more n<>b!e wise when called out." — "Was 
derdurchleuchtiire Fürst . . . Hr Philips . . . mit den Glos- 
terpersonen Pfarrhorren und abgöttischen Bildnussen vor- 
genommen hat. "— " vVhat the most illustrious prince — 
-the Lord Philip — has done and provided as to monks, 
parish priests, and idolatrous figures." Hortleder, i. v. ii. 
§ 11.—" It recalls the ideas which dictated the Augsburg 
scheme of secularisation, 1-525." 



should be studied there which might be " con- 
trary to the kingdom of God ;" and every 
member w^as obliged to take an oath on his 
admission, that he v^^ould attempt no innovation 
contrary to God's word. It was of great im- 
portance that another centre of evangelical the- 
ology thus ar^se by the side of the school of 
Wittenberg; at first, infleed, without the impe- 
rial privilege, but this was afterwards granted. 
The influence of these events was felt in 
the Franconian principalities of Brandenburg, 
though affairs w^ere here more complicated. Of 
the two princes who governed conjointly, the 
one, Markgrave Casimir, married to a Bavarian 
princess and allied to the house of Austria, ad- 
hered as closely as he could to the established 
party ; while the other, Markgrave George, 
who resided in Silesia, cherished and avowed 
decidedly evangelical opinions. In October, 
1526, Markgrave Casimir held a diet of his 
estates at Anspach, on occasion of the Recess 
of Spire, in which resolutions of a still more 
ambiguous nature were passed than those em- 
bodied in the Recess itself. It is impossible to 
doubt of their evangelical tendency : in the 
very first article it is ordained, that the preach- 
ers throughout the country shall preach the 
pure Gospel and w^ord of God, and nothing 
contrary to it ; nor are the concessions as to the 
ritual to be judged with rigour, when it is re- 
membered how^ tolerant even Luther was on 
that point. To many, doubtless, it must have 
appeared shocking, that Markgrave Casimir 
ordered the mass to be said in Latin ; that he 
prayed, though he did not command, his sub- 
jects to keep the fasts, and even thought it ex- 
pedient to maintain the endowed masses for the 
dead, and the vigils. :[: Markgrave George was 
extremely dissatisfied : the letter which he sent 
his brother, together with the copy of these 
resolutions, is full of bitter remarks. The 
whole country remained in a stale of doubt. 
And as the neighbouring bishops refused their 
approbation — refused to consent to the loss of 
their jurisdiction, and still m.ade attempts to 
present to livings, which were not repressed 
with sufficient energ}", — every thing fell into 
confusion. Under these circumstances it was 
an event of great importance that Casimir died 
in the Hungarian campaign, and Markgrave 
George took upon himself the sole government 
of the principalities. With his accession, the 
zealous evangelical councillors, Hans von 



X Recess and Opinion, Onolzbach, Wednesday after St. 
Francis (in 1d'26, St. Francis's day fell on a Wednesday, 
4th Oct.V Hortleder, i. i. 3. The extract in Lang entirely 
effaces the evangelical character, e.g. According to Lang, 
it was said that the holy sacrament should in no case be 
given in both kinds, and that nothf'ng should be taught 
contrary to the doctrine of transubstantiation. In fact, 
however, we find there (No. 5, Hortleder, p. :W), "Wollen 
uns versehen, dass sich ein jeder mit Empfahung des 
Sacraments also halte, wie er das gegen Gott und Kais. 
Mt. verhoff zu verantworten."—" We will take care that 
every one carry himself so as to the receiving of the 
Sacrament, as he may hope to answer it to God and his 
imperial majesty." which, however, involves complete 
freedom. "Es soll auch wider das hochw". Sacra, i.ent, — 
als ob in dem h. Sacrament der Leih und das Blut nicht 
gegenwertis wäre, nit gepredigt werden." — "There shall 
also be nothing preached against the holy Sacrament, — 
as if the body and the blood were not present in the holy 
Sacrament." Between the presence and transubstantia- 
tion, however, what a differenoel 



Chap. V. 



NÜRNBERG. 



283 



Schwarzenberg and George Vogler, acquired 
unobstructed influence. At another diet at 
Anspach, 1st of March, 15-28, an explanation 
of the former Recess, dictated by purely evan- 
gelical opinions, was given ; and now, too, 
nothing contrary to God's word was to be tole- 
rated in the ceremonial of the church. A visi- 
tation, on the model of that of Saxony, was 
immediately appointed in connexion with the 
city of Nürnberg ; and by its agency an evan- 
gelical church constitution was established in 
both territories. 

For the reform had meanwhile been carried 
through in Nürnberg. We have already men- 
tioned the great leaning which the burghers of 
that city had shown from the first to the new 
doctrines, and the support they experienced 
from their two provosts — patricians of Nürn- 
berg — in the appointment of evangelical preach- 
ers. Here, too, no changes were at first made, 
except those strictly necessary. In the year 
1524, for example, the baptismal service was 
first read in the German tongue. Although an 
admonition to that effect had been published a 
year before by Luther, the Nürnbergers chose 
rather merely to translate the entire formula of 
the Bamberg Agenda into German: the custom 
of putting salt into the mouth of the child, of 
breathing thrice on its eyes, and anointing its 
breast with oil, was still adhered to; nor was 
one of the traditionary formulae of exorcism 
discontinued.* It deserves to be noticed, as an 
illustration of the transition going on, that the 
rector of St. Sebaldus altered the ancient form, 
"Ave Regina, mater misericordise !" into, "Ave 
Jesu Christe, rex misericordi83 '."f The most 
important changes were, the administration of 
the Lord's Supper in both kinds, and the omis- 
sion of the canon ; the abolition of vigils, 
masses and anniversaries for the dead, and 
particular hours of the day for prayer. But it 
will be readily concluded that this was far too 
much for their ordinary, the Bishop of Bam- 
berg. He at length excluded the two provosts 
from the community of the church, declared 
their offices vacant, and required those Vv'ith 
whom it rested, to proceed to a new election. 
But things were totally altered since the year 
1520. Then, it was still necessary to come to 
a compromise with the papal commissioners, 
distant as they were ; now, the excommunica- 
tion of a neighbouring and powerful bishop 
made no impression. The provosts appealed 
from him to " a free, sure. Christian, and godly 
council.''^ The most active members of the 
council gradually adopted their way of think- 
ing. Jerome Ebner, a man distinguished alike 
for the rigour of his conscience and the mild- 
ness of his temper, Caspar Nützel, Christo- 
pher Scheurl, Jerome Bauragärtner, and Laza- 
rus Spengler, secretary to the council, v.'ho 

* History of Exorcism in the Church of A'iirnberg ; 
Strobel Miscell., iv. p. 173. 

t Instead -of '• advocata nostra," it is, "mediator 
noster:" instead of " Jesum benedictum fructum ventris 
tui nobis post hoc exilium ostende," it is, " O Jesu bene- 
dicte faciem patris tui nobis post hoc exilium ostende." 

X Appeal and Petition of tlie Provosts and the Prior 
of the Augustines at Nürnberg: Strobel Miscell., iii. 
p. 62. 



united the liveliest interest in questions of re- 
ligion and church government generally, with 
extraordinary talents for business. At all the 
meetings of the ciües, from the August of 
1524, the council of Nürnberg boldly asserteü 
its evangelical opinions,' whether against mem- 
bers of the Swabian League, the States of the 
empire, or the emperor and his representatives. 
Nürnberg was one of those cities which caused 
Charles to declare, that he could not act other- 
wise than he did, on account of the temper of 
the citizens. But let us not forget that it also 
gained great political advantages by this con- 
duct. Church reform was the only means of 
putting an end to the disorders and insubordi- 
nation of the clergy, with which the civil 
power had so long had to contend. The 
■ Nürnbergers turned the insurrection of the 
peasants to account for this purpose. They 
urged the clerg}^ to remember their own critical 
position ; the danger that threatened them from 
the mob, and their pressing need of protection; 
and at length actually succeeded in persuading 
the whole body to yield duty and obedience to 
the civil authorities. Even the Commander 
and Spital-master of the Teutonic Order sub- 
mitted, with the consent of the Franconian 
House-commander, to the obligation of paying 
, taxes. § The council was thus, for the first 
: time, master within its own walls. The mo- 
i nasteries were compelled to appoint evangelical 
preachers, and to promise to admit no new 
mem.bers : they soon dissolved, or were closed. 
The jurisdiction of the bishop had no longer 
, an object. To all his complaints the council 
answered, that it only performed the duties of 
a Christian government and executed the 
orders of the Recess of the empire. It did 
: not scruple to unite with the markgrave in the 
visitation of the churches ; " since the bishop 
had never been in the habit of visiting the 
i churches." 

i It is obvious how vastly this course of affairs 
must have tended to increase the independence 
of the secular povv-er, as well of the cities as 
of the princes. 

: Let us here call to mind the primitive cr- 
, ganization of the church of Germany under 
, Charlemagne, founded on the combined power 
' and agency of the bishops and counts. 
I While, in those remote ages, the bishops had 
! succeeded in getting into their own hands the 
I secular authority, at least in a part of the ter- 

! § Extract from an apologetic Address of the Council 
of' Nürnberg in Müilner's MS. Annals. " Es sind aber," 
adds the author, "die Hausscomuienthurm mit nachfol- 
genden Conditionen zu Bürgern aufgenommen worden, 
],) dass sie Bürgerpflicht thun und hinter die Viertels- 
meister schworen sollten, 2,) dass sie den deutschen Hof 
mit seinen zügehörigen Gütern diesseit des Wassers 
gelegen Verlosungen sollten, 3.) sollen sie von allem 
i Getränk so im Hof und Spital eingleght wird, das Umgeld 
' zahlen, 4,) sollen sie mit dem Holze auf des Reichs Boden 
i sich bescheidentlich halten." — " The House Commanders 
were, however, admitted citizens under the following 
' conditions: 1st, that they should perform all civic ser- 
I vices and duties, and swear behind the Viertel meister 
I (literally, quarter-master, i. e. magistrate of a quarter of 
, the city); üd, that they should sell the Deutscher Hof 
! (German House), with the lands appertaining on this side 
! of the water; 3d, that they should pay the duty on all 
' drink brought into the Hof or tlie Spital ; 4th, that they 
] should beaf themselves modestly as to the wood on the 
1 imperial lands." 



284 



CITIES OF THE OBERLAND— LÜNEBURG. 



Book IV. 



litories subject to their spiritual sway, and in 
constituting- themselves sovereign lords; at the 
time we are treating of, on the other hand, the 
temporal authorities who exercised, though 
under another form, the rights and privileges 
formerly held by the counts, excluded the 
bishops from all participation in the temporal 
government of their sees. 

We should be misled by appearances, were 
•we to regard this simply as an extinction of 
the ecclesiastical principle. For it cannot be 
denied that the episcopal authority had been 
chiefly exerted for the maintenance of all sorts 
of exemptions, dues, and claims, which had 
little in common with religion. It was, for 
example, one of the chief causes of quarrel be- 
tween Bamberg and Nürnberg, that the city, 
during the revolt of the peasants, had omitted 
to pay the small tithes, which the bishop abso- 
lutely refused to give up. The temporal power 
could never have accomplished its purpose, 
had it not taken upon itself to represent the 
truly ecclesiastical, i. e. the religious principle; 
for example, to make better provision for the 
religious instruction of the parishes. A deputy 
of the congregation was summoned out of each 
parish in Brandenburg and Nürnberg, to give 
true information as to the life and teaching of 
the clergyman. The governments were deter- 
mined to put an end to the disgraceful state of 
the inferior clergy, to whom no bishop seriously 
paid any attention. It was impossible to deny 
that the higher clergy had left the formation 
and interpretation of doctrine to the univer- 
sities ; and the ofnce of preaching the Word 
to ill-paid and ill-governed hirelings. It can 
excite no wonder that, after the high schools 
had so long acted the part of champions of the 
clerical claims, one of them at length adopted 
doctrines of a contrary tendency ; or that, in 
those who had devoted themselves to the pro- 
per service of the church, there arose a disgust 
at so contemptible and already contemned a 
state of things, a feeling of the peculiar im- 
portance of their calling, and a fervent zeal for 
reform, springing from a conviction of the ex- 
clusive authority of the Gospel. The temporal 
power did nothing more than avail itself of the 
authority given to it by the Recess, to secure 
freedom for the development of these endea- 
vours which w^ere manifestly of a spiritual na- 
ture. It is absurd to say that the church was 
thus become the slave of the state. If by the 
church is understood the influence of religious 
principles, it would be more just to say that it 
only now arose into power ; for never were 
those principles more powerful and eflacacious, 
than in the times which immediately followed 
those of which we are speaking. What was 
begun by the evangelical governments, was 
carried on in an analogous manner by the 
catholic. But it is at the same time clear, 
that the efficacy of the evangelical church did 
not rest on wealthy endowments, high rank, or 
the pomp of hierarchical ordinances ; but on 
inward energy, pious zeal, and the free culture 
and growth of the intellect. On no other foun- 
dation can the church ever be established in 
Germany ; and this is the source of her strength. 



The same events which had taken place in 
Nürnberg, occurred also in many of the cities 
of the Oberland ; first in Augsburg and in 
Ulm, — indeed, meetings of these three cities 
were frequently held and measures agreed on : 
in the year 1528, there was again a talk of a 
new alliance between all the imperial cities ; 
then followed Strasburg, and above all, the 
towns of Sv/itzerland ; in the year 1528, Berne 
adopted the religious changes. But we must 
leave the events in these countries for a subse- 
quent part of our work, where we have devoted 
closer attention to the modifications which the 
doctrine underwent in Switzerland. 

The whole of Lower Germany, on the other 
hand, adhered to the forms established under 
Luther's influence in Saxony. The slight 
variations which they underwent, depended 
only on the difference of the civil constitution 
or the form of sovereignty in each country. 

In Lüneburg, the change took place in con- 
sequence of a union of the prince and the 
nobles at the diet at Scharnebeck in the year 
1527. The prelates had refused to appear at 
previous meetings, and at their instigation the 
aged prince, who had abdicated and gone to 
France, where he remained true to the catholic 
faith, came back to oppose the innovations. 
But it was now too late. At that diet the 
reigning duke and his subjects promised each 
other to cause the Gospel to be preached, pure, 
clear, and plain; they resolved that the pre- 
lates should be compelled to do the like in 
their churches and convents, although they 
were permitted, in regard to ceremonies, to act 
as they thought they could answer it to God.* 
From this time the reform gradually spread 
over the whole country. The Chancellor 
Klammer rendered the same services here as 
Brück had done in Saxony, Feige in Hessen, 
Vogler in Anspach, and Spengler in Nürnberg. 

In East Friesland, the power of the count 
was still too new to enable him to decide in 
affairs so delicate and so dependent on the most 
intimate convictions. When Count Etzard, 
who at first had been much impressed by the 
Lutheran opinions, had afterwards come to the 
determination to hold fast to the existing form 
of the church, a chieftain. Junker Ulrich of 
Dornum, took upon himself the conduct of the 
cause. At his suggestion, a solemn disputa- 
tion was held at Oldersum. It began in a 
very characteristic manner. " Say the Lord's 
Prayer," exclaimed Henry Arnoldi, the cham- 
pion of the Lutherans; "and an Ave Maria," 
added Prior Laurence, the Dominican who de- 
fended the catholic side ; and the controversy 
turned chiefly on the w^orship of the Virgin 
Mary. But as the Lutherans persisted in car- 
rying on the argument solely with passages 
from Scripture, tl^e Dominicans were left with- 
out an answer. Nor was this all ; desertion 
soon crept into their own ranks. On the New 
Year's day of 1527, Resius, a Dominican, as- 
cended the pulpit in the church at Norden, to 
defend certain Lutheran propositions which ho 

* Extract from tlie ducal edict in Pfeffinger, Historie 
des Braunschweig Lünebiirgischen Hauses, ii. 347 Seo 
Schlegel'is Kircliengeschichte, ii. 50. 



Chap. V. 



SILESIA. 



285 



had already advanced ; a single antagonist 
arose, who, however, was soon reduced to 
silence ; whereupon the Dominican, in sign of 
his conversion, laid aside his cowl in the very 
pulpit.* In the year 1527, Lutheranism was 
the prevailing religion in almost all the pa- 
rishes. In the year 1528, the East Friesland 
churches published a full confession of faith. 

Fortunately for Schleswig and Holstein, the 
bishops of the dioceses of Schleswig and Lü- 
bek offered no strenuous opposition to the Re- 
formation, while on the other hand the govern- 
ment afforded it protection, and left the reve- 
nues of its clerical adherents untouched. The 
transition from the one confession to the other 
was here peculiarly easy. As one of the four- 
and-twenty papal vicars, Hermann Tast had 
been the first to preach evangelical doctrines : 
his colleagues easily accommodated themselves 
to the change ; — premising always that their 
incomes were to be secured to them for their 
lives. Many of the country priests adopted the 
reformed faith without a struggle; they readily 
accepted the articles laid before them. In the 
towns there was almost as much resistance 
opposed by the anabaptists as by the adherents 
of the papacy. The immediate disciples of 
Luther, for example, Marquard Schuldorf of 
Kiel, lent efficient help against both antago- 
nists.f Here, too, the ecclesiastical institu- 
tions were gradually placed on the footing of 
those of Saxony. 

In Silesia, too, as we have alread}^ mention- 
ed, the evangelical doctrine had made early 
and mighty progress. This country, indeed, 
differed from other parts of Germany, inasmuch 
as it was not an immediate dependenc)'' of the 
empire, and could therefore ground no preten- 
sions on the Recess of Spire. But the circum- 
stances were nearly akin ; its chief city and its 
princes assumed a scarcely less independent 
posture with regard to the crown of Bohemia, 
to which they belonged, than the States of the 
empire had done towards the emperor : every 
fluctuation of opinion in central Germany was 
here immediately answered by an analogous 
movement. Breslau, which no long time be- 
fore, in the affairs of Podiebrad, had held with 
unshaken firmness to the side of the pope, now 
took the lead in the struggle against him. 
Here, too, the inclinations of the council and 
citizens had received an anti-clerical bias from 
a great number of circumstances. They would 
no longer have a Bernardine convent, because 
they thought themselves injured by its connec- 
tion with the king's court. They were discon- 
tented at the disgraceful scenes carried on in 
the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, where one 
pretender to the benefice was continually driven 
out by another.:]: There were a thousand 
causes of bickering with the canons in the city. 
The Lutheran tendencies, therefore, found the 

* Ubbo Emmius Herum Frisciarum Hist., lib. liv. p. 
839. 

t Munter's Kirchengescliichte von Dänemark, iii. p. 
584, contains a laborious collection of these very scattered 
notices. 

J Schutzred des erbarn Raths und ganzen Gemeind der 
K. Stadt Breslau bei Schickfuss, Neuvermehrte Schlesische 
Ch?on., iii. p. 58. 



ground well prepared. In the year 1523, the 
citizens of Breslau ventured to appoint to the 
parish in question, of their own authority, Dr. 
Johann Hess, one of the most intimate friends 
of Luther and Melanchthon, who had just come 
from Wittenberg; upon which matters took 
the same course here as elsewhere. The new 
principles were triumphantly maintained in a 
solemn disputation ; the people were gained 
over; the reformers began by altering the cere- 
monies, keeping as close as possible on various 
incidental points to the traditionary ritual of the 
see of Breslau. The Bernardines had quitted 
the city rather than submit to be united with 
the Jacobites, as was proposed to them: the 
monasteries now dissolved themselves; the 
council offered no impediment to the monks and 
nuns who quitted them and married. But it 
must not be imagined that the Lutheran clergy, 
who unquestionably ow^ed their ascendency to 
the council, were absolutely at its disposal. In 
April, 1525, Dr. Hess suddenly left off preach- 
ing, upon which the council sent to ask him 
the cause. He answered, that he saw the 
blessed Lord Christ lying before the church 
doors, and that he could not walk over him. 
What he meant was this ;— he had often ex- 
horted the council to provide for the beggars 
who filled the city, and lay during the time of 
service before the church doors; but always 
in vain. This earnest demonstration, however, 
made an impression. The really indigent were 
separated from the idle, and placed in six dif- 
ferent hospitals. In the year 1526 the first 
stone of the great spital was laid by Hess him- 
self; the opulent citizens gave the materials, 
and the various artisans their labour; so that 
the building was finished in a year — a genuine 
work of the new-born evangelical zeal. Hess 
was strongly and actively supported by the town 
clerk, John Corvinus, who had taken part in 
the earlier literary movement, and had taught 
in some of the first schools of poetry. There 
was a general consent and co-operation : the 
councillor declared to the court that he had 
never seen a more obedient comraunity.§ If 
this was the case with regard to those who 
had opposed Podiebrad, what was to be ex- 
pected from his adherents'? The son of hi^'- 
son, Duke Charles, ruled over Münsterberg, 
01s and Frankenstein ; the son of his daughter, 
Duke Frederic II. of Liegnitz, had united Brieg 
and Wolau with that domain. It may easily 
be imagined what opinions they held. Duke 
Charles wished to see the memory of his grand- 
father restored to honour by Luther. Duke 
Frederic not only gave a ready ear to the prayers 
of his nobles and cities, that he would grant 
them a freer exercise of their religion, but gra- 
dually became inspired by the most ardent zeal 
in the same cause ;I| he conceived the design 
of founding another evangelical university, and 
had not the doctrines and followers of Scwenk- 

§ Die Jahrbücher der Stadt Breslau von Nicolaus Pol. 
Bd. iii. die Jahre, 1521—1527. Compared to the veracious 
account of this simple chronicler, the stories of Bukisch, 
who borrowed from him, are often like bad caricatures. 

|( Des Erlauchten, &c. Herzog Friedrichs II. Grunder. 
sach und Entschuldigung auf etlicher Verunglimpfen in 
Schickfuss S. 65. 



286 



PRUSSIA. 



Book IV. 



feld caused troubles in his dominions, would 
have organised one on a noble and comprehen- 
sive plan.* Just then Markgrave George of 
Brandenburg had acquired Jägerndorf, and of 
course allowed the Lutheran doctrines free 
course there. The young duke Wenceslas 
Adam of Teschen, was soon deeply impressed 
with the new opinions. All these things passed 
without any serious'opposition, either from the 
spiritual or the temporal authorities. Jacob 
of Salza, bishop of Breslau, saw very clearly 
that Christianity did not consist in the presence 
or absence of a few ceremonies more or less. 
The evangelical doctrine found powerful pro- 
tectors at the court of King Louis. King Fer- 
dinand, as we have seen, at least did not ven- 
ture to reject the demands regarding religion 
which were laid before him at his election ; and 
if he occasionally published mandates w^hich 
sounded zealously orthodox, he was not in a 
condition to give them effect. The Breslauers 
once represented to him in so lively a manner 
the impossibility of returning to the ancient 
practices, that he no longer ventured to press 
it: "Well, then," said he, at length, "only 
keep the peace, and believe as you think you 
can answer it to God and the emperor." j" He 
at the same time extended to his own province 
the concessions made to the empire. Thus 
was formed in Silesia the constitution which 
for a century prevailed there, as well in the 
Austrian, as in all other dominions : evange- 
lical states strenuously maintained their poli- 
tical and religious privileges, and the govern- 
ment was compelled to use leniency aifd tole- 
ration. 

By far the most remarkable and sweeping 
change took place, however, in Prussia. 

Various causes had contributed to prepare 
this event. 

The political importance, nay in effect also 
the position of the Teutonic Order relatively 
to the Prussian government, had been annihi- 
lated for more than half a century. At the 
peace of Thorn, in the year 1466, the Order 
had been compelled to cede the larger half of 
its territory, with all its richest and most pow- 
erful cities, to Poland ; and for the smaller, 
which wa§ left in its possession, to recognise 
the king of that country as its feudal lord. 

If we inquire how this came to pass, we 
shall fmd that it w^as not so much the conse- 
quence of the military superiority of Poland, 
which, though indisputable, would never have 
sufficed to produce such results ; but of the in- 
ternal situation of the country, — the misunder- 
standings between the order and the territory 
over which it ruled. 

Prussia was a colony which had gradually 
risen to independence. The order, which was 
no longer inspired by the ancient impulses of 
religion, honour, or love of war, and came into 
the country only to govern and to enjoy, was 
most oppressive to the inhabitants. They 
complained that they were allowed no share 
in the administration ; that they were treated 

* Thebesii Liegnitzische Jahrbücher, iii, p. 29. 
t Nie. Pol. iii. p. 52. 



like serfs, subjected to acts of violence, and 
denied all right and justice. The relation 
v/hich arose between them was like that be- 
tween the Creoles and Chapetons in South 
America; between the Pullains and the Fils 
Arnaud in Jerusalem ; in short, such as must 
arise in every colony as its civilisation ad- 
vances. At first the country sought to protect 
itself by its great union of 1440; but as this 
was opposed by the emperor, it turned to Po- 
land. It was the nativö population of Prussia 
that put those arms into the hands, of the King 
of Poland against the grand master, by means 
of which the former gained the victory, and 
extorted so advantageous a peace as that of 
Thorn. The city of Danzig had expended 
700,000 marks in this cause. In return, the 
King of Poland granted to the allies, for the 
first time, the blessing of self-government, 
which the knights had steadily refused them.:^ 

In the smaller division of the country which 
had remained in the possession of the order, 
but which had also taken part in the league 
and in the war, similar tendencies continued, 
as may easily be imagined, to show them- 
selves. We find that the states, whose busi- 
ness it was to grant the taxes, more than once 
refused them. They demanded the right of 
appointing, jointly with the grand master, a 
lieutenant to aci for him during his absence ; a 
post we sometimes find occupied by a burgher- 
master. In a scheme for the defence of the 
country drawn up in the year 1507, fifteen 
governors, or chiefs of districts, were nomi- 
nated ; and of these fourteen belonged to the 
order.§ 

Not only was the order thus checked and 
controlled in its functions, but its peculiar re- 
publican character was gradually superseded 
by one more monarchical. It was found ex- 
pedient to choose native princes as grand mas- 
ters ; for example, in 1498, Frederic of Saxony, 
and in 1511, Albert of Brandenburg; and in 
order to secure to them a state and maintenance 
suited to their rank, whole commanderies were 
confiscated. These princes entrusted the pub- 
lic affairs to chancellors who did not even be- 
long to the order, and to their own particular 
councillors, after the manner of the German 
courts. Their position became more and more 
like that of hereditary rulers, in consequence 
of the necessity they lay under of granting a 
great degree of independence to their subordi- 
nates out of the country — both the Master in 
Livonia, and the Teutonic Master {Deutsch- 
meister) ; in fact, of emancipating the former 
from all important obligations and services. || 
In the place of the wide general relations of 
the order, arose narrow territorial interests. 

J His very first promise is, " ut in mutatione principum 
commutatam etiam aut sublatam deprehenderent oppres- 
sionem." Litteree Casiniiri Regis, in Dlugoss Historia 
Pol., ii. p. 138. See Voigt Preuss. Gesch., viii. p. 378. 

§ Baczko Preussische Gesch iv. p. 142. 

|( Albert mentions (Schütz Hist. Rer. Pruss., p. 331), 
" was er sich gegen den beiden Meistern verschreiben und 
obligiren müssen : damit sie sich denn ganz und gar auS' 
dem Gehorsam gezogen," — " to what he must subscribe 
and bind himself towards both Masters ; wherewith 
they then withdrew themselves entirely from their obe- 
dience." 



Chap. V. 



PRUSSIA. 



287 



The only question now was, — one which 
involved a remote and permanent change — 
whether they should submit to the peace of 
Thorn, or not. The last grand masters refused 
to do homage as their immediate predecessors 
had done ; they demanded a revision of the 
terms of the peace, " according to natiiral and 
Christian laws ;" they made incessant claims 
on the assistance of the empire (especially of 
the knightly body), which was afforded to this 
possession of Prussia. At length, in the year 
1519, the grand master (Slarkgrave Albert of 
Brandenburg) had once- more recourse to arms. 
But what had been injurious to his predeces- 
sors, proved disadvantageous to him. The 
cities and districts which had fallen off from 
the order, no longer lent their aid to the sup- 
port of its power; it was indeed to the cities 
of Danzig and Elbingen, and to the families 
of the lords of the league, that the public 
opinion of that time attributed the breach of 
the peace ; their intention was to strip the 
order altogether of its territory and subjects;* 
it was they who urged on the war with the 
greatest energy and success. From Germany, 
on the other hand, the order received no effi- 
cient help. The grand master was again com- 
pelled to cede eleven towns with their territo- 
ries, and to consent to a truce for four years, 
during which affairs were to be definitely ar- 
ranged, under the mediation of the Emperor 
and the King of Hungary. 

Albert went to Germany, in order once m.ore 
to try in person what he could obtain from the 
states and nobles of the empire. Had victory 
declared on the side of Sickingen, with whom 
he had long been connected, Prussia might 
have reckoned on assistance. But Sickingen 
fell ; the knights of the empire suffered great 
losses ; they were unable to maintain their in- 
dependence at home, much less to attempt en- 
terprises abroad. The Council of .Regenc}^ 
too, on which some of its hopes were placed, 
was overthrown. The emperor was so far from 
holding out any expectation of assistance, that 
he rather favoured the claims of the Jagellons. 
The promised mediation was not even attempt- 
ed. The grand master had nothing left but 
either to do homage agreeably to the treaty 
of Thorn, or to abdicate. And indeed the ab- 
dication was seriously discussed. It might 
either take place according to the views of the 
order, in which case Duke Erich of Brunswick 
was suggested as successor ; or to those of the 
country and of Poland, in which case it would 
have been in favour of Sigismund : the king 
sent an ambassador to Nürnberg in 1524, in 
the hope of inducing the grand master to con- 
sent to this latter scheme. | 

The Order and its government in Prussia, 
were doubtless the most singular product of 
the hierarchical and chivalrous spirit of the 
preceding centuries in the German nation ; but 
to what had it sunk ! The greater part of its 

* " Eyn newes Geticht von dem negstvorgangenen 
Krieg zu Proiissen." Beitrüge zur Kunde Preussens ßd,, 
ii. p. 287. 

t Memorial of the Grand Master Albert, given by Fa- 
ber, Beitr. zur Kund Preussens, iv. 83. 



territory gone ; in what remained, powerful and 
growing states ; the internal unity in which its 
strength lay, broken ; its tie to the mother 
country relaxed and feeble ; — submission was 
become inevitable — its time was over. It was 
however not easy at present to see what could 
or ought to be done ; there existed no clue by 
which to escape from the labyrinth of such 
difficult contingencies. Such were the circum- 
stances under which the nev/ religious doctrine 
appeared in the country. In no part of the 
world was it more wanted— -in none more wel- 
come. People saw that the institution, so long 
revered as intrinsically religious, by no means 
stood in that profound and inward relation to 
the idea, or the original spirit of Christianity, 
which had been presumed. The states seized 
with joy a doctrine which justified their old 
opposition, on higher grounds. The bishops, 
Vvho were elsewhere alm^ost universally its op- 
ponents, lent a glad ear to it: under the direc- 
tion of the bishop of Samland, fasts were 
abolished, mass said in German, the ceremonies 
altered, and the monasteries cleared. :[: Even 
the members of the Order could not withstand 
the universal current of opinion. They were 
seen attending the sermons of the Lutheran 
preachers ; many laid aside their cro'^s ; some 
determined to marry. Their numxber was indeed 
no longer great, and at last only five remained 
faithful to the institution. At length the sermons 
of Oslander, the society of men like Planitz, 
and the private conversation he held with Lu- 
ther, imbued the mind of the grand master 
himself(jwith the evangelical opinions prevalent 
in Saxony and in Nürnberg. On the one 
hand, he was convinced that his profession had 
not the merit which had been imputed to it, 
nor even conformity with the word of God. On 
the other, people represented to him that he 
could not abdicate, since he had duties to per- 
form to the country from which he could not 
so lightly v;ithdraw himself. The country re- 
quired him to la}' to heart its desolation and its 
weakness, and to procure for it a lasting peace; 
to grant it preachers of the pure word of God, 
and to abolish v/hatever was repugnant to that; 
most probably including, in that expression, the 
vow of the Order.§ Albert, though he still 
adhered to it, had doubtless in his heart deter- 
mined on the course he meant to pursue, when 
he set on foot new negotiations with Poland, 

In Poland the diet of Petricau had just then 
come to the resolution that the grand master 
should either do homage or be driven out of 
Prussia, together with his order. 1| 



I How Rome stirred n^aiiist and thought to overthrow 
it. Voigt Preusäische Geschicte, ix. pp. 7.33, 737. That 
he subscribed himself only, by the grace of God, without 
mentioning the apostolic see, was there regarded as apos- 
tacy. This had, too, an influence on the safety of the 
grand master, who was moreover attacked by the Teu- 
tonic master. 

§ " Sind darum aus geistlichem Suchen undBegern der- 
selben Landschaft zw diefer Verenderung und Vertrag 
mit der Krön Polen kommen." — " Are thereupon come to 
this alteration and agreement with the crown of Poland, 
in consequence of the siiiritual request and desire of that 
country." Albert's answer to the proposals of Griifendorf, 
the Saxon ambassador. W. A. 

II Literte regisB ad sedem apostolicam: " alioquin haec 
tragoedia nullum unquaai finera habere potuisset, praeser- 



288 



PRUSSIA. 



BöoE IV. 



It was therefore very fortunate for Markgrave 
Albert that in Silesia, which in all the previous 
troubles had adhered to the king, he had two 
of his nearest relations ; his brother, Mark- 
grave George, and his brother-in-law, Frederic 
of Liegnitz — both like himself, nephews of the 
king — who undertook once more to conciliate 
Sigismund, and to procure for Albert favourable 
conditions. 

The king had gone to Cracow with a com- 
mittee of the diet. Here the tvv^o princes, both, 
as we are aware, zealous partisans of the evan- 
gelical faith, went to meet him-: they adopted 
the principles laid down by the diet ; but at 
the same time remarked that no arrangement 
with the Order would be of any avail, since the 
government was in the hands of so many that 
no reliance could be placed on its actions. 
They proposed to the king that the grand 
master should be declared hereditary duke of 
Prussia.* 

The king said, he would take into considera- 
tion what was to be done, and what Albert's 
kinsmen required of him."!" He acquiesced 
with joy. 

When the affair was brought before the royal 
council erf" Poland, some voices indeed were 
raised against it on religious grounds; but to 
these, others replied, that no injury was in- 
flicted on Catholicism, since the Order had 
already gone over to Lutheranism, and held 
nothing in greater abhorrence than the name 
of the pope;:]: they ought rather to thank God 
that it had fallen of itself. The diet decided 
in favour of the king's project. 

Meanwhile, negotiations were carried on in 
Beuthen, whither plenipotentiaries of the Order 
and of the States had repaired to meet the 
Markgrave. The envoys of the Order, who 
were unquestionably the most important, spoke 
first. They entirely approved the proposition, 
and only urged their claim to certain advan- 
tages due to them from Poland. The dele- 
gates of the States were chiefly solicitous lest 
they should be attacked by the remnant of the 
order in Germany, and by the empire, and not 
sufficiently defended by Poland. They de- 
manded of their new sovereign a promise that 
he v/ould rather increase than diminish their 
privileges, and appoint no foreigner to a public 
office: though he did not accede to the latter 
stipulation, they were on the whole satisfied 

tim curn subditi tiiei omnes a me exigerent mofiis oinni- 
bus neque ab hoc institnto dimoveri poTuerint in con- 
ventu generali regni niei novissimo, vel cn^rendum tandem 
magistrnm Prust^ise ad prrestandam oh^dientiani et oma- 
?rium mihi et regno nieo debitum vel ilium ac ordinem ex 
terris illis exturbandum." 

• *"LiterER Andres Critii Episcopii Presmiliensis ad 
Joannen! Antonium Piileonein (he should be called Bur- 
gonem, for J. A. v. Bariro was then niancio in Hungary), 
lib. Bar. et nunciuin apnstolicum. Principes ingenue e 
vestigio et citra ullns ambajres id quod attulerant propo- 
suerant." — Samuelis JVakielski Miechovia sive Promtua- 
rium, ^'c, p. 609. 

t Litsrcs regis: "condictis conditionibns quffi pro tem- 
pore fieri pituerant, et quales mutua nostra necessitudo 
postulavit." 

J "Lnteranismum apud ordinem ipsum sacrnsanctum, 
Romanam vero ecclesiam et ejus ritus execrabiles esse 
(nihil apud eum nomine pontificis contemptibilius esse), 
plerosque comraendatores et sacrificos nubere," &;c. &;c. 



with his declarations. § [The envoys of the 
Order, too, were content, on the king consent- 
ing to restore the fortified places taken from it 
in the last war, and granting a small revenue 
for the new princes. 

All parties thus easily and gladly combined 
to bring about this great change. The King 
of Poland saw his suzerainty at length will- 
ingly acknowledged, and the descendants of 
his sister established within his extended fron- 
tiers. The country acquired the independence 
of foreign influence it had so long aspired after. 
The order, which had secularised itself, thus 
secured protection; it associated itself with the 
natives of the country whom it had hitherto op- 
posed. Markgrave Albert's aim, in short, was 
not alone to found a hereditary sovereignty, he 
thought he sefved his country by securing for 
it peace, and the free difl"usion of evangelical 
opinions. 

On the 10th of April, 1525, the solemn in- 
feudarion took place at the Ring at Cracow. 
The king, in his sacerdotal ornaments, sur- 
rounded by his bishoj)S, delivered to the new 
duke, by the symbol of the banner (v*'hich 
Markgrave George also grasped, in sign that 
the investiture extended to the whole line of 
Brandenbursr), '• the whole land in Prussia 
which had been held by the Order." Albert 
took the oath of homage and allegiance in a 
formula in which no mention was made of the 
saints. 

At his entrance into Königsberg, he was 
greeted by an evangelical preacher with a reli- 
gious discourse. He was received with all the 
festivities and honours which could be offered 
to an hereditary prince ; the bells were rung, 
the houses hung with tapestry, and the roads 
strewed with flowers. 

The States, of course, did not hesitate to ap- 
prove the negotiations of their delegates ; they 
confirmedthe treaty of Cracow, and took the 
oath of allegiance. The original document, by 
which Albert had confirmed " the privileges, 
franchises, and praiseworthy customs" of the 
country, was delivered into the keeping of the 
magistrate of the Altstadt of Königsberg. In 
the place of the great officers of the Order now 
appeared Marshal, Landhofmeister, Oberburg- 
graf,|| and. Chancellor; all which officers were 
in future to be filled by natives. The courts 
of justice were newly constituted with the ad- 
vjcü and assistance of the nobles. 

Only one of the knights of the order oflered 
any persevering resistance ; Erich of Bruns- 
wick, in whose favour Albert had thought of 
resigning, held out in Memel ; he Vv^as after- 
wards provided for by means of a small pen- 
sion. 

The religious establishments were formed 



§ The negotiations are to be found in the last pages of 
Schütz. The duke declared to the deputies of the states, 
who were in fact not b-pecially commissioned for that]iur- 
pose, "er werde ihnen dennaassen beweisliche Urkunden 
mitgeben, dass sie den Ihren entsehuldigt seyn sollten,"— 
" that he would give them such authentic documents tbat 
they should stand excused to their constituents." This 
was shown immediately on the duke's return. 

II Titles of offices to which we have none correspond 
ing.— Transl. 



Chap. V. 



PRUSSIA. 



2ö9 



without difficulty : the bishops themselves, as 
we have said, were in their favour. At the 
very first assembly. Bishop Polenz of Samland 
abdicated the temporal part of his authority, 
alleging that the service of the Gospel alone 
belonged to a bishop, not the enjoyment of 
worldly honours ; he gave his power into the 
hands of the duke, who took the states to wit- 
ness this voluntary tradition. This example 
was soon followed by Bishop Erhard Quels of 
Pomesania. Their spiritual authority Avas left 
entire — the more so, since now, as before, they 
administered it by officials.* They introduced 
a liturgy in which they still kept as close as 
possible to traditional forms : the convents 
were turned into hospitals : the efforts to spread 
Christianity in the lowest regions of society 
and those hitherto the least touched by its in- 
fluence, here found a wide sphere of action 
among the Slavonian population, which still 
occupied a great portion of the land ; func- 
tionaries called Tolken, i. e. interpreters, were 
attached to the parish priests, and repeated 
every sentence of the sermon in the ancient 
language of Prussia. f In order to keep the 
clergy themselves in the right v/ay, the Mark- 
grave caused the Postilies^ to be brought 
twice a year from Wittenberg, two hundred 
of each at a time. Lucas Cranach had a 
general commission to send him all the good 
-^ and valuable books that appeared. § 

Duke Albert's marriage with Dorothea, 
Princess of Denmark, which took place in the 
year 1526, appears like the consummation and 
bond of all these things. Alliances cemented 
by this kind of uniformity of opinion are now 
almost universal among the crowned heads of 
Europe. The duchess graduallj' gave evidence 
of as strong evangelical convictions, "as firm 
a faith and trust in our Saviour," as her hus- 
band. Nor was she less fitted to render do- 
mestic life happy. He dwells with untired 
delight on her noble and amiable qualities ; 
and adds that, had she been a poor serving 
girl, she could not have borne herself with 
more lowliness and truth, vrith more unchang- 
ing love, to him unworthy, !| Her brother 
Christian, afterwards King of Denmark, hav- 
ing married a princess of Lauenburg, out of 
which house Gustavus Vasa of Sweden after- 
wards took his wife, all these new evangelical 
powers of the North were united by the closest 
bonds. 

Let us observe the general direction of the 
policy of the North, of which these events 
formed the consummation. In the year 1515, 
Maximilian had thought to connect all the 
northern territories of Slavonic and Germanic 
tongue, in one great alliance, of which he was 
to be the head. Poland severed itself first ; 
then Christiern II. was driven out of Denmark 
and Sweden; and now Albert, who had hith- 

* Bock Leben Albrechts, i. p. 187. ' 

t Hartknoch Preussische Kirchengeschichtert*. 277. 

X A hook containing expository sermons on the Gospels 
and Epistles.— Transl. 

§ Letter to Cranach, and his account, inserted by Voigt 
iu the Beiträgen zur Kunde Preussens, iii. p. 246. 

II Faber Ciniges lider die Herzogin Dorothea. Beitr. z. 
IC Preus.«ens, iii, p. 126. 

3' ' z 



erto remained attached to Christiern, formed 
an alliance of amity and marriage with the 
new king. Erich of Brunswick was removed 
from Memel, because he persisted in keeping 
up an intercourse with Severin Norby, the 
admiral of Christiern.^ The position which 
Albert acquired at his first reception among the 
northern powers, was extremely strong and 
advantageous. 

The evangelical princes of Germany also 
afforded him support from another side. 

Even at the time when Elector John of 
Saxony, and his neighbouring co-religionists 
were negotiating about the meeting at Magde- 
burg, he sent to Prussia to propose to the new 
duke, that if he were aggrieved in any thing 
relating to the evangelical faith, he would stand 
by him steadfastly. This message was most 
welcome to the duke. He sent the Bishop of 
Pomesania, who had the general conduct of his 
foreign affairs, and had arranged the relations 
with Poland and Denmark, to Breslau, in 1526, 
where he was met 'by Hans von Minkwitz on 
the part of Saxony. Here a formal agreement 
was concluded.** The duke had observed that 
Prussia was so exhausted in the last war, that 
he could not engage to furnish more than a 
hundred armed horsemen. Elector John was 
satisfied and promised the duke an equal num- 
ber in case he was attacked. The party send- 
ing assistance was to pay the troops and bear 
the losses; the party receiving it, to provide 
them with necessaries. In December, 1526, 
the ratification arrived at Weimar. The duke 
and his bishop had a design of extending this 
alliance to the states of Silesia, the Markgrave 
George of Jägerndorf, the Duke of Liegnitz, 
and the city of Breslau :|-[- some deliberations 
had already taken place about a common and 
more intimate concert with Denmark, for which 
the elector evinced perfect readiness. 

It has often been said, and with perfect 
truth, that the empire sustained a great loss by 
the act of homage to Poland. But this was 
inevitable. The Polish diet had taken the de- 
termination to proceed no further on a middle 
course, and, if necessary, to decide the matter 
by force; the country was wholly incapable 
of resistance, and no help was to be expected 
from the empire. Had the Order not yielded, 
it would have been driven out of Königsberg, 
as it had been out of Danzig ; the territory 
would have become a Polish province, like the 
kingdom of Prussia. Under these circum- 
stances, it is unquestionably to be regarded as 
one of the most fortunate events for the main- 
tenance of the Germanic principle in those 
countries, that a duchy — an hereditary German 
sovereignty — was erected. If we compare 
this province v/ith Livonia, w^e see that though 
there, too, the Reformation had penetrated, 
though the powerful Grand Master Pletten- 



ir See Albert's Instruction, 18th April J525, Beitr. z. K. 
Pr., iv. p. 395, and an essay by Faber, vi. p. 539. 

** PiCcess of Königsberg, 5th July 1526. W. A. 

•ft Letter from Minkwitz, Leipzig, Sunday after St. 
Francis's day; "Trost, es soll kein Mangel haben." — 
"Take comfort, there shall be no want." I do not find, 
hov/ever, that any resolution was come to. The Land- 
grave of Hessen, too, thought the mutual obligations too 
insignificaut. 



290 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



Book IV. 



berg, who was now absolutely independent, 
protected it, and found means siill to keep the 
Order in existence for a time, — it was but for 
a time ; the country was afterwards secularised 
like the rest, but fell under a foreign yoke, and 
aoon lost its sympathy with the German nation. 
.Nor did royal Prussia reap any advantage from 
having no prince at its head ; the influence of 
Poland became overwhelming, and the countrj" 
had to endure indescribable oppressions, both 
of a political and religious kind. The progress 
of German civilisation was not only arrested, 
but forced back. On the other hand, ducal 
Prussia gradually became completely German; 
by its family alliances with a powerful German 
house, it remained in strict and indissoluble 
political connection with the great fatherland. 
Amidst all the distraction of the theological 
and literary controversies which followed in 
the train of the Reformation, here was an in- 
dependent centre of German culture, from 
which the grandest developments of German 
nationality have sprung. 

We cannot contemplate Germany at this 
moment, without a deep sense of the grandeur 
of her character and position. 

Belgium and the Netherlands, Bohemia and 
the neighbouring countries, might once more 
be reckoned as parts of the German empire. 
German arms had wrested Italy from the influ- 
ence of France, as well as from that of Swit- 
zerland, Avhich had now severed itself from the 
empire : they had restored the name of the 
empire in Italy, and in its ancient metropolis: 
more than once they had m.ade threatening ad- 
vances from the south and east into France ; 
and in the west, they had aided the Spaniards 
to reconquer the lost border fortresses, and to 
vanquish the iMoors of Valencia. They had 
just gained possession of Hungary. \Vith the 
assistance of the German maritime cities, they 
had put the two northern monarchs in posses- 
sion of their crowns. If Poland had reaped 
the advantage, she was indebted for it solely 
to the instigation and the assistance of the 
German provinces, which sufficiently showed 
that this was a state of things that could not 
last. In Livonia, the attacks of the Russians 
were repulsed in successive engagements, and 
in the year 1522, peace was obtained on very 
advantageous terms. 

And all this had been accomplished in the 
absence of any vigorous central government, — 
amid the storms of the most violent internal 
dissension. But these very storms were the 
symptoms of a far wider tendency — one w^hich 
was destined to embrace the world. It was 
reserved for the mind of Germany to sever the 
intrinsic truth of Christianity from the acci- 
dental forms which, in later ages, had grown 
around it under the influences of papacy, and 
with equal moderation and firmness to secure 
to it a legal adoption in its extensive territories. 
In one electorate, tw'o or three duchies, the 
largest landgravate, the largest county of the 
empire, one or two markgravates, and a great 
number of cities, the ne\y doctrine had become 
predominant, and had pervaded the populations 
with whose character and turn of mind it had 



a natural affinity. In order to bring vividly 
before our minds the original views of a posi- 
tive and negative kind, we should compare the 
written confessions' of faith which h-id now 
been published at so many places; the articles 
of the Visitation of Saxony and Hessen, and 
still more those of Brandenburg and Niirnberg; 
the Confession of East Friesland ; the Instruc- 
tions to the preachers of Schleswig-Holstein; 
the Apologies of the States of Silesia ; the 
Synodal Constitutions of Prussia. In all these 
documents we perceive the same feeling of an 
obligatory return from the accidental to the 
essential,; a resistless conviction, not 3'et indeed 
defined in articles of faith, but assured of its 
truth. It is manifest that since the development 
of these opinions took place in narrow territo- 
ries, the infant church could not enter into the 
most distant rivalry as to external grandeur and 
splendour with the established hierarchy, in 
which was expressed the unity of an aggregate 
of great kingdoms : its essence and its w orth 
consisted in its intellectual depth and strength. 
The office it had taken on itself was that of 
bi-inging the principles of Christianity home 
to the minds of the common people; of ex- 
pounding its meaning and spirit, freed from all 
disguises of foreign forms and rites; that so it 
might at length be brought home to the con- 
sciousness of all the nations of the earth. Al- 
ready was the new doctrine proclaimed in almost 
every tongue. We mentioned the interpreters 
of the Prussian clergy : in Breslau Doctor Hess 
caused the Gospel to be read in Slavonic ; Lu- 
ther's disciples preached it in Denmark and 
Sweden ; one of the first names inscribed at 
the university of Marburg, was the founder of 
the Scottish church ; in 1527, a society of men 
inclined to Lutheran opinions was founded in 
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which may 
be regarded as the seminary of the new opin- 
ions.* IMeanwhJle, from the year 1528, an 
immediate effect had been produced on Geneva 
and the Roman world. In Italy, the doctrine 
pervaded the old literary associations; in Spain, 
it soon laid hold of the Franciscans ; in France, 
it found a powerful patroness in the Queen of 
Navarre. Luther, who was a stranger to am- 
bition — who had not even a genuine zeal for 
proselyting,! and expected every thing from 
the silent inborn force of conviction — yet re- 
marked that his efforts to restore the preaching 
of the Gospel would some time or other form 
the subject of a church history. But at present 
he was occupied with higher hopes. "It will 
draw^ the cedars of Lebanon to itself," said he. 
He applied to it the words of Isaiah,:t: "I will 
say to the North give up, and to the South 
keep not back ; bring my ^ons from far, and 
my daughters from the end of the earth." 

* Fiddes, Wolsey, p. 416. 

t See liis letter to the people of Erfurt, in de W., iii. p. 
227. " Wer uns nicht hören will, von dem sind wir leicht 
und bald geschieden."—" He who will not hear us, from 
him are we easily and quickly departed." 

i " Eine schone herrliche und tröstliche Vorrede D. 31. 
L. auf das Büchlin der gottseligen Fürstin F. ürsulen 
Herzogin zu Miinsterberg."— "Afair, noble, and comfort- 
able preface of Dr. Martin Luther to the little book of the 
godly princess the Lady Ursula, Duchess of Münsterberg." 
Allenb., iv. p. 416. 



BOOK V. 

FORMATION OF A CATHOLIC MAJORITY. 
1527—1530. 



RETROSPECT. 

In the introduction to this history, vre en- 
deavoured to lay before our readers a view of 
the earher fortunes of the German nation, espe- 
cially in reference to the struggle between the 
spiritual and temporal powers. We observed 
how the papacy not only was victorious in this 
struggle, but raised itself to the condition of a ! 
substantial power in the Germanic empire. — | 
a power indeed of the first order. We saw. I 
however, that, just as it had placed itself on a ' 
footing of amity, and concluded an alliance \ 
with the vanquished imperial power, the em- j 
pi re l)ecame ungovernable, fell into confusion j 
and anarchy at home, and from year to year j 
lost its consideration abroad : till at length the ! 
spirit of the nation, condemned to inactivity, j 
expressed itself only in a general conviction 
that such a state of things was untenable and 
fatal. 

In our first book we traced the earnest efforts 
made by the nation in the latter part of the 
15th and the beginning of the 16th century, j 
to remedy the evils under which it suffered. ; 
Its first endeavours were directed towards ! 
temporal abuses. The project was conceived I 
of creating a power in the empire, resting at I 
once on the privileges of the emperor and I 
those of the States, but more especially founded [ 
on the co-operation of the latter in the. govern- ! 
ment ; not with a view of eff'ecting a centrali- j 
§ütion in the sense of modern times, but only ! 
as a means of satisfying the most pressing 
wantS; — the establishment of peace and law, 
and the defence of the country against its 
neighbours. But the end was not attained. 
Certain constitutional forms, which were of 
more value and importance to later times than 
to those which gave them birth, vrere indeed 
established ; but we have seen how small was 
their practical efficacy. The consequence 
rather was, that the abortive attempt to intro- 
duce such radical changes threw the nation 
into universal confusion. As men felt only 
the restraints which pressed upon themselves, 
but were ignorant of the benefits of pubhc 
order, the old spirit of insubordination and pri- 
vate vengeance revived ; with the diff"erence, 
however, that it was now mingled with a 
lively feeling for the common weal, and ani- 
mated by a disgust at the reigning abuses, 
bordering on rage. 

Such was the temper of the nation, when 
(as we observed in our second book), after the 
failure of its attempts to reform its secular 



affairs, it seized on the affairs of the Church, 
and on the functions of the papacy, which 
possessed so large a portion of political power 
in the empire. Here, however, this disposi- 
tion of the national mind became blended 
with still more extensive movements of public 
opinion. Though the papacy was still intent 
upon a more rigorous and minute development 
of its dogmas and its rites, and a more strerm- 
ous assertion of them, tendencies of a scien- 
tific kind which were opposed to the reigning 
system of the schools, and longings of the re- 
ligious spirit which found no satisfaction in 
the ritual observance of the prescribed ordi- 
nances, were at work within its own bosom. 
The wonderful coincidence was, that just as 
abuses had risen to the most intolerable height, 
the study of the sacred books 'in their original 
tongues once more revealed to the world, in 
all its radiance, that pure idea of Christianity 
which had so long been darkened or disguised. 
A man appeared who, in that secret travail 
and contention of mind to which the remedies 
usually applied by the Church afforded no re- 
lief, seized with his whole soul on an aspect of 
Christianity hitherto the most profoundly ob- 
scured ; and such was his own experience of 
its truth, fulness, and saving power, that he 
would never more suffer it to be wrested from 
him, but maintained it unshaken through life 
and death. In the contest to which it gave 
rise, he drew around him all the other ele- 
ments of innovation, with a consistency and 
sagacity which at length gained over the 
whole nation, and secured to himself a degree 
of sympathy such as no other man ever en- 
joyed. At "the same time that he gave a new 
direction to religious thoughts and feelings, he 
opened a new prospect of national regenera- 
tion. Men already felt that the papacy was 
not to be held in check by constitutional 
forms ; and that if they would free them- 
selves from its usurpations, they must contest 
the spiritual grounds on which those usurpa- 
tions rested. 

The voung emperor, who was elected in 
the midst of these troubles, remained faithful 
to the old system : but as he left Germany 
after a short residence, and the representative 
government which had formerly been pro- 
jected, was now in actual operation, his con- 
duct was of far less importance than that of 
the States. In the third book we saw how 
the Council of Regency, after brief hesitation, 
declared itself decidedly for Luther. Even 
the proposal made in the assemblv of the 

(291) 



292 



KETROSPECT. 



Book V. 



States, to compel the preachers at least to ad- 
here to the four oldest canonical teachers of 
the Latin Church, was overruled by the re- 
gency ; so far were people from considering a 
strict adherence to doctrines which had been 
added in later ages as indispensable. The 
views of this government were indeed on all 
points of the most enlarged kind. Its plan for 
the imposition of a general tax of the empire, 
instead of those taxes on the several states 
which it was often impossible to collect, would 
doubtless have given it a firmness and vigour 
hitherto unknown. Had this succeeded, it 
would have taken the administration of all the 
affairs of the country, ecclesiastical as well as 
temporal, vigorously in hand. It is hardly 
possible to estimate the consequences which 
raitst have resulted from a national council 
(such as was already appointed) acting under 
its guidance. But Germany had been too long 
a stranger to order. Neither the knights, nor 
the princes, nor even the States, would suffer 
a regularly constituted power, which they 
would have been forced to obey, to rise into 
existence. In defiance of the decrees of the 
diets of the empire, some princes formed the 
strictest alliance with the pope ; the emperor 
sent from Spain to forbid the assembling of 
the national council ; the whole government 
was broken up. The peasants' war was a 
symptom of the universal dissolution which 
followed. Nor was this subdued by the con- 
stituted authorities of the empire, but by the 
several associations of princes and states ex- 
posed to the attack. Measures for the consti- 
tution of a national church, such as had been 
contemplated by the council of regency, were 
no longer to be thought of. The several 
states were compelled to provide for their 
own v^-ants. 

This the emperor was in no present condi- 
tion to oppose : on the contrary, he himself 
needed the support of the new tendencies of 
the public mind. 

The attempt to re-establish the rights of the 
empire in Italy, which he had at first under- 
taken in concuirence with the papacy, gradu- 
ally entangled him, as we have shown in our 
fourth book, in the m.ost violent disputes with 
that power. With the insignificant means at 
his disposal, he would never have been able 
to make any successful resistance to Rome, 
had not the popular exasperation against the 
papacy, which increased from year to year, 
come to his aid. But in order to turn this 
feeling to account, he w-as obliged to make 
concessions to it. A solemn decree of the 
diet was passed, whereby an almost absolute 
religious independence was granted to the 
princes and states within their several domi- 
nions. This insured perfect concord and union 
throughout the empire. While a German aiiny 
marched into Italy, conquered Rome, and made 
the Pope himself a prisoner, a great number of 
the territories of princes and cities on this side 
the Alps adopted and put in practice the prin- 
ciples of Luther: they emancipated themselves 
for evbrfrom the yoke of Rome, and established 
an ecclesiastical organisation of their own. 



The fence of those hierarchies which had 
surrounded the world being thus broken down, 
the more vigorous and highly civilised among 
them sought to reconstitute themselves on a 
new- system ; the leading principle of which 
w^as, to draw religious convictions from the 
purest and most primitive sources, and to free 
civil hfe from the contracting, oppressive influ- 
ence of a spiritual institution, w^hich assumed 
the monopoly of piety — an undertaking of the 
greatest importance and the highest promise 
to the progress of the human race. 

Tlie empire, which from the earliest ages 
had developed itself under the influence of the 
See of Rome, was thus invaded by a new ele- 
ment, hostile to the ancient hierarchical order 
of things: this, if sufliciently pow^erful to sus- 
tain itself, promised to change the whole face 
and destinies of the German nation. 

Changes so radical and extensive are not, 
however, to be carried into effect without the 
most violent struggles; nor is this the result 
of human will or caprice, but inherent in the 
nature of human affairs. 

If, in the case before us, we consider the 
characters of the men who attached them- 
selves to the great religious innovation, we 
shall see how impossible it was for them to 
avoid varieties of opinion, and divergencies 
of view^s. Nor was it to be expected that 
the energetic princes who carried that innova- 
tion into effect, should remain perfectly ex- 
empt from the excesses and acts of violence 
which, in their age, had become a second 
nature. 

But far greater dangers presented them- 
selves on the side from which they had se- 
ceded. 

It would have been absurd to expect that 
the spirit of absolute domination which had 
inspired the Church of Rome from her very 
infancy, and had gradually led her to claim a 
supreme authority over the world, would allow 
her to submit to losses so dangerous to her 
power and interests, without straining every 
nerve to bring back the seceders. ^ 

The German people would doubtless have 
desired that the emperor should retain the 
power he had acquired in Italy, and, in return, 
should allow them to carry into effect those 
ideas of a Church which they confidently be- 
lieved to be in conformity with the will and 
the commands of God. But to this end it 
would have been necessary that the emperor 
should himself feel a lively sympathy in those 
ideas — a sympathy elevated far above the cal- 
culations of policy. W^ere this not the case 
(and at that time there seemed no trace of 
any probability of it), his own power stood in 
far too close and manifold relations to the 
papacy, for him long to continue at war with 
Rome. 

As, m.oreover, the attempt to establish a 
government which might carry through the 
opposition to Rome and then afford protection ■ 
to the spiritual Estates, had not succeeded, it 
followed that the latter, who had reaped no- 
thing from the reformation but loss of revenue 
and consideration, and who had reason to 



Chap. I. 



THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. 



293 



put 



dread still greater, — if not total ruin, 
themselves In an attitude of defence. 

Thus therefore it inevitably followed, that 
the emperor and the empire once more erii- 
braced the cause of the hierarchy ] and that 
the commencement of the fiercest and most 
perilous struggles dated from this moment. 

As yet there was no question of a wider 
dissemination of the new opinions; it was first 
to be seen whether the newly organised evan- 
gelical church would not share the fate of all 
the other religious institutions which had at- 
tempted to sustain themselves apart from 
Rome, but had either utteily disappeared, or 
sunk into insignificance. 

We have watched the founding of the edi- 
fice ] it now remains for us to see whether it 
will have sufficient strength and solidity to 
stand erect and unsupported. 

We shall begin with a view of the foreign 
relations of the empire, by which the general 
position of the emperor was determined, and 
which consequently exercised a powerful re- 
action on the afi'airs of Germany. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHANGES IN THE GENERAL POLITICAL RELA- 
TIONS IN EUROPE. 

1527, 1528. 

The Hispano-German army had conquered 
Rome ; and whatever might be the external 
deportment of the emperor, there is no doubt 
that he at first founded the most extensive 
political projects upon this event. 

The instructions with which he sent one of 
his courtiers, Pierre de Verey, to the Viceroy 
of Naples, have only lately come to light. In 
these he confesses that his wish was, either 
to go himself without delay to Italy, or to 
cause the Pope to come to Spain, in order that j 
they might settle all difi'erences in person and 
orally: and that he should prefer the latter 
plan, if the viceroy could find means to bring 
the pope safely to Spain ; but that he was 
alarmed by the danger of the pontiff falling 
into the hands of hostile troops by the w^ay. 
Under these circumstances he thought it best 
to reinstate the pope in the papal chair in full 
freedom. But the conditions are worthy of 
note. This freedom, said the emperor ex- 
pressly, was only to be understood as relating 
to the pope's spiritual functions; and even 
with regard to these, it would be necessary, 
before setting him at liberty, to obtain full 
security against treachery and deceit on his 
part.* The emperor stated what were the 



* Instructions to Pierre de Verey, Baron de St. Vincent. 
Excerpts in Bucholtz, Ferdinand, ill. 97 — 104, especially 
p. ]01. "We have considered that in case there be no 
means for his Holiness to come hither in safety, notwith- 
standing what has passed, to use so great liberality to- 
wards H. H. as to give him back his freredoni, and that by 
tue hand of my viceroy, as representative of our person, 



securities which he should deem satisfactory; 
viz., the cession of the cities of Ostia and 
Civita Vecchia, Parma and Piacenza, Bologna 
and Ravenna; and lastly, of Civita Castellana. 
He demands, as w^e see, ail the important 
places of the ecclesiastical states, as then 
constituted. The principle upon which he 
proceeded was, that even if the pope should 
ever again entertain the w^ish to injure him, 
he must not have the power to do so. These 
strong places he proposed to keep in his own 
hands, till the pope should call a council for 
the reformation of the Church. 

These views were to a certain degree in 
accordance with the ideas of the German na- 
tion. The church reform which the emperor 
required was certainly not that proposed by 
Luther and his followers ; nor indeed was it 
at all of a doctrinal nature : his only object 
was, to have the administrative abuses re- 
moved, as preceding kings and emperors had 
so often demanded, and Glapio had lately re- 
commended in Worms. It is however ob- 
vious that the two projects reciprocally sup- 
port each other. How vast, moreover, was 
the prospect of increased temporal power 
which opened to the emperor, if he could suc- 
ceed in keeping possession of the States of the 
Church till the accomplishment of so remote 
and uncertain an event. Thus Ferdinand had 
recently seized on the bishopric of Brixen till 
some accommodation should be come to, and 
had excited the suspicion that he intended to 
keep it. Thus too, in this very year, the 
Bishop of Utrecht, driven out by his warlike 
neighbour of Guelders, had ceded to the go- 
vernment of the Netherlands all his rights 
over the temporal administration of his bishop- 
ric for an annual sum of money. t The same 
fate seemed to await the greatest of all spi- 
ritual benefices — the States of the Church. 
It was thought that the emperor would estab- 
lish his seat of government in Rome, take the 
temporalities of the ecclesiastical states into 
his own hands, and depose, or carry off, the 
pope. What indeed could men think, when 
Charles was known to have instigated the 
Duke of Ferrara to undertake without delay 
the restoration of the exiled dynasts of the 
ecclesiastical states — the Sassatelli in Imola, 
the Bentivogii in Bologna, hc.l The Viceroy 
of Naples actually proposed to the Spanisii 
colonel Alarcon, to whom the safe keeping of 
the pope in the Castel St. Angelo w^as en- 
trusted, to bring his captive to Gaeta. Alar- 
con however refused; ^-not out of ill will," 
observes the reporter, "but because he had 
scruples of conscience." '-'God forbid," said 



he be reinstated in his chair at Rome. But before he can 
be restored to this freedom, which is to be understood of 
spiritual functions, our viceroy must be so well assured by 
him as to all things which can happen by human means 
and by secular power, that we be not deceived therein, 
and that if H. H. should have the will, he may not have 
the power to do us ill ; that thereby we may not, in return 
for the kindness we have shown him, continually receive 
injury and damage, as the experience of the past has 
shown." Bucholtz places these instructions three weeks 
after the 30th June, i. e. 21st July, 1527. 

t The negotiations of Schoonhoven (Oct. 1527) appear 
from the speech in the assembly of the Dutch States, 
Wageaaar, ii. 349. 



294 



HENKY VIII. 



Book V. 



the brave soldier, ^'that I should lead the body 
of the Lord captive."* 

It is not always necessary that the schemes 
of a power should be accurately known in 
order to excite resistance ; the same possibility 
which, on the one side, sugg'ests the thought 
of an enterprise, awakens, on the other, the 
dread of it and the endeavour to counter- 
act it. 

Charles V. had, as we may recollectj still 
most powerful enemies to contend with. The 
Ligue lay still encamped against him in un- 
broken force ; and just at this moment the King 
of England, who had for some time shown an 
inclination that way. made marked advances 
towards its chiefs. Charles's refusal to allow 
him any share in the advantages resulting 
from the victory of Pavia, or to conclude the 
promised marriage between himself and the 
Princess Mary (a refusal which touched Henry 
in a very sensible part, inasmuch as it involved 
a pecuniary damage — an old debt of the em- 
peror's being reckoned as part of the dowry), 
seemed to the king a sufficient ground for 
separating himself from his ancient ally. As 
early as the 30th April, a treaty was concluded 
between Henry VIII. and Francis I., the mo- 
tive for which they declare to be the mutual 
inclination which nature, who had fashioned 
them alike in mind and body, had implanted 
in their hearts, and which had been only 
heightened by the late interruption of the good 
understanding between them. They agree 
therein to demand of the emperor, through 
their common ambassadors, the liberation of 
the French princes on fair and honourable 
terms, and the satisfaction of the pecuniary 
claims of England : and, in case of his refusal 
to listen to these demands, to declare war 
against him without delay.! It may easily be 
imagined that their eagerness for war was 
greatly inflamed by the conquest of Rome. 
Henry VIII. says, in the full powers for con- 
cluding fresh treaties which he gave to Cardi- 
nal Wolsey, that the cause of the Holy See 
was the common cause of all princes; that 
never had a greater insult been offered to it 
than now ; and that, as this had been caused 
by no offence or provocation, but solely by un- 
bridled lust of power, such ungovernable am- 
bition must be opposed betimes by combined 
forces.! His first idea \vas, that the cardinals 
still at liberty should assemble in Avignon, 
where Wolsey should also be present; and 
that a new central point for the church should 
thus be created. But as the cardinals did not 
agree to this, the two monarchs mutually pro- 
mised on no account to consent to any procla- 
mation of a council, so long as the pope was 
not free : and jointly to oppose every attempt 
on the part of the emperor to administer the 
powers of the church. § Lastly, they settled 



* Letter of Verey. Bucholtz, pp. 110, 118. 

t Traite de Westminster, 30 Avril, 1527. Du Mont, iv. 
1. 476. 

X Ad tractandum super quocumque fcedere pro resar- 
cienda Ronianee sedis dignitate commissio regis. Eymer, 
vi. ii. p. 80. 

§ " prsesertim cum juris naturalis fequitate pensata 

non proprie ä summo pontifice factum dici possit, quod ad 



the old differences between the two kingdoms. 
Wolsey, who had repaired to Amiens, re- 
nounced, in the king's name, all claim to the 
throne of France. A sum of money was 
agreed on, as compensation, which'was to be 
paid to King Henry and all his successors, 
''without ceasing, till all the years M'hich 
divine Providence has appointed to the human 
race shall have passed away." At first they 
intended to direct their principal attack against 
the Netherlands; they now agreed to turn 
their arms against Italy. Henry showed a 
readiness to advance subsidiesj he hoped to 
obtain ample compensation by means of a per- 
petual tribute which he intended to exact from 
the duchy of Milan. The proposals made by 
the emperor at this moment, reasonable as 
they appeared, were rejected. In August 
1527, a new French army appeared in Italy 
under Lautrec, took Bosco, Alexandria and the 
strong city of Pavia, on which cruel vengeance 
was taken for the resistance it had made two 
years and a half before. In October 1527, 
Lautrec crossed the Po, intending to wait only 
for reinforcements, and then immediately to 
enter the States of the Church.il 

It would have been extremely disagreeable 
to the emperor, if the pope, still unreconciled 
to him, had been liberated from the castle by 
this army ; an event which appeared by no 
means impossible, since the German troops, 
in consequence of their disorder, and of the 
diseases caused by an Italian summer, had 
sustained great losses, and were constantly 
discontented. But this would have been ren- 
dered peculiarly vexatious and inconvenient 
to him by a project which King Henry had 
conceived, and now followed up with the rupst 
impetuous ardour. 

King Henry VIII. was married to Catharine 
of. Aragon, the widow of his brother Arthur, 
and aunt of the emperor. This marriage could 
not have been 'contracted without a dispensa- 
tion from the pope, which Julius II. had granted, 
"in virtue of his apostolical authority; that 
supreme delegated power which he used as 
time and circumstances might require."! But 
in the nation, nay, even in the persons imme- 
diately surrounding the king, the scruples on 
this head had never entirely disappeared. The 
death of every son that Catharine brought him, 
one after another, produced a deep impression 
on people's minds, and seemed a fulfilment of 
the words in the 3d Book of Moses,** denounc- 
ing childlessness against the man who shall 
take his brother's wife. Even Thomas Aqui- 
nas had doubted whether the pope could re- 



aliorum arbitrium facit captivus, etiamsi verbi? diversi.s- 
simum profiteatur." Traite d'Amiens, 18 Aout, Dumont, 
iv. 1. 494. 

II Letter from Angerer (5th Nov.), in Hormayr's Archiv. 
1812, p. 45Ö: "We allow ourselves to be restrained by 
words, and the Ligue follows up its victory. I have really 
no hope or heart left." A letter of LeiVa's of the 23d 
Oct. shows, however, that he had not lost heart. 

IT Brief in Burnet's Collection, p. 9. It is said there, 
"Cum nifttrimonium contraxissetis illudque carnali co- 
pula forsan consunmiavissetis." It is clear that the dis- 
pensation assumed this to be the case. 

** Leviticus, xx. 2], quoted by John the Baptist to 
Herod; St. Mark, vi. 18. 



Ghap. I. 



PROJECT OF DIVORCE. 



295 



lease men from the obligatory force of a law 
of the holy Scripture; and we may imagine 
how greatly the ideas of the reformers, origi- 
nating in similar questions as to the authority 
of Scripture, and now become current even in 
England, must have tended to strengthen this 
doubt. The king's confessor had for a long 
time declared to his friends that his highness's 
marriage would not last.^^ 

In this state of things it happened that Car- 
dinal Wolsey, the king's confidant, quarrelled 
with the emperor. The emperor, when at 
Windsor, had promised to raise him to the 
papal dignity; but when the occasion offered, 
he did httle or nothing in his behalf. It was 
constantly affirmed in Spain that Wolsey s\vore 
eternal vengeance against the emperor for this 
breach of "faith; that he boasted he would 
bring about suVih a revolution in affairs as had 
not taken place for a century ; — even though 
the kingdom of England should perish in the 
convulsion. t Various other causes now con- 
tributed, as we have seen, to create enmity 
between his royal master and the emperor. 
In order, however, to render this permanent. 
it was absolutely necessary that the marriage 
by which Ferdinand the Catholic and Henry 
VII. had thought lo render the union of then- 
families eternal, should be dissolved. We may 
believe Wolsey's assertion on his trial, — that 
it was not he who first suggested the divorce ; 
but it is no less certain that he first seriously 
proposed it, and with the view above men- 
tioned : he himself affirmed this most dis- 
tinctly to the French ambassador, Jean du 
Bellay.^ 

Meanwhile, the passion which the king con- 
ceived for Anna Boleyn. one of the ladies of 
the queen's ^court, though it subserved Wol- 
sey's views, did not form part of his plans. 
He wished to substitute the French alliance 
for the Spanish. When he was in Amiens he 
said to the queen-mother, that if she lived 
only another year, she would witness the eter- 
, nal union of England with the one side (the 
French), and a no less 'complete separation 
from the other. He let fall other mysterious 
expressions, begging her to remember his 
words, and adding, that he would remind her 
of them at the proper time. 

Such being the state of his mind, the differ- 
ences of the pope with the emperor w^ere 



* Polydorus Virgilius, Historia Auslica, Heniicus VIII., 
p. 82. Jam pridom conjugium re^ium velut infirmum 
labefactatum iri censebal idque clam suis ssps intimis 
amicis insusurrabat. 

t Respuesta del emperador al cartel presentado por Cla- 
rencao. Sandoval, lib. xvi. torn. i. p. 358. 

J Depeclie de Teveque de Bayonne, J. du Bellay, 28th 
October, 15-28. Wolsey complains of certain measijres of 
the French, from which had ensued " totale alienation de 
Nr« dit St. Tere avec ronipturedudit mariage(the negotia- 
tions concerning the aftair of the marriage). La quelle 
ronipture, encore que la perte de N"- dit St. Pere ne soit 
pour rien coniptee, est rie telle importance, ce dit mon dit 
Seigneur Legat (Wolsey), que tout homme en pourra 
juffer qui saura que les premiers termes du divorce ont ete 
mis par luy en avant, afin de mettre perpetuelle separa- 
tion entre les maisons d'Angleterre et de Bourgogne." 
Already printed in Le Grand's Histoire du Divorce, iii. p, 
1S5. I have recently looked through the manuscript (De- 
pesches de Messire J. du Bellay. Colbert, v. 468, King's 
Library, at Paris), which Le Grand used, and have found 
many new and important circumstances in it. 



entirely in accordance with his wishes; and 
he therefore urged on the new alliance, and 
the enterprise against Italy. 

We may imagine, however, the effect that 
schemes and proceedings of this kind natu- 
rally produced on the emperor. And here aa 
observation suggests itself, which sounds pa- 
radoxical, but, if w^e mistake not. contains a 
striking truth. 

It is a well-knowm fact, and one to which 
we shall often have occasion to recur, that 
[his divorce proved fatal to the influence of 
the papacy in England. But if we ascend to 
that higher point of view which commands the 
general relations of Europe, w-e shall see that 
the schemes of Henry VIII. were, at this cri- 
tical moment, productive of advantage to the 
papal power. The emperor, Avhose conduct 
had been not only imperious but violent to- 
wards the pope, now perceived that the head 
of the church, even in a prison, was a person 
of importance, and was still able to make him 
painfully sensible of his power. 

The emperor first heard of the project of 
divorce at the end of July, 1527. In the in- 
structions of the 21st of that month, drawn 
up for Verey, no trace of it is (if we may trust 
our extracts) to be found; but on the 31st of 
the same month we have a letter of the em- 
peror's in which it is expressly mentioned. 
In this he commissions the viceroy to speak 
of the matter to the pope, but with discretion, 
lest he should avail himself of it ''as means to 
a mischievous understanding with the king." 
Charles wished that the pope had instantly 
crushed the scheme by tw^o or three briefs to 
the king and the cardinal, containing a pe- 
remptory refusal. § 

It is obvious that a vast weight was thrown 
into the pope's scale by the need the emperor 
had of his aid in a domestic affair of such 
importance. 

To this was added the unfavourat|le im- 
pression produced in Spain by the captivity 
of the sovereign pontiff. The grandees of 
that kingdom, both temporal and spiritual, 
who w^ere aj; the court, took an occasion to 
speak to the emperor about it, and to remind 
him of the devoted attachment of the Spanish 
nation to the see of Rome. The nuncio was 
even emboldened to entertain the project 
of suspending the ecclesiastical functions 
throughout Spain; the prelates were to ap- 
pear befoie the emperor in mourning gar- 
ments, and to demand from him the liberty 
of Christ's vicegerent on earth. Nothing less 
than the direct interference of the court was 
required to prevent his issuing a proclama- 
tion of this violent character.il 

Under these circumstances the imperial 
council of state found it impossible to adhere 
absolutely to its first instructions, Gattinava 
declared that they could not keep the pope a 
prisoner, so long as they continued to recognise 
him as the true pope. De Praet remarked, 
that the troops now quartered in Rome were 



§ Excerpt from this letter. Bu'Sfcltz, iii. 94, note. 
I! Castiglione, lOth Dec, 1527; Pallavicini, lib. ii. c. 14. 



296 



LIBERATION OF THE POPE. 



Book V. 



wanted for the defence of the kingdom of 
Naples, and that they could not march till the 
pope was set at liberty: he advised that the 
orders issued for the execution of the instruc- 
tions should be qualified by the very pregnant 
words, '-'as far as practicable." The council 
of state hereupon came to the decision that the 
pope must, at all events, be set at liberty.* 

Negotiations were then set on foot with 
Clement VII., through Degli Angeli, general 
of the Franciscans. We unfortunately pos- 
sess no details of their progress. On the 
twenty-sixth of November, 1527, a treaty was 
concluded, in virtue of which the pope was 
restored, not only to his spiritual functions but 
to his temporal power. The emperor con- 
tented himself with the cession of a few 
strong places, such as Ostia, Civita Vecchia 
and Civita Castellana. The pope promised to 
convoke a council for the union and reforma- 
tion of the church, and to contribute, as far 
as lay in his power, to satisfy the soldiery.! 
Their pay was to be raised chiefly by a large 
sale of church lands in the Neapolitan ter- 
ritory. 

Another point, which is not mentioned in 
the treaty, was, as it appears, also a subject 
of negotiation. The pope is said to have pro- 
mised the emperor that he would not consent 
to the divorce of the king of England. 

Clement VII. was once more free. He gar- 
risoned the castle of St. Angelo with his own 
troops, caused all the bells in the city to be 
rung, and nominated anew all the officers of 
the camera and of the city. The vast schemes 
of limiting the pope to his spiritual functions, 
of carrying him off to a distant fortress, and 
the like, were so far from being realised, that 
the emperor's own power in Italy was now 
once more in danger. 



At first the pope was far from trusting the 
emperor or his ministers, or from believing 
that the peace between them would be of 
long endurance. It was agreed that he should 
go to Orvieto. But he was still fearful that 
Hugo Moncada, who had succeeded Lautrec 
as viceroy of Naples, would seize upon his 
person on the way, and carry him off to some 
fortress in the imperial territory.!: He deter- 
mined to escape in disguise through the gates 
of the garden of the Vatican, on the night 
before the day appointed for his journey. In 
this way he reached Orvieto, on the 10th of 
December, 1527. 

For a moment he felt as if he were once 
more master of his own destiny: but he no 
sooner raised his eyes, than he found himself 
surrounded by dangers on every hand. 

On the one side, he saw his country in 
great measure in the hands of the conqueror 
by whom he had been so injuriously treated. 

* Notice in Bucholtz, iii. p. 1]9. 

t Contract between Pope Clement and Charles V. ; 
Reissner, p. ]5.5. The words of the preamble are, how- 
ever, rather a form of^pression than an historical truth. 

I Jovius, Vita PomiTCji Columnse, 197, f. Guicciardini, 
lib. jxiii. p. 469. 



In the course of the winter his capital had 
been reduced to utter ruin by the imperial 
troops, to which arrears of pay were still due. 

On the other side, the friends who had 
affected to protect him inspired him only with 
hatred, distrust and alarm. Florence, which 
had again expelled the house of Medici, and 
attempted to found a republic on the plan of 
Savonarola, found support from France. The 
Venetians had taken possession of the cities of 
Ravenna and Cervia, which Julius II. deemed 
it so great a glory to have reconquered. 

Clement feared both parties. That the em- 
peror should possess at once Milan and Na- 
ples, seemed to him extrernely dangerous ^§ 
in that case Charles w^ould indeed be '-lord 
of all things;*' the favour which he himself 
had shown to the emperor's foes would bring 
his head upon the block. But the measures 
of the Ligue caused him, if possible, more 
anxiety and distress. When the French in- 
vited him to sanction and to join the Ligue, 
as it was then constituted, he rephed, that it 
was a strange proposal to make to him, to 
sanction and concur in the measures taken 
against himself: — in Florence his family had 
been ruined ; Ferrara was constantly engaged 
in hostilities against him ; yet with these 
powers he was asked to ally himself. 

The French told him they were determined 
to wn-est not only Milan but Naples also from 
the emperor; and they wished to know whe- 
ther the pope would at least openly declare 
himself for them, when they had made their 
way to Naples, and driven out the Spaniard. 
Clement evaded giving a positive answer; he 
found it difficult "to believe that they would, 
as they asserted, allow" him to dispose of Na- 
ples at his pleasure; judging from his coun- 
tenance, people concluded that his intention 
was to gain time to consider, and then to 
make such terms as circumstances would 
allow.ll 

Every thing, however, depended on the 
issue of the enterprise of France, and on the \ 
fortune of arms. 

In January 1528, Lautrec entered the king- 
dom of Naples. The German army, which 
had at length with infinite difficulty'been led 
out of Rome by the Prince of Orange, threw 
itself in his way at Troja, and offered to give 
him battle. But Lautrec expected succours 
from Venice, and was satisfied to let the im- 
perialists feel the superiority of his artillery. 
This conduct had such an effect, that an in- 
clination in favour of France manifested itself 
throughout the empire. When the expected 
reinforcements arrived, the imperial troops, 



§ Literee Grenrorii de Cas?ellis, in Fiddes's Life of Wol- 
sey, p. 4G7. " Et cum ei persuasissem, ut nihil dubitaret, 
et'quod totum se rejiceret in manns regias majestatis et 
rev. D. Legati, dixit se ita velle facere et quod in eoruni 
brachia se et omnia sua remittat. Et caput jam ponit 
sub supplicio, nisi a regia Majestate adjuvetur. Si Coesar 
permittatur aliquid possidere in Italia pra;terquam in 
regno Neapolitano, omnium rerum semper erit dominus, 
nisi mature confundatur." It is evident he was still of 
opinion that it was necessary to the security of the see 
of Rome that Milan should be wrested from the emperor. 

II Nie. Raince au Gr. Maitre, 2Stfa Jan. 1523. MS. Ee- 
thune, 8534. 



Chap. I. 



ITALIAN WARS, 1528. 



297 



which had no artillery, found it necessary to 
abandon the field and retreat upon Naples, the 
defence of which was of the highest import- 
ance;* the head, they said, did not follow the 
members, bnt the members the head. Lau- 
trec hastened to pursue them : towards the 
end of April he encamped on either side of 
the higii road from Capua, and opened the 
siege of Naples. It appeared almost impossi- 
ble that this populous city, less able than any 
other to endure scarcity of food, could long 
hold out against a conquering army. In Eng- 
land the fall of Naples was already reckoned 
upon as the termination of the whole affair; 
for the provinces of the kingdom were already 
in ofreat measure in the hands of the allie: 



offences, as well as of the treatment experi- 
enced by his native city, whose ancient rights 
over Savona were now disputed. In England, 
where many Genoese then lived, and all these 
circumstances were known with the greatest 
accuracy, they created the most violent irrita- 
tion. Wolsey said the French ought to give 
Doria all the money and all the honours he 
might choose to demand ; and rather cede Sa- 
vona seven times over than estrange this man 
at the moment when they most needed him. 
But France did not keep one line of policy so 
rigorously and steadily in view, as to weigh all 
the consequences of his loss. On the other 
hand, the emperor subscribed to all the terms 
proposed by Doria; he rendered the destiny 



The Venetians took possession of the ports of of Genoa, as well as the person and fortunes 



Apulia, while Filippino Doria defeated the im- 
perialists in the harbour of Amalfi. Some 
people began to conceive a hope of a universal 



of Doria, perfectly secure, and he voluntarily 
added certain marks of favour; for example, 
considerable grant of* land in the Neapolitan 



overthrow of the imperial power. Wolsey was ■ territory. He knew well what he was doin«. 
beard to declare that the pope must be enabled i In a very short time Andrea Doria hoisted on 
at once to depose the emperor, on account of the emperor's shipsthe very flags which Fil ip- 
the grievous outrages he had experienced from ' pino had taken from the imperialists in the 
him; he had only to proclaim that the elec- : battle of Amalti.il His desertion alone suf- 
toral princes possessed the right of proceeding i ficed to establish the emperor's superiority in 
to a new election, and to admonish them to the jMediterranean. But besides this, it was 



choose one of their own body. This would 
not only have the effect of conciliating them, 
but would create such a breach between the 
emperor and the pope that any future recon- 
ciliation would be impossible. t A communi- 
cation to this effect was in fact made to the 
pope. He deemed it necessary that both kings 
should agree upon the candidate for the impe- 
rial crowir, lest a similar confusion to that at 
tbe last election (of Charles V.) should occur. 
He. thought he could reckon upon four elec- 
toral princes. I 

But here, too, the emperor's luck}' star did 
not forsake him. 

In the first place, he succeeded in gaining 
over one of the most powerful chiefs of Italy, 
Andrea Doria. of Genoa. He bad long been 
negotiating with him: first before Doria en- 
tered into the service of the Ligue. and after- 
wards durmg the visit of the arch-chancellor 
Gattinara to Upper Italy, in May 1527 : an 
Augustinian hermit, in concert with a servant 
of Doria' s named Erasmo, were, on both occa- 
sions, the secret mediators. § It is not sur- 
prising if, under these circumstances, the king 
of France missed in Doria the cordiality and 
zeal wliich he expected from him. Doria, on 
his side, made many complaints of personal 

* Ziegler, Acta Paparum. book xii. "As the imperial- 
ists had neither ammunition nor provisions, ana nothing 
could be conveyed to them in safety,— for all places were 
better inclined to the French than to the imperialists . . . ." 

t Bellay au Grandmaitre, 2d Jan. 15-28. (MS. Colberl, 

i Gardiner and Cassalis to C. Wolsev. April 28. Strype, 
Eccles. Mem. v. 427. "It were," says the pope, "to be 
foreseen before sentence of privation, who were most 
meet to be chosen." 

§ The details which we find concernins this in Hor- 
mayr's Archiv. ISIO, p. 61, and in Bucholtz, are doubtless 
taken from the same documents in the Vienna archives. 
Doria's engagements to Francis were to cease Isl July. 
1528, and then those to the emperor to begin. See also 
Folieta, Historia Genuensis, p. 309. Sieonius de rebus 
gestis Andrece Aursse, 0pp. Sigonii, i. 241. 
38 



an important advantage, that a city which, 
formed the link of direct communication be- 
tween Spain and Milan, once more declared 
for the emperor. 

At this moment, too, the fate of Naples was 
decided. 

Contagious diseases, such as always follow 
in the train of devastating war, broke out in 
the French armies before Naples, and spread 
with dreadful rapidity. '-God sent amongst 
them," says a German report, -such a pesti- 
lence that out of 25.000 not above 4000 sur- 
vived. "IT Lautrec himself was one of its vic- 
tims; Vaudemont, to whom the crown had 
been destined, died before the g-ates which he 
had hoped to enter in triumph as king. To 
these disasters were added the fortunate turn 
of things among the besieged. The German 
imperialists, as at Pavia, directed their attacks 
in the first place against their countrymen in 
the service of France, under the Count of Lup- 
fen, and brought back their colours as a trophy 
into the city : at length the rest of the French 
^rmy found itself compelled to prepare for a 
retreat, when at that moment it was attacked 



; Letter to Salviati, L. d. Principi, ii. 129. la a MSS. 
biography of Guasto. in the Chigi library at Rome, there 
is a chapter on the Cambiamento di A. IDoria, which cer- 
tainly sounds rather romantic. Doria's prisoners hear 
him complaining of king Francis in his sleep; "non basta 
aJ re Francesco, avermi tolti i ricatti guadasnati col 
rischio del mio saneue, ma vuol Genova sottoporre a Sa- 
vona — ma io cainbiaro !a bandiera. saro signore del mare, 
faro libera non che soggetta la patria mia." The mo- 
tives, however, are clear enough. According to this story. 
Guasto urged them in his conversation with Doria. ad- 
ducing the examples of La Palice and Giangiacopo Tri- 
vulzio, who had also been very ungratefully treated by 
Francis. These arguments brought him over. 

TT Ziegler: "es starb ser under ihnen, Gott schiket under 
des Frantzosen häuften ain solche pestilenz, das si inner- 
halb 30 Tagen schir all starben und von 25.000 über 4,000 
nit beliben." "There died many among them. God sent 
among the trooj)S such a pestiience;:?hat within thirty 
days they sheer all di-?d, and out of 25.000 not 4,000 re- 
mained ;" a statement which Reissner has alteied, after 
iiis manner, p. 173. 



298 



ITALIAN WARS, 1528. 



Book V. 



and totally cut off. This occurred on the 29th 
August 1528.=^ 

The imperialists, whose condition had so 
lately appeared hopeless, remained completely 
victors, and once more took possession of the 
kingdom. 

Fortunate was it for the pope that he had 
remained neutral. ''But for this," writes his 
secretary of state, Sanga, now his prime mi- 
iiister,"f "we should now be in the lowest 
abyss of ruin." It was in a conference be- 
tween Clement and Sanga on the 6th of Sep- 
tember, that some advances to the emperor 
were seriously resolved on. 

The imperial party had already frequently 
requested the pope to return to Rome, wehere 
they promised to defend him from every dan- 
ger.! He now determined upon this step. On 
the 6th of October we i^ud him again in Rome. 

He was not, however, on that account to be 
regarded as in any degree an ally of the em- 
peror. Even in November 1528, he encouraged 
Francis I. to keep alive the agitation in Ger- 
many, by which Charles's dignity as emperor 
was endangered, and to support the Woiwode 
of Transylvania. § In December 1528, the 
French ambassador declares that, "Vvhatever 
may appear to the contrary, the pope is as 
much inclined to the French as ever ; that at 
the bottom of his heart he was much dis- 
pleased that their attack on Naples had suc- 
ceeded so ill ; had they followed his advice, 
he said, matters would not have ended so. "I 
venture to affirm," adds the ambassador, " that 
here is no feint. "II It is at least certain that 
one of his intimates. Cardinal Campeggi, who 
was gone to England to conduct the proceed- 
ings on the king's divorce, said publicly, in 
the plainest terms, that the emperor was full 
of ill-will, and would do them as much mis- 
chief as he possibly could ; that to attack him 
in good earnest was the true way to bring him 
to his senses; the desirable thing would be to 
do him some damage in Spain, but as that was 
not practicable, an expedition against him in 
Germany was by all means to be undertaken, 
let it be conducted as it might. If 

No one, therefore, could have ventured to 
predict a speedy peace. In the year 1528- a 
formal challenge was sent by the emperor to 
the king, and it was from no backwardness oij 
the part of the former that a single combat 
did not take place.** 



* Sepulvecia, who was then in Gaeta, viii. 34, f. 

t Al CI. Campenrgin, Lettere di principi, ii. 127. " Se sua 
Santitä non faceva cosi, hora si sarebbe nel profondo della 
total ruina." 

X Lettera di Roma a B. Castiglione. L. d. pr. ii. 10. 

§Gio Joachim a Montmorency Roma, 7th Nov. 1528. 
Molini, ii. 122. " Mi disse S. Santitä, che Timperatore 
fosse quasi costretto, in persona trovarsi ben tosto in 
Alamagna, per dar ordine a molte cose, — le qiiali non 
ordinate— producevano gran pregiudizio e non minor mo- 
vimento, minacciavano a Timperatore sua stato, titulo e 
diiinitä (lie i)()itits, no doubt, at the designs of the House 
of Bavaria, to ohtniii tlie dignity of king of Rome). Se 
RIO le cose in Gennania fnssero nel stato che si dice, a 
S. Sä parrehbe che! chr^o re per ben degli suoi afiari le 
mantevesse, augumentasse ef omen lasse." 

\l Raince, 14th Dec. 1528, "qu'il n y a fiction aucune." 

irBeliay, 1 Jan. 1529, " lonant fort I'enterprise d'Alle- 
iTiagne, par quel moyen qu'elle se puisse conduire." 

** ßelacion da Borgoiia, Sandoval, 888. He Lad a , 

f 



In Upper Italy the fortune of war was still 
vacillating, inclining rather to the side of the 
king than to that of the emperor. The same 
diseases which had destroyed the French 
army before Naples, attacked the German 
troops which, in the summer of 1528, had 
crossed the Alps under Henry of Brunswick 
and Marx Sittich of Eras, in aid of the em- 
peror, and were now encamped in Lombardy. 
Independently of this, Duke Henry was not 
the man to carry through an undertaking in 
which he had to contend at once with the 
jealousy of his allies, the aversion of the 
country people, the fatal effects of the cli- 
mate, and the attacks of the enemy. He 
soon retreated in disgust across the Alps; his 
troops dispersed, and part of them entered 
the service of Venice. 

Theieupon a fresh French army made its 
appearance in Ivrea under St. Pol; the Vene- 
tians sent money and troops to meet it, and 
the allies not only reconquered Pavia, which 
they had a second time lost, but immediately 
began to indulge the highest hopes. St. Pol 
was of opinion that they ought instantly to 
press on to the Neapolitan territory, where a 
number of strong places were still in posses- 
sion of the French ; he doubted not that the 
whole kingdom would then fall into his hands. 
The French government, on the other hand, 
thought it more urgent first to make an attack 
on Genoa and Andrea Doria. Although this 
did not succeed, the army became master of 
the greater part of Lombardy, and in England 
hopes were still entertained that it would soon 
take Milan, and even, by investing Parma 
and Piacenza, regain its influence over the 
pope. 



Nor was eastern Europe in a state of less 
confusion. So long as Ferdinand himself was 
present in Hungary, order was in some mea- 



Even his own adherents could not agree. 
The Bishop of Erlau complained of Andrew 
Bathory, who had insulted and wounded him ; 
"no Socrates," he declared, "had had need 
of more patience than he." Francis Batthy- 
any could not make his way to the castles 
of which Louis Pekry had taken possession, 
in his name. A universal cry was raised 
against the violences of the German army 
under Katzianer, which levied its supplies 
directly upon the country, and advanced at a 
very slovt^ rate against the Joannists. Katzia- 
ner sent an energetic and rough answer. ft 
The assertion, even if untrue, that bread 



solemn audience of the king, who said to him, " Dost 
thou bring me the place of battle?" The herald answer- 
ed, "Sire, the Emperor's sacred majesty " The king 

broke in upon him, " I bid thee that thou speak to me oif 
nothing, till thou hast brought me assurance of the place 
of battle." The herald could not fully deliver his mes- 
sage ; but at last it came to pass as Wolsey thought. " I 
trust to God these young courageous passions shall be 
finally converted into fume." 21st July, St. P. p. 320. 

ft Correspondence in Bucholtz, iii. 269—279. In Ursinus 
Veiius de Bello Pannonico, p. 91, we see that the grandees 
of Hungary quarrelled, "de bonis hostis Joannis jamolim 
inter se partitis." 



Chap. IL 



TROUBLES IN HUNGARY, 1528. 



299 



mixed with chalk was given to the Germans 
to poison them, proves the strong national 
antipathy that had arisen. This rendered it 
doubly difficult to keep in check the adhe- 
rents of Zapolya. At the diet of Ofen, in 
January 1528, they formed three distinct 
classes ; those who, spite of the oath they 
had sworn to King Ferdinand, endeavoured 
to seduce his subjects to revolt; the vacil- 
lating, who had demanded safe conduct in 
order that they might go and do homage to 
the king, and then had never appeared ; and 
lastly. Zapolya"s open followers, who carried 
on a system of plunder, and rendered the 
country insecure. It does not appear that 
any effectual measures were taken ag-ainst 
any of them. On the other hand, Zapolya 
neglected no means by which he could, from 
his exile at Tarnow, keep Hungary in a state 
of agitation. George Martinuzzi, a monk of 
the Pauline order, who had formerly been in 
the service of Zapolya's mother, was so de- 
voted to him that he three times ventured 
into Hungary on foot. He boasts of the good 
reception he had experienced from Jacob von 
Thornaly, Stephen Bathory of Somlyo, and 
Paul Arthandy. He wandered from castle to 
castle, revived old connexions, and prepared 
every thing for his lord's reception.* The 
main thing was, that he was the bearer of 
promises of Turkish succours. In the be- 
ginning of the year 1528 a treaty had been 
concluded between Zapolya and Suleiman. 
This was not the result of presents, for the am- 
bassador, Jerome Lasko, had brought none ; 
nor of any promise of tribute, but solely of 
political motives. Zapolya had declared ,that 
he would, now and always, serve the mighty 
sultan with all the powers of his kingdom, of 
his hereditary possessions, and even of his 
own person. "I, on the other hand," said 
Suleiman, in the solemn audience of leave, 
'• will be a true friend and ally to your mas- 
ter, and support him against his enemies with 
all my power. I swear it by the prophet, by 
the great prophet beloved of God, Mohammed, 
and by my sword. ""t Unquestionably nothino- 
could be more conducive to the progress of 
the Turkish power than a strict alliance with 
so influential a chief. Suleiman considered 
himself as the most formidable rival of the 
House of Austria, ■— the natural head of the 
opposition to it, in which he included France, 
Venice, Poland, and the pope himself; "that 
poor priest from whom the faith of the Chris- 
tians emanates, and whom they nevertheless 
so remorselessly maltreat." He was con- 
vinced that he ought immediately to oppose 
resistance to the power of the emperor 
Charles v.; "for," gaid he, "it is hke a 
stream formed of small brooks and melting 
snows, which at length undermines the strong 
castle in the mountain gorge."!" The Aus- 



* His letter to Verantius in Pray, and thence in Kato- 
ua, XX. 1. 409. See Isthuansi,p. 126. 

t Lasky's Statement in Katona, xx. 1. Lasky declared 
in Zapolya's name, " non solum Ungariae regnum, non 
solum dominia patrimonii sui,sed et personam suam pro- 
priam non suam esse vult sed vestrana," p. 319. 

J Habordancz, Reportj in Bucholtz, iii. 596. 



trian ambassadors assert that the Kittg of 
Poland sent a special messenger in October 
1528, inviting the sultan to declare war upon 
the emperor in the following year; in which 
case he would come to his assistance. Sulei- 
man was, however, already resolved upon it. 
When Habordancz, the envoy sent by Ferdi- 
nand to Constantinople, to demand the resti- 
tution of twenty-four fortresses formerly be- 
longing to Hungary, offered only a pecuniary 
compensation in return, the sultan replied, 
that he would come in person, with all his 
troops, to defend these fortresses. It may 
easily be imagined what a ferment this pros- 
pect of war excited in Hungary. As early as 
September 1528, Andrew Bathory wrote to 
King Ferdinand that he lived surrounded by 
rebels, and with death before his eyes. The 
same year, Peter Raresch, Hospodar of LIol- 
davia, who had long been a fisherman, but 
was now recognised as a true Dragoschide of 
the house of the great Stephen, invaded and 
laid w^aste the diocese of Szekler.§ Every 
thing seemed to tend to a great catastrophe. 

While such an universal ferment prevailed 
in the East and in the West, it was hardly pos- 
sible that stormy Germany should escape the 
contagion. 



CHAPTER II. 

GERMANY DURING THE AFFAIR AND TIMES OF 
PACK. 

We invariably find the Dukes of Bavaria in 
more or less intimate connexion with the 
foreign princes hostile to the empire — the 
King of France, II the woiwode, and above all, 
the pope. 

They had still not relinquished their hopes 
of the im^perial crown. They carried on in- 
cessant intrigues with the leading electoral 
princes, and made them magnificent promises. 
They also tried to set the King of France again 
in motion. 

We are in possession of a project which 
they communicated to the French court with 
a view to the attainment of their end.ll It was 
proposed that French ambassadors, supported 
by those of Lorraine and of England, should 
appear at the next diet of the empire, and 
should remind the States what numerous and 
severe losses the church and the empire had 
sustained, since the House of Austria had oc- 
cupied the imperial throne. Constantinople, 
Rhodes, and now Hungary, were lost to Chris- 
tendom ; Basle and Constance to the empire ', 
the sole object of the princes of Austria was 



§ Engel, Geschichte der Wallachei, p, 170. 

II Lettre de Breton au Gr. Maitre, 17th May, 1528 (MS, 
Bethune). " Le secretaire du due de Baviere, que vous 
savez, est depuis deux (jours ?) ici et a eu fort bonne au- 
dience du roi." 

IT Forme et maniere de conduire et mener l'affaire d'elec- 
tion au nom du roi de France. MS. Bethune, 6593, f. 9?. 
See the agreement with Mainz ; Stumpf, p. 50. 



PACK'S PLOT, 1528. 



Book V. 



to make the empire hereditary, and to aggran- 
dise themselves in every possible way^ (as an 
example of which, Don Ferdinand^ s recent 
attempt to get possession of Salzburg was to 
be cited :) hereupon they should call upon the 
States to proceed to the election of another 
emperor ; to elevate to the throne a man who 
would rule uprightly, and restore Germany to 
its former prosperity; who should be a true 
and good catholic, able to eradicate all here- 
sies. With such an emperor, the King of 
France should engage to form the strictest 
alhance.* 

It is very probable that these negotiations 
v/ere carried further. It is at least certain 
that the Bavarians hoped to gain over the 
Palatinate and Treves ; the Elector of Bran- 
denburg, through the influence of France, and 
the Elector of Saxony by corrupting his coun- 
cillors. t This we gather from the expressions 
of the pope and his legate, as well as from 
those of Cardinal Wolsey. 

It is, however, remarkable enough that the 
opposite (i. e. the evangelical) party had also 
made advances to the powers hostile to Aus- 
tria. 

We find an emissary of the Landgrave of 
Hessen, Dr. Walter, at the court of France. 
Another we see setting out on his way to John 
Zapolya, and trace his progress through the 
whole of his journey. This was the cele- 
brated Dr. Pack. In the Passion-week of 
1528, we find him in Senftenberg, where he 
gave himself out to be a canon of Meissen ] 
at Easter, in Breslau, where he hired a ser- 
vant who could speak Polish; on the 18th of 
April, at Cracow. Here, in the church of St. 
Barbara, he had his first interview with a fol- 
lower of the woiwode. at which they deter- 
mined that he should visit that prince in per- 
son., When Pack reached the neighbourhood 
of Tarnow. where the woiwode then resided, 
he alighted from his carriage and proceeded 
on foot into the city, in order not to attract 
attention. On the 26th and 27th April we find 
him negotiating with the woiwode ; a formal 
treaty was drawn up, and nothing was want- 
ing but the ratification of the landgrave. J 
The landgrave had demanded money to en- 
able him to attack Ferdinand in Germany. 
The woiwode promised to procure 100,000 
gulden from his brother-in-law, the king of 
Poland. The report that Poland had promised 
the sultan to attack Ferdinand with German 
troops, may very probably be traced to this 
treaty. 

It is impossible to calculate the conse- 
quences that must have resulted from a pro- 



* The conclusion runs thus: "Au surplus nos princes 
sont deliböres de n'nbmettre rien de leur labeur et vigi- 
lance, et d'essayer tous les inoyens qu'ils verront etre ne- 
cessaires pour la fin de cette affaire, et qu'ils ont esperance, 
Dieu aidant et la bont6 du roi tres chrötien, achever 
I'affaire ainsi qu'ils le desiren* " 

t ' Möchten etliche seiner Räthe durch Geld abzurichten 
seyn :" " some of his councillors might be to be bi'ought 
round with money." Extracts from a memoir, probably 
of Duke William, in Sugenheim, Baierus Zustände, &;c., 
p. 9. 

X We have taken all the details from the confession of 
Hans Schuoch of Breslau, the same whom Pack hired as 
his servant. 



secution of these schemes, which were aimed 
by the one party at Charles's imperial dignity, 
while the other intended to attack Ferdinand 
in his hereditary domains ;§ especially at a 
time when all other social and political rela- 
tions were shaken. 

But such projects were not destined to be 
realised. The Dukes of Bavaria and the 
Landgrave of Hessen were wholly ignorant 
that they were allies. Indeed, such violent an- 
tipathies, chiefly from religious causes, arose 
among the sovereigns of Germany, that they 
gave birth to one of the most singular compli- 
cations that ever occurred in history. 

In consequence of so many evangelical 
princes having thrown off the jurisdiction of 
the ecclesiastical courts, numerous complaints 
were laid before the imperial court; and, in 
the existing state and spirit of the imperial 
chanceries, these complaints could not fail to 
meet with a hearing : it is perfectly true that 
the expediency of resorting to punishments, 
and even to the ban, was there suggested. 
Nassau, which had old territorial dissensions 
with the Landgrave of Hessen, sought to se- 
cure itself against this contingency by man- 
dates. II 

A vague rumour of these designs found its 
way to Germany. The landgrave was warned 
by a man of great consideration, as he says, 
"whom he would not name, but who knew 
from good authority that there was something 
in hand — extraordinary practices [merkliche 
practica) — against the Lutherans.-' 

The landgrave, however, did not look so far 
for the origin of the danger. He saw only the 
hostilities of which the adherents of the new 
doctrine were the objects, in Bavaria and the 
whole of Upper Germany; the violent menaces 
uttered by Duke George of Saxony against his 
cousin the elector ; his declarations that no- 
thing should induce him to be reconciled to 
that prince so long as he adhered to the Lu- 
theran sect, and that he only waited for the 
emperor's commands to proceed against him. 
It appeared to the landgrave a suspicious cir- 
cumstance that zealous catholic princes had 
visited King Ferdinand at Breslau, in May 
1527, and had afterwards afforded him assist- 
ance in Hungary; in short, he was fully per- 
suaded that a plot against him was in agita- 
tion among his neighbours. 

Just at this time it happened that the stew- 
ard of the chancery of Duke George — Otto 
von Pack — the same who undertook the jour- 
ney to Tarnow — in the course of the year 



§ It was the general opinion that the troubles in the 
Mark, and the attacks made by Minkwitz upon Lebus, 
were connected with this. Duke George writes to Hoyer 
von Mansfeld (March, 1529), " It is credibly reported to us 
that a very great business was in hand, and although it 
is set on foot in the name of some of the nobles, we can- 
not give much heed to it, since a great deal of money is 
aiven to the persons employed. It is said that this busi- 
ness is undertaken for the advantage of the Wayda, and 
against the country of Laussnitz and the elector of Bran- 
denburg." The duke was just then intending to have an 
interview with the elector. It v^as he who arrested 
Minkwitz. 

11 Heinrich v. Nassau to Joh. v. TVassau ; Arnoldi, Me- 
moirs, p. 200. The letter is of the 13th April, before 
Pack's affair, of which nothing was then known, espe- 
cially in Spain. 



Chap. IL 



PACK'S PLOT, 1528. 



301 



1527 came to the landgrave, who was then at 
-Cassel, to give him information and legal ad- 
vice as to the affair with Nassau. The land- 
grave disclosed to him his apprehensions, and 
pressed him to say whether he knew any- 
thing about the m-atter. Pack sighed, and 
was silent. This only increased the land- 
grave's urgency. Pack at length declared, 
that a league against the Lutherans was in- 
deed not only in hand, but actually concluded. 
He engaged to procure the original documents 
for the landgrave, who, in return, promised 
him his protection and a reward of 10,000 
gulden. Landgrave Philip was now inflamed 
with indignation. In February 1528, we find 
him in Dresden : whither Pack brought, not, 
indeed, the original of the treaty, Vv'hich, he 
said, the chancellor had laid aside, but a copy 
of it, bearing all the outward marks of authen- 
ticity. The seal of the Saxon chancery was 
afhxed on both sides to the black silk cord 
which tied the sheets of paper together, and 
beneath it hung the seal of the signet ring I 
w-hich Duke George wore (and which the 
landgrave knew perfectly well), with his three 
escutcheons: in the upper one the rue gar- 
land ; in the lowest, two lions. Pack allowed 
the landgrave's secretary to take a copy of it, 
and received four thousand gulden.* 

This document contained the most alarming 
and hostile matter that it was possible to con- 
ceive. It appeared therein that the Electors 
of i\Iainz and Brandenburg, the Dukes of Sax- 
ony and Bavaria, the Bishops of Saltzburg, 
Wurzburg, and Bamberg, in conjunction with 
King Ferdinand, had bound themselves in the 
first place to fall upon the Elector of Saxony, 
if he refused to deliver up Luther and his fol- 
lowers, and to partition his territory : and next 
to attack the landgrave, and if he would not 
recant, to drive him out of his country, which 
was then to be given to Duke George. The 
city of Llagdeburg was also to be reduced to 
subjection to its bishop. The. mode, as well 
as the means of attack were accurately deter- 
mined. 

The landgrave, long filled with suspicions of 
this kind, did not for a moment doubt the au- 
thenticity of the document laid before him : 
he hurried, with his habitual vehemence, to 
Weimar, in order to communicate it to the 
jelector. Even he was stunned and hurried 
away by the amazing, yet precise and urgent 
nature of the danger ; and on the 9th of March 
a treaty between the two princes was con- 
cluded, in which they promised to raise six 
thousand foot and two thousand horse for their 
mutual defence. They concluded that it would 
be better not long to await the attack, but to 
anticipate it. The landgrave himself went to 
Nürnberg, and thence to Ansbach. It was 
under these circumstances that he sent Otto 
Pack, whom he had now attached more closely 
to his service, to the woiwode. Warlike pre- 
parations began without delay. The Hessian 



* Statement of the Landgrave, in a letter to Duke 
Georjre, of the 28th June, which Rommel (iii. 21) speaks 
of as'losl, but which is in the Dresden archives. I shall 
give it in the Appendix. 
2 A 



troops assembled near Herrenbreitungen; the 
Saxon, in the Thuringian forest. The whole 
of Germany was in motion. 

The situation of things in the evangehcal 
part of Germany was not, however, such as to 
depend solely on the hasty spirit of this or 
that prince. The theologians too, especially 
Lulher, had a voice to give ; and the first 
question was, what opinion this voice would 
pronounce. 

Luther had as little doubt as the two princes 
of the genuineness of the treaty laid before 
him ; but he thought it did not justify an im- 
mediate resort to arms. Such violent measures 
were opposed to all his ideas of law and mo- 
rality. He therefore thought it his duty to 
remonstrate with the princes on their designs, 
and beg them to desist from them : an accu- 
sation, he said, must first be laid against their 
enemies, and the answer heard ; othervv'ise, 
violence and confusion would break out among 
the princes of Germany, which, to the joy of 
Satan, would lay waste the country. Of all 
the men who ever placed themselves at the 
head of a great movement, Luther was per- 
haps the most averse to violence and war. He 
held that self-defence was lawful, especially 
against princes like those above named, who, 
as the equals of his master, had no sovereignty 
over him : but to be the first to take up arms 
and proceed to acts of offence, — that was 
beyond his comprehension. t He applied the 
words, '' Blessed are the meek and the peace- 
makers,'' to political affairs. "He that taketh 
the sword shall perish by the sword." " War," 
said he. '-ventures all, wins little, and is cer- 
tain to lose ; but meekness loses nothing, risks 
little, and wins all." 

It was easy to persuade Elector John, who 
understood the gospel as Luther did, and loved 
it with all his heart; he had merely been hur- 
ried awa}' by the vehemence of his impetuous 
ally. He now represented to Philip that an 
attack might bring dishonour on the gospel, 
and that they must therefore refrain from it. 
The landgrave replied, that the treaty of their 
enemies, sealed and sworn to by them, was 
equivalent to an attack; he represented the 
advantage of taking immediate and active 
measures for their defence ; it would awaken 
many who now slumbered, and would enable 
them to obtain safer terms. But the elector 
could no longer be prevailed on to advance a 
step. He sent his son. accompanied by a 
trusty councillor, named Wildenfels, to Cassei, 
with so decided a refusal, that the landgrave 
was forced at length to follow Luther's advice, 
and in the first place to make the treaty 
known, and demand an explanation from the 
princes therein named. He instantly sent it 
to his father-in-law. J 

t Remarks in De Witte, iii. 316. Nos. 986, 9S7, but doubt- 
less to be dated March, and not May. For they are men- 
tioned already in a copy of instructions in JVeudecker's 
Documents, p. 33, which, though undated, certainly falls 
in March, since the elector says therein that he has sura- 
moned some of his friends on the Friday after Judica (3d 
April), "right presently" (schirstkiinftig). 

X Letter in the Weimar archives, undated, but of the 
earlier half of April, in answer to the above-named in- 
structions. " I will certainly see that I shortly obtain the 



PACK'S PLOT, 1528. 



Book V. 



It is impossible to describe the astonishment 
that seized the German courts at the appear- 
ance of the accusation founded on this docu- 
ment. 

Duke George answered immediately, and 
denounced the man who affirmed that he had 
seen the original- of such a treaty, as a false 
and perjured villain. Elector Joachim de- 
manded, as did Duke George, that the name 
of the liar who had forged this treaty should 
be published, lest people should think the 
landgrave himself had invented it. All the 
others answered in the same manner. The 
landgrave saw himself compelled to arrest 
his informer, and to allow him to be brought 
to trial.* 

We too must here discuss the question, 
which does not seem even yet to be at rest, — 
what was the real truth concerning this alleged 
treaty ? 

In the first place, it is full of the gTOssest 
improbabilities. Elector Joachim, for example, 
was to abandon Hessen to the Duke of Saxony 
(to which, in virtue of the hereditary union of 
the houses, he Wd quite an equal claim), 
stipulating to receive Beeskow and Storkow 
as a compensation ; though these had for some 
years become the property of the bishopric of 
Lebus.t The Dukes of Bavaria were repre- 
sented as uniting with Ferdinand to give him 
possession of Hungary — the very country 
which they were striving to wrest from him. 
The plan of the campaign, too, was most 
strange ; and there is a certain ironical truth 
in what Pack afterwards said, when, in order 
to excuse himself, he described the whole 
scheme as "foolishly laid" {närrisJi geslellt).t 

We have also to consider the character of 
Pack. In the Dresden archives there are 
docom.ents concerning him, from which it is 
evident that hfe was untrustv.-arthy, treacher- 
ous, — in short, a thoroughly bad man. He 
made use of his position at court to extort 
money. For example, he borrowed from the 
council of Tennslädt some hundreds of gulden, 
under specious pretexts, and postponed pay- 
ment from term to term. In the list of his 
creditors are also four other Saxon towns. Pirna. 
Meissen, Oschatz and Chemnitz. § 

But the following story is still more discredit- 
able to him. On one occasion, when he went 
to Nürnberg on his lord's business (we find 
him more than once in the character of envo}'- 
to the diet), the Bishop of Merseburg entrusted 

same (the original). But had F. L. followed my advice, and 
that of others, at Weimar, and not grudged a little cost, 
I should have it already at this time." It is clear that 
Pack from the very first demanded money. Philip de- 
clared in a letter to Duke George (Rommel, iii. 17), that 
it was only within the last three or four weeks that he 
had allowed money to be offered to Pack. 

* The answers, as well as the pretended treaty itself, 
are to be found in Hortleder and Walch. In the Dresden 
archives there is also a copy of instructions of Ferdinand's, 
in which he requests Duke George to come to the bottom 
of the affair, and to make out how and where it arose. 

t Wohl brück, Geschichte von Lebus, ii. 414. 

I Printed in the Acta concerning Doctor Otto v. Pack's 
examination in Cassel, in Hoflfman's collection of un- 
printed Reports, p. 98. 

§ Missives found in Dr. Pack's house when he was ar- 
rested. Dresden Archives, No. 7398. 



him w^ith his contingent for the Council of Re- 
gency and the imperial chamber, amounting 
to 103 5 gulden. The diet was over, and Pack 
long returned, when the bishop" received a ci- 
tation to pay his contingent. Pack, being 
questioned about it, declared, without any 
embarrassment, that he had given the money 
to a Nürnberg citizen of the name of Friede- 
mann, who had delivered it to the Council of 
Regency, but had got no receipt, because some 
former arrears were still due. As a proof, he 
subjoined Friedemann's letter and seal. Friede- 
mann was of course immediately called to ac- 
count. What was the surprise of the council, 
when the honest citizen declared he hardly 
knew Dr.. Pack, — never had any dealings with 
him, nor received money from him ; he like- 
wise observed that the Council of Regency 
would certainly have given him a receipt for 
the sum which he had actually paid in, though 
not for the whole debt ; that the handwriting 
and seal which the doctor had produced could 
not possibly be his. Both these documents 
are in the archives; and, in fact, the hand- 
writing which Pack had sent in, is totally dif- 
ferent from that of Friederaann. In fact, 
Pack was already practised in forgery, when 
this opportunity of making money, on a larger 
scale than heretofore, presented itself. He 
used his skill to such a purpose, that, as we 
have seen, Germany was very nearly involved 
in civil war. He himself afterwards did not 
persist in asserting the genuineness of the 
forged documents. He abandoned the asser- 
tion that he had had in his hands the original, 
authenticated by the seals of all the princes, 
and only affirmed that a Bohemian secretary, 
named Wurisyn, had brought him a copy out 
of Silesia. But even this turned out to be 
false. The secretary proved that, at the time 
mentioned by Pack, he was not in Dresden: 
he was then a fugitive from his creditors.il 

A document so filled with contradictions, 
and proceeding from so fraudulent and men- 
dacious a man, must be entirely rejected. I 
find, too, that the opinion that Pack had prac- 
tised a cheat, was, even at the time, very ge- 
nerally difl^used. Melancthon was persuaded 
of it the instant he read the first examinations.1 
Chancellor Brück instituted a more searching 
inquiry, and came to the same conclusion.** 
Landgrave Philip more than once frankly ac- 
knowledged it. He was afterwards reproached 
w^ith having, on that occasion, undertaken 
much and accomplished little, ''That hap- 
pened," said he, "because we felt that we 



II Examination of Wurisyn, in a convolute in the Dres- 
den Archives, entitled. Proceedings concerning the Affair 
between Dr. Otto Pack and Caspar Wurisyn. I must ex- 
pressly remark that, in the whole account of this affair, I 
do not use any thing that Pack confessed on the rack, as 
evidence. 

U To Camerarius, Corp. Repert. i. 988. Alter sane 
odiose extorsit pecuniam nobis valde dissuadentibus : 
alSihs 6' ovK ayaeii Ktxpriixivo^j avSpi. Camerarius had very 
much moderated these expressions. Dr. Bretschneider has 
restored them. 

** Oratio de Gregorio Pontano habita aVitoWinshe- 
mio. Declam. Melanchthonis, torn. V. p. 205. " Pnncipes 
commenticio foedere moti, arma ceperunt.— Re inquisita 
Pontani diligentia exercitus dimissi sunt." 



Chap. IL 



PERSECUTIONS OP THE REFORMERS. 



303 



were deceived. We found that we had been 
falsely informed."* 

Fortunate would it have been, had he yielded 
to this conviction sooner than he actually did. 

But before the falsehood of the supposed 
project was become perfectly obvious, he had 
already fallen upon the Würzburg territory, 
and threatened Bamberg on the one side and 
Mainz on the other. He now demanded that 
those who had caused his armament should 
pay the cost of it. As no one was prepared 
to resist him, the bishops were compelled, in 
spite of the mediation of the Palatinate and 
Treves, actually to pay him an indemnity, and 
to accede to unfavourable terms. 

Happy as the Elector of Saxony was that an 
unjust war would be avoided, he was fully 
sensible of the unpardonable nature of such 
violence, and of the precipitancy which had 
characterised the whole affair. "It almost 
consumes me," said Melancthon, "when I re- 
flect with what stains our good cause is co- 
vered by it. I can only sustain myself by 
prayer. '-"t 

Even the landgrave was afterwards ashamed. 
"If it had not happened," said he, "it would 
not happen now. We know no act of our life 
that is more displeasing to us."!' 

But this did not remedy the evil, which, in- 
deed, was followed by the gravest and the 
most dangerous consequences. 

The Protestant chiefs had laid bold plans for 
availing themselves of the complication of 
events m Europe, or had endeavoured to bring 
the religious dissensions of Germany to an 
open conflict. The only result, however, had 
been an outrageous breach of the public peace, 
which threw an ill light on all the proceedings 
and designs of the religious party. 

For the common sense of what was due to 
justice and to the empire, now naturally re- 
volted against them. 

The members of the Swabian league, to 
which both the landgrave and the bishops be- 
longed, were particularly discontented. The 
landgrave sent apologetic letters, and offered 
to abide the legal decision of Elector Louis. 
The League answered (November 1528) that 
no appeal to law was necessary ; they would 
adhere to the letter of their act of union. "I 
would that the day of judgment burst upon 
us," exclaims an envoy in his zeal, "that so 
we might be delivered out of this and other 
dangers." 

Though there existed in the leaders of both 
parties a certain inclination to oppose the 
House of Austria, and to join the European 
confederation against it, we find that affairs 

* Tliird reply in Hortleder, iv. 19, No. 26, p. 567. 

t 13tli September, passim, p. 998. 

I Acts of the proceedings, legation and writings which 
took place under the most'serene Lord Philip, in the affairs 
of Miinster, Cassel, May, 1535. "As to the bishops, a 
plot came before us which we and many others held to be 
true, and accordingly willed to save our subjects from it; 
but as u'^dsaw that we had been too lightly informed, we 
paused in our designs. The money that we have given, 
the electors have settled with us with a good will, nor are 
you to resard this our proceeding as an example, for we 
know no matter that more displeases us, that we have 
done in all our life, than even this; had it not happened, 
it would now never happen." 



took a totally different direction; and that it 
was in fact a mistake, a fraud, and an act of 
rashness which brought all the conflicting 
passions into play. 

This could not; indeed, have been the case, 
had not the internal dissonances become 
every hour stronger and deeper. 

As, on the evangelical side, institutions in 
harmony with the new opinions began to be 
organised; so on the other, measures were 
proposed to strengthen the tottering edifice 
of Catholicism. 

In some places, similar means to those used 
by the Lutherans were resorted to. In the 
years 1527, 1528, we find visitations of the 
churches in Austria, by commissions com- 
posed of ecclesiastical and lay members, like 
those in Saxony, only in a contrary sense. 
These were appointed in the hope of bring- 
ing about the observance of the edict of 
Regensbuig, and the archducal mandates 
founded thereupon, by gentle means ;§ but it 
was soon perceived that the new opinions 
were already widely diffused. Recourse was 
then had to punishments. On the 20th of 
July 1528, it was ordered that heretics should 
be punished, not as ordinary criminals, but as 
malefactors of the highest order. II On the 
24ih of July not only all printers, but all vend- 
ers of sectarian books, v/ere threatened with 
death by drowning, as poisoners of the coun- 
try. Edicts' were published to restore the 
spiritual authority which had so greatly de- 
cline d.T 

In Tyrol the decree of the empire of 1526 
was interpreted in favour of Catholicism; and 
the government declared it would no longer 
be bound by the concessions made the pre- 
ceding year. 

In Bavaria the main point was already 
gained ; and the only solicitude of the govern- 
ment was, not to permit the abhorred doc- 
trines to creep in anew. The streets were 
watched, and those who attended the preach- 
ings in the neighbourhood, were immediately 
seized and punished. At first they were 
fined; but as this was ascribed to the duke's 
avarice, he would receive no more fines. He 
next caused nine men to be put to death by 
fire in Landsberg, and twenty-nine by water 
in JMiinich. The name of the unfortunate 
Leon hard Kasar is well known. He had come 
from Wittenberg to his birth-place at Schärd- 
ing, to visit his dying father ; here he was be- 
trayed, seized, and carried to Passau, where 
he was condemned, and soon after burned.** 

The Swabian league also proceeded with 
its executions. In 1528 the captains of the 
League received orders to remove all who 
were suspected of holding anabaptist opinions 
from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals, 
and to put them to death without the forms 
of trial. The council of Nürnberg protested 
against this ; not indeed out of any inchnation 
for the anabaptists, but because they thought 



§ Bucholtz, viii. 139. 
t Raupach, ii. 49. 

IT E. g. in Raupach, ii. Appendix, N. viii. 
** Schelhorn, in Winter, i. 258. 



304 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE REFORMERS. 



Book V. 



thatj under the pretext of hunting the wolf, 
the League meant to seize the sheep; — that 
this was in fact but a cover for the persecu- 
tion of the followers and preachers of the Word. 

The Bishop of Constance obtained an im- 
perial mandate, m virtue of which all who 
were settled within the boundaries of his 
diocese were warned to submit themselves to 
'•'his spiritual jurisdictions, bannaha, presen- 
tations, first-fruits, and other ancient usages 
and good customs." The bishop proceeded 
with great severity against heretics. John 
Hiighn, of Lindau, was delivered over to the 
secular tribunal in Morsburg, " as an enemy 
of the holy mother church," and committed 
to the flames. 

The same thing took place on the Rhine. 
A preacher of Halle who was cited to appear 
at A^chafTenburg, was murdered on the way 
back: a crime v.hich was openly attributed 
to the chapter of Mainz. 

Li Cologne, Adolf Clarenbach was con- 
demned to death; because he would not 
believe that the pope was the head of the 
holy church ; because he seemed to doubt 
wdiether some things had not occasionally 
been established by councils, or might be 
established therein, contrary to the divine 
word f^ and the like. The superiority of 
mind, the knowledge, and the calm courage 
which the accused displayed at his trial, were 
truly admirable ; and the town council of 
Cologne accordingly hesitated a long time to 
consent to his execution. It is afhrmed that 
they were only induced to do so at length, by 
the declaration of the priests that the havoc 
made by the s\veating sickness in Cologne 
was a vengeance of God upon the city for not 
punishing heretics. '-Oh Cologne, Cologne !'* 
exclaimed Clarenbach, as he was led to the 
stake, '•' why persecutest thou God's v\'ord 1 
There is a mist yet in the heavens, but by 
and by it vrill disperse.''! 

North Germany was no longer, indeed, the 
scene of these barbarous excesses of priestly 
tyranny,: but Dul^e George still caused the 
poor people who would not take the Lord's 
supper because they were not allowed to 
receive in both kinds, to be whipped out of 
the country by the beadle and the hangman, 
in the most ignominous processions. In Bran- 
denbarg, at a diet held on the day of the 
Visitation of the blessed Virgin, in the year 
1527, the elector and estates once more 
agreed to uphold the observance of the an- 
cient ceremonies with all their might; to 
admit no parish priest without the permission 
of his ordinary; to protect the clergy in their 
possessions: and to proceed against offenders 
according to the mandates of his holiness the 
pope and his imperial majesty.:|: The coun- 



* The first question asked him on the Monday after 
Palm Sunday, 1528. 

jRabi Rlartyrerbach, Part ii. pp. 243, 249. Here, as 
usual, we find in Rabusan old, contemporaneous, and very 
circumstantial statement, bearing every mark of authen- 
ticity. 

X Mandate Thursday after Annunciation, 4th July, re- 
cently given in Müller, Gesch. der Eeform. in der Mark, 
p. 138. 



try at large, however, was not of the same 
way of thinking as the sovereign and the 
states. The first memorable opposition which 
Joachim I. experienced, was from his own 
wife, Elizabeth. She sided rather with the 
Ernestine house of Saxony, from which she 
sprang, and with her uncle John, than with 
her husband, against whom she had many 
other causes of complaint; and her physi- 
cian, Ratzenberger of Brandenburg, one of the 
most zealous adherents of the new^ doctrine, 
brought her acquainted with Dr. Luther, 
whose books she had long admired and re- 
vered. At last she ventured to take the 
Lord's Supper in both kinds, in the secrecy 
of her own apartments in the palace ; but the 
affair did not remain concealed; the whole 
violence of her husband's temper was ex- 
cited, and he seemed disposed to execute the 
just-published mandate on his wife; he locked 
her up in her chamber, and, it is said, threat- 
ened to have her walled up within it. She 
succeeded, however, in making her escape. 
Disguised as a peasant, and attended by one 
male and one female servant, she arrived at 
Torgau, wdiere the Elector of Saxony then 
was, in the night of the 20th March, 1528. § 
She declared to him that if she was burthen- 
some to him, or likely to bring him into any 
danger, she would rather go on as far as her 
eyes could guide her. Elector John, how- 
ever, invited her to stay with him, and gave 
her Lichtenburg, where she was free to live 
in entire accordance with her own pious incli- 
nations. 

Such was the state of things in Germany. 
What was regarded in one part as the most 
peifect piety, was punished in the other as 
the most horrible crime. What the one party 
sought to establish, the other endeavoured, 
under every condition and by every means, 
to extirpate. 

The troubles caused by Pack are extremely 
characteristic of the political reactions arising 
from the spiritual struggle. 

Nor were these by any means the only hos- 
tilities existing in Germany. 

In consequence of the rise of the Swiss 
church, discords which gradually acquired 
political importance, had broken out among 
the Protestants themselves. W^e cannot ad- 
vance a step further, without some examina- 
tion of the religious movement of Switzer- 
land : one of the most important incidents in 
the general progress of the reformation. 



§ Spalatin's Report in Mencken, ii. 1116. The extracts 
from Seckendorff are not quite .'iccurate. I also take leave 
to doubt the truth of the story which is found in tliis book, 
and has been disseminated in so many histories of the 
Mark, and its reformation ; namely, that it was a daugh- 
ter of the electress, named Elizabeth, who betrayed her. 
It is at least certain, that this princess was not a girl of 
fourteen, as is said. She was born in 1510, and was mar- 
ried to Erich, Duke ofCalenberg, in July, 15Q7. (Bunting, 
Braunschvv. Chronik, ii. 68.) Is it likely she was in Ber- 
lin in March, 1528? In the August of that year she gave 
birth to her first-born son at Münden. Her husband, who 
was forty years older than herself, delighted that she had 
brought him a son, promised to grant her a request. She 
begged for the liberation of a parish priest who had been 
imprisoned for administering the Lord's Supper in both 
kinds. (See Havemann, Duchess Elizabeth, p. 13.) And 
this was the princess who a few months later accused her 
own mother ! The whole story is equally improbable. 



Chap. III. 



ZWINGLI. 



3a5 



CHAPTER III. 



REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 

Although Switzerland formed a distinct 
community, and pursued a policy independent 
of the empire, it was imbued with the same 
moral and intellectual spirit which prevailed 
in Germany; and more especially in the North. 

The efforts to throw off the domination of 
the priesthood which characterized the cen- 
tury, had also, at an early period, shown them- 
selves here. The exemption of the clergy 
from the secular tribunals, and from extraor- 
dinary taxes, — the former claimed by the 
Bishop of CoiVe, the latter by the prelates and 
chapter of Thurgau, were disputed. 

The literary tendencies of the German 
schools of poetry had also found acceptance 
here. In Lucerne, St. Gall, Freiburg, Bern, 
Coire and Zürich, we find similar institutions 
for the promotion of learning. Here, too, 
arose an extensive literary public, of which 
Erasmus formed the active centre from the 
time he settled in Basle. 

Hence it happened that Luther's earliest 
writings excited so much interest in Switzer- 
land. They were first printed in a collected 
form in Basle. As early as 1520, we find "A 
short Poem in Praise of Luther and in Derision 
of his Gainsayers,"' by a peasant of Thurgau. 
This spirit was fostered by the students who 
returned from Wittenberg. The names of 
those who were present when Luther burned 
the pope's bull are still preserved. The doc- 
trine spread from the plain country and the 
cities into the mountains • to the Grisons, Ap- 
penzell and Schwytz. The Administrator of 
Einsiedeln, one Geroldseck, was described by 
Zwingli as the father of all them that love 
God.* That, notwithstanding these sympa- 
thies, the movement which arose in Switzer- 
land assumed a different character — even as 
to religious questions — from that of Germany, 
was mainly the result of the intellectual cha- 
racter and training of the man who com- 
mienced and carried through the conflict — 
Ulrich Zwingii. 

EARLY LIFE OF ZWINGLI. 

Zwingli was born in the parish of Wilden- 
haus in Toggenburg, within whose boundary 
the Thnr rises, at a height where neither 
corn-fields nor fruit-trees are to be seen, amidst 
green alpine meadows, crowned by bare and 
sturdy pines. 

He was born on New Year's Day, 1484, a 
few weeks after Luther. His childhood fell 
about the time when, the communes began 
g.-adually to emancipate themselves from the 
most oppressive of the feudal services due 
from them to the Abbot of St. Gall. This was 
effected chiefly under the conduct of his father, 
who was the most considerable man in those 
parts; Amman of his village, and proprietor 



* Letter to Myconius. Aug. 25, 152-2. Zwinglii Opera, 
curantibiis Melch. Schulero et Jo. Schulthessio, torn. vii. 
Epp. voL i. p. 218. 

39 2a* 



of a large tract of meadows and upland pas- 
tures. Surrounded by numerous children, 
eight of whom were sons, he lived in patri- 
archal dignity. It was at that time the con- 
stant practice for one of a large family to de- 
vote himself to the priesthood : — this was the 
destination of Ulrich;! his uncle, who was the 
first priest chosen by the people of Wilden- 
haus themselves, and who still held that office- 
undertook to qualify him for holy orders. 

The most remarkable trait recorded of 
Zwingli's youth is, his natural, quick and clear 
sense of truth. He once mentioned that when 
he first began to reflect on pubhc affairs, the 
doubt occurred to him whether a lie ought 
not to be more severely punished than steal- 
ing. •'' For veracity," added he, •'• is the mo- 
ther and source of every virtue." 

With this unperverted sense of right, which 
he seemed to have imbibed from the pure air 
of his native mountains, he now entered the 
field of literature, public life and ecclesiastical 
affairs. 

He' studied at the schools of Basle and 
Bern ; thence he went to the university of 
Vienna, and back again to Basle. ± It was 
just the dawn of the revival of classical lite- 
rature and its substitution for the scholastic 
learning of the middle ages. Zwingli, like 
his teachers and friends, espoused this cause, 
to whith he steadily adhered when he be- 
came, at a very early age. priest in Glärus. 
(1506.) He devoted all the leisure his duties 
left him to study. He made som.e attempts 
at composition in the style of the Latinists of 
that time ; but he never succeeded in throw- 
ing his thoughts with full freedom into an- 
tique forms, § He rather contented himself 
with reading and studying the ancients. He 
was more captivated by their matter, by their 
lofty feeling for the simple and the true, than 
excited to imitation by their beauty of form. 
He thought that the influences of the divine 
Spirit had not been confined to Palestine ; 
that Plato, too, had drunk from the sacred 
fount; he calls Seneca a holy man: above all, 
he reveres Pindar, who speaks of his gods in 
language so divine, that some sense of the 
presence and power of the Deity must have 
inspired him. II He is grateful to them all; 
for he has learned from all, and has been led 
by them to the tmth. While occupied with 
such pursuits, he took up Erasmus's edition 
of the New Testament in Greek, and applied 
himself to it with the greatest industry. In 
order to make himself thoroughly acquainted 
with St. Paul's epistles, he did not shrink 



,1 Properly, Huldreich— full of grace.— Trans. 

+ His principal teacher in Basle was Thomas VVitten- 
bach, himself a disciple of Paul Scriptor of Tübingen. 
Gualtherus Praefatio ad priorem partem homiliarum iii 
Ev. Älatthaei ad Josuam VVittenbachium. Misc. Tigur. 
iii. p. 103. 

§ De gestis inter Helvetios el Gallos ad Ravennam, Pa- 
piam aiiisque locis relatio. By Freher-Struve, iii. 171. 

II Nihil est in omni opere, quod non sit doctum, amae- 
num, sanctum. — G,uum aliquando Dei munere oculos re- 
cipimus eosque ad vetustissimos scriptores attollimus, jam 
videntur uix et virtus in cotispectum veuisse. See the 
preface and the conclusion which Zwingli, under the name 
Huldrvchus Geminius, wrote for Ceporin's edition of Pin- 
dar, 1526. Misc. Tig. iii. 207. 



806 



ZWINGLL 



Book V. 



from the laLour of transcribing them, in a fair 
hand.* and writing on the margin tlie exposi- 
tions of the fathers of the Church. Occasion- 
ally, he was bewildered by the theological 
notions he had brought with him from the 
university; but he soon formed the determi- 
nation to throw aside all other considerations, 
and to learn God's will from his pure and 
simple word. From the time he thus devoted 
himself exclusively to the text of Scripture, 
his intelJectual sight became clearer. But, 
at the same time, convictions extremely at 
variance w^ith the established order of things 
in the Church, took possession of his mind. 
At Einsiedeln, whither he had removed in 
1516, he said pjainly to Cardinal Schiner, that 
popery had no foundation in Scripture. 

But it was another circumstance which gave 
to his labours their characteristic direction. 
Zwingii was a republican ; reared in the per- 
petual stir of a small commonwealth, a lively 
interest in the political business of his country 
w^as become a second nature to him. At that 
time the war with Italy set all the energies of 
the Confederation in motion, and raised it to 
the rank of a great pov.'er in Europe. Zwingii 
more than once took the field with his warlike 
flock. He was present at the battle of Marig- 
nano. But war had brought in the evils of 
foreign enlistment and of pensions. Public 
opinion was against them, as the disturbances 
which broke out at short intervals in Lucerne, 
Solothurn, Bern, and Zürich prove; the com- 
mon people wo(dd hear nothing of treaties, 
according to which their sons and brothers 
were led to slaughter in strange lands; they 
demanded the punishment of the "German- 
French," the "crown-eaters;" in some cases 
the Grand Councils were actually forced to 
forswear "wages and gifts," and not unfre- 
quently the diets published edicts against 
them ; but the interests of those in power 
were too strongly connected with these abuses 
for them to be given up; a warlike youth was 
always ready to enlist in foreign service, and 
the evil increased from day to day. Zwingii, 
together with his admiration for the Latin 
writers, combined that for the German popular 
literature, (which, as we may recollect, was 
full of attacks upon prevailing abuses,) and as 
early as 1510 he w^rote a somewhat diffuse 
fable, in which he set before the Confederation 
the corrupt practices of which they were the 
victims : he told them how they were vainly 
warned by faithful dogs against the seductions 
of cunning cats; how they must inevitably 
lose their freedom — freedom, that blessing 
which, after the example of their ancestors, 
they were bound to defend with spear and 
battle-axe, and never to endanger by a connec- 
tion with foreigners; those, he said, w^ho took 
pensions and gifts would bring about the de- 
struction of their bond of brotherhood. t In 
spite of this we find that Zwingh himself lg,y, 



for a time, under the obligation of a pension 
from the pope. It doubtless appeared to him 
a totally different thing to accept a small salary 
from the pope, the spiritual head of the Con- 
federation, and to take money from a sovereign 
with whom they had no connection, like the 
King of France ; and accordingly it was against 
the partisans of that monarch that his zeal 
was first directed. In the year 1516, we find 
him engaged in a M-arm conflict with the 
French faction in Glarus, v^'here, as in most 
parts of Switzerland, it was then in the as- 
cendant. He failed indeed, for the king had 
gained over the most powerful of the inhabit- 
ants ; and he makes the bitterest complaints 
of all he had to endure in consequence. At 
length he found himself compelled to (juit his 
parish, and to take the subordinate place of 
vicar at Einsiedeln. t This, however, led him 
to a more complete and coTisistent develop- 
ment of his opinions. As the French party 
gradually became the dominant one, so his 
resistance to it gradually grew into a struggle 
against the system of pensions in general. 
The rise, throughout the Confederation, of al- 
liances between families and leaders, founded 
chiefly upon personal interests, he justly re- 
garded as an event dangerous to the general 
liberty. Public morals and public opinion, 
offended by this abuse, found in him their 
most eloquent advocate. The precepts and 
examples of the ancients and of the scriptures, 
contrasted w^ith the prevailing moral and reli- 
gious dissolution ; and the consciousness of an 
honest patriotism struggling against mercenary 
obsequiousness to foreign courts, raised in him 
a spirit which already gave earnest of his 
future endeavours to reform the whole condi- 
tion, ecclesiastical and political, of his coun- 
try ; it ordy remained to be seen whether he 
could succeed in obtaining the wide field and 
the commanding position which such an en- 
terprise demanded. 

These he obtained at Zürich in the year 
1519. 

Zürich was, if not the sole, yet the princi- 
pal, town in the Confederation, which had 
never allowed itself to be persuaded to accept 
the French pensions. Conrad Hoffmann, a 
canon of the cathedral, who enjoyed extraor- 
dinary respect, maintained the patriotic cause 
against foreign service and foreign pensions ; 
he was eloquent, and he did not shrink from 
uttering severe truths to his audience. It was 
chiefly through his influence that Zwingii, in 
spite of much opposition, was elected secular 
priestat the cathedral. § 

Ulrich Zwingii here at once took up the po- 
sition with regard to these two parties, which 
from that time he steadily maintained. _ 

His first attacks were directed against all 
party alliance with foreign powers, even with 



* Schiller, Huldreich Zwingii, Gesch. seiner Bildung zum 
reformator. Notes, p. 7. 

t Huldrych Zwingii, the Priest's fabulous Poem of an 
Ox and certain Beasts, to be understood of the present 
Course of Things. 



t Epistola ad Joachijnum Vadianum ; ex Eremo 13 Jun. 
1517, Epp. i. p. 24. Locum mutavimus Galloriim technis. 
Fuimus pars rerum gestarum: calamitates raultas vel 
tulimus vel ferre didicimus. 

§ Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, p. 11 ; "Especially 
because he heard, how that he preaches violently against 
pensions and pensioners — against the leagues and wars 
of the princes." 



Chap. III. 



ZWINGLI. 



307 



the pope. He is said to have declared that 
Cardinal von Sitten, who recruited for the 
pope, did not wear a red hat and mantle with- 
out reason; ''if it were wrung," said he, 
"you would see the blood of your nearest 
kindred drip from its folds.'' He laughed at 
the eagerness with which a wolf that only de- 
voured beasts was hunted, while the wolves 
that destroyed men were suffered to go unmo- 
lested. 

The effects of the Lutheran movement just 
then began to be felt in Switzerland. No man 
was belter prepared, or more eager, to take 
part in it than Zwingli. He too had had a 
battle on his own ground with a vender of in- 
dulgences, and had succeeded m keeping him 
at a distance. He wrote against the conduct 
of the court of Rome to Luther, and published 
an apology for him, in answer to the bull. 

His preaching, for which he had a singular 
natural gift, produced a great effect. He at- 
tacked tlie prevalent abuses with uncompro- 
mising earnestness. On one occasion he 
painted the responsibility of the clergy in 
such lively colours, that several young men 
among his hearers instantly abandoned their 
intention of taking orders. '-'I felt myself," 
said Thomas Plater, '■' as it were lifted up by 
the hair of the head.'"* Occasionally some 
individual thought the preacher aimed his 
remarks at him personally, which Zwingli 
thought it necessary to guard against : '-Wor- 
thy man," he exclaimed, -take it not to thy- 
self;" and then proceeded in his discourse 
with% zeal which rendered him regardless of 
the dangers which sometimes even threatened 
his life. 

But his efforts were mainly directed to ren- 
dering the meaning of Scripture plainer to his 
hearei's. With the permission of the chapter, 
he expounded not only the Perikopes,t but 
the entire books of the scriptures as he had 
studied them ;i for he strove to catch and to 
communicate the whole current and connexion 
of the divine thought. His doctrine was, that 
rehgion consisted in trust in God, love of God, 
and" innocence of life.§ He avoided every 
thing far-fatched or over-learned in his style ; 
and his efforts to render his discourses intelli- 
gible to all, were crowned with success. In 
a wide circle of hearers he laid the founda- 
tions of that faith which stood fast in the day 
of the tempest, and afforded him firm support 
in all his undertakings. 

In daily life he vras of an easy, cheerful 
disposition. He had learned how to live with 
men, and how to deal with them, in the re- 
public of a village, in the camp, in the resort 
of stransrers at Einsiedeln. He was not free 



* Autobiographie Platers Misc. Tig. iii.253. 

t -spiKÖTiai. The passages from the Old and New Testa- 
ment, selected to be read in churches. They were first 
published in a distinct Lectionarium, by Pope Gregory the 
Great, in the sixth century, and were adopted by Charle- 
magne as the basis of the Homiliariuni for his whole em- 
pire. This selection was retained by Luther. — Trans. 

I In the second Zürich disputations he mentions it: he 
began with Matthew. 

§ De vera et falsa Religione : Veram pietatem, quae 
nihil aliud .-t quam ex amore timoreque Dei servata in- 
nocentia. Ld. Gualth. p. 202. 



from youthful vices, sometimes of an offensive 
kind; but his correspondence shows how ear- 
nest were his self-reproaches and his endea- 
vours to amend. After a time his ^conduct 
became irreproachable.il He laboured to sub- 
due ebullitions of anger, as well as those of 
other passions; he drove away fantastic hu- 
mours by music, for he too was a great lover 
of music, and a master of several instruments 
— an accomplishment no less common in Tog- 
genburg than in Thuringia.lf He Joved a re- 
tired domestic life, and his favourite food was 
that of his country — various preparations of 
milk ; but he never refused an invitation ; he 
frequented the guild meetings of the citizens, 
the holiday feasts of the peasants, and en- 
livened every company by his cheerful spirit 
and pleasant discourse. *=* Laborious as he was, 
much as he undertook and accomplished, he 
repulsed no one ; he had the art of saying 
something agreeable and satisfactory to every- 
body. He was well made and robust, charita- 
ble and good-humoured ; cheerful, accessible, 
contented, and at the same time full of the 
greatest and noblest thoughts. 

If we compare him with Luther, we find 
that he had no such tremendous tempests to 
withstand, as those which shook the most se- 
cret depths of Luther's soul. As he had never 
devoted himself with equal ardour to the esta- 
bhshed Church, he had not now to break loose 
from it with such violent and painful struggles. 
It was not the profound sense of the power of 
faith and of its connexion with redemption in 
which Luther's efforts originated, that made 
Zwingli a reformer ; he became so. chiefly 
because, in the course of his study of Scrip- 
ture in search of truth, he found the Church 
and the received morality at variance with its 
spirit. Nor was Zwingli trained at a univer- 
sity, or deeply imbued with the prevalent 
doctrinal opinions. To found a high school, 
firmly attached to all that was worthy of 
attachment, and dissenting only on certain 
most important points, was not his vocation. 
He regarded it much more as the business 
and duty of his life, to bring about the reli- 
gious and moral reformation of the republic 
that had adopted him, and to recall the Swiss 
Confederation to the principles upon which it 
was originally founded. While Luther's main 
object was a reform of doctrine, which, he 
thought, would be necessarily followed by 
that of life and morals, Zwingli aimed directly 
at the improvement of life ; he kept mainly in 
view the practical significancy of Scripture as 
a whole ; his original views were of a moral 
and political nature ; hence his labours were 
tinged with a wholly peculiar colour. 

We must here devote a few words to the 
question of the priority of his attempts at 
reform. It is not to be denied that, even 
before the year 1517, he, in common with 
many others, had evinced dispositions, and 



If To Heinrich Utinger, 4th Dec. 3518. 0pp. vii. Epp. i. 
p. 55. 

TTBullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, p. 31. 
•** Myconius, in Ständlins and Tzschirner's Archiv, i. ii. 
Ingeuio amoBnus, ore jocundus. 



308 



SECESSION OF ZURICH. 



Book. V 



expressed opinions, which tended that way. 
But the essential point was the struggle with 
the spiritual power, and the separation from 
it. This struggle Luther undertook first, and 
sustained alone : he first obtained freedom of 
discussion for the new doctrines in a consider- 
.nble German state: he began the work of 
liberation. At the time Luther was con- 
demned by Rome, Zwingli was still receiving 
a pension" from Rome. Luther had already 
stood impeached before the emperor and the 
empire, ere Zwingli had experienced the least 
attack. The whole field of his activity was 
different. While, in the one case, we see the 
highest and most august powers of the world 
in agitation, in the other, it is a question of 
the emancipation of a city from an episcopal 
power. 

But this incident of the great revolution 
which was now going on, has its interest; 
this enterprise also demanded intelligence 
and energy, and it is well worth while to 
devote some attention to it. 

E^IA^'CIPATION OF THE TOWN OF ZURICH FROM 
THE EPISCOPAL G0VERN3IEXT OF CONSTANCE. 

The city of Zürich, like the other cities of 
Switzerland, had long maintained a certain 
independence of the bishopric of Constance, 
to which it belonged, mamly supported by 
the collegiate chapter of the cathedral. For 
some years peculiar circumstances had given 
a remarkable extension to the exercise of this 
independence. 

The bishop of that time, Hugo of Hohen- 
landenberg, regarded with great displeasure 
the tratfic in indulgences which was carried 
on in his diocese by the commissaries of 
Rome : he had fully consented that the coun- 
cil of Zürich should refuse permission to a 
vender of indulgences named Samson, who 
had already come as far as an inn belonging 
to Zürich on the banks of the Sil. to enter 
iheir territory. Zwingli carefully preserved 
the letter in 'which he was requested by the 
ecclesiastical authorities to oppose resistance 
to men bearing full powers from the Roman 
Curia.* JMeanwhile two political considera- 
tions induced the Curia to treat the city with 
great moderation and respect. 

In the year 1520 Zwingli had already 
secured a considerable number of decided 
adherents. The town council had actually 
given the secular priests and preachers in the 
city, permission to preach according to the 
divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ment, and to take no notice of any novelties 
in doctrine or discipline that might have been 
introduced ;t an order which, in fact, involved 



* Antwurt Zwingli an Va!. Compar. Werke ii. 1. p. 7; 
fjrtber on, tlie answer to Faber, April 30, 1526. 

t "That they all and cenerally preach in freedom (as is 
also granted by the papal laws) the holy Gospels and 
Epistles of the' Apostles, conformably with the word of 
God, and the true divine Scriptures of the Old and Xew 
Testament, and that they teach that which they receive 
and hold from the said 'Scriptures, and say nothing of 
other accidental innovations and rules." Answers which 
a BiJrsermeister. council and the grand council of the city 
of Zürich save to their confederates, Fiissli Beiträge, ii. 
p. 237. See BuUinger, i. p. 20. 



a defection from the Cliurch of Rome. It 
could not be said that the affair remained 
unknown to the Roman court, since two or 
three papal nuncios and a cardinal were pre- 
sent ; but they did not venture on any oppo- 
sition. Their conduct on this occasion is very 
instructive, as elucidating the general policy 
of the Church. They promised Zwingli to 
raise his pension from fifty to a hundred 
gulden, on condition that he desisted from 
preaching against the pope. Zwingli, thouah 
in want of this addition to his income, rejected 
the ofier. They then made him the same 
offer without annexing any condition; but 
even this Zwingli would not accept.? The 
nuncios, however, were more interested in 
recruiting the array, with which they hoped 
to conquer JNlilan, than in any theological 
question whatsoever. Although the city was 
already thoroughly infected with the spirit of 
defection from the Church, they entered into 
an alliance whh it. '-We are not reproached 
as heretics and apostates,^' says Zwingli, 
'"'but lauded with high titles. ''§ 

The ordinary of the diocese favoured the 
new mode of preaching as a means of resist- 
hig the usurpations of Rome : the Roman See 
tolerated it, in order to attain the object of its 
political negotiations; and thus the new doc- 
trines were freely promulgated for years, and 
took fast root in the public mind. 

At length, however, serious attention was 
excited by a violation of the discipline of the 
Church. In jNIarch 1522, the people of Zürich 
broke the fast, and ate eggs and meat. Upon 
this the bishop, who found himself menaced 
with similar acts of insubordination, and saw 
his dispensations slighted, bestirred himself: 
he sent a special mission to the council of 
Zürich, requiring it to maintain the established 
usages and ceremonies of the Church. 

But it remained to be seen whether this 
was still possible ; whether, at this epoch of 
fervent religious zeal, opinions which had 
undergone so radical a change, could be 
brought under subjection to the mere dictum 
of a spiritual head. 

In the conference which followed the com- 
munication made to the Grand Council by 
these envoys, Zwingli maintained that many 
of the ceremonies of the Church were just 
those which St. Peter had declared to be in- 
tolerable. This assertion received no satis- 
factory answer, even from the envoys; in- 
deed one of them, Wanner, preacher of the 
cathedral of Constance, was of the same opi- 
nion in his heart. ;i The Grand Council came 
to a resolution, evasive in form, but very in- 
telligible m fact, that no one should break the 
fast •'• without notable cause;'" and requested 
the bishop to obtain from the spiritual author- 
ities, or from the learned, an explanation as 
to the conduct to be observed \Aith regard to 
the ceremonies, in order not to offend ag-ainst 



J Uslegung und Gründe der Schlussreden, p. 3ö9. 

§ Zwinjli's opinion, in answer to tiie pope's brief. 
Werke, Bd. ii. Abth. ii. p. 393. 

I Ep. Zwinelii ad Fabricium de actis legationis. Opp. 
i. p. 12. 



CflAP. III. 



FROM THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



309 



the precepts of Christ.* The bishop an- 
swered by impressing again upon the Grand 
Council the necessity of observing the ordi- 
nances and good customs of the holy Church, 
which he beheved to be conformable with the 
Scriptures. In a letter written with greater 
freedom and animation to the chapter, he in- 
deed admitted that some things might have 
crept in w^hich were not warranted by the 
Holy Scriptures, but added that an error shared 
with the whole of Christendom acquired a 
right to respect; on no account ought doc- 
trines to be accepted which were condemned 
by the emperor and the pope; those who 
would not submit to the bishops, must be 
entirely separated from them.t 

There were still some monasteries in the 
city which were not affected by the first reso- 
lution of the Grand Council ; a great many 
persons, high and low, still held to the an- 
cient usages, and consequently this admoni- 
tion was not wholly without effect. The moat 
violent opponents of the monks were recom- 
mended to moderate their language in the 
pulpit or in disputations. 

But a circumstance purely accidental suf- 
ficed, in a short time, to produce a contrary 
result. 

About this time a Franciscan monk from 
Avignon (the same Francois Lambert whom 
we had occasion to mention in treating of the 
synod of Homberg) appeared in Switzerland. 
At an early age he had entered a convent 
of very strict observance in search of peace 
and piety, but had found nothing but secret 
vices and hateful passions. i In this state of 
things, some of Luther's works had fallen into 
his hands, and he determined to quit his clois- 
ter and repair to Luther himself in Witten- 
berg. This monk, still habited in the garb 
of his order, and riding upon an ass, now 
made his appearance in Zürich. His Catholic 
orthodoxy was shaken, but not as yet de- 
stroyed. He could not bring himself to dis- 
continue the ceremonies of the Church, nor to 
give up the intercessions of the saints. Seated 
at the high altar of Our Lady's minster, he 
held discourses to that effect in Latin. Dur- 
ing one of these. Zwing] i called out aloud, 
'•Brother, thou errest !"' The orthodox party 
hoped therefore to find an ally in Lambert; 
and as they perceived that he w^as learned 
and of ready speech, they got up a disputa- 
tion between him and Zvvingli. This was 
held on the 17th of July, in the refectory of 
the canons. But the result was very different 
from what was expected. The Franciscan 
was a man who loved truth and sincerely 
sought it. He soon perceived the superior 
weight of his antagonist's arguments; and 
was at length entirely convinced by the pas- 
sages of Scripture which Zwingli placed be- 



* Fiisäli, Beiträge, ii. 15. 

t His principle was, Communis error facit jus. Htec 
dogmata non prsdicentur, nihil innovetur contra ecclesice 
ritum. 

X Francisci Lamberti rationes propter qua? Minoritarum 
conversationem traditumque rejecit. Schelhorn, Com- 
iiientatio de vita Lamberti. Amoenitat. literariie, iii. 
p. 312. 



fore him. He raised his hands, thanked God, 
and vowed to lay aside all litanies, and to call 
on his name alone. § He left Zürich in the 
same humble way as, he had entered it, and 
in progress of time we find him in Eisenach, 
in Wittenberg, at a later period, as we said, 
in Homberg, and lastly, in Marburg. His 
attempt to give to the German church a con- 
stitution different from that established by 
Luther, is sufficient to perpetuate his memory 
to all succeeding time. 

This disputation produced the greatest effect 
in Zürich. It was h^ld on a Thursday. On 
the Monday following (the 21st of July), the 
council once more called the readers of the 
Orders, the canons, and the secular priests, 
into the provostry. Zwingli now felt himself 
strong enough to open the discussion by se- 
verely censuring the sermons preached in the 
convents without any warranty from Scripture. 
The bürgermeister renewed the proposal to 
.both parties, to refer their differences to the 
decision of the dean and chapter. But Zwingli 
declared that he was the preacher, the bishop, 
of the city; he had taken upon himself the 
cure of souls in it wnth his vow ; he would 
not suffer that men who had in no respect any 
true vocation, should preach in the convents 
against God's word; rather than that, he 
would mount the pulpit and publicly contra- 
dict them. Already he had the whole audi- 
ence on his side; and at length the bürger- 
meister declared in the name of the council, 
that it was its will, that the pure word of God 
should be preached in the city, and that 
alone. 

Before this conference, preaching according 
to Scripture was only permitted or recom- 
mended to the secular priests; now, it was 
rendered imperative even on the monks. 

If we inquire on what authority Zwingli 
grounded his refusal to conform to the bishop's 
ordniances, we shall find that it was mainly 
derived from the idea of the commnne.il He 
was of opinion that all that the Scripture says 
with regard to the Church, was especially ap- 
plicable to each separate commune (congre- 
gation). He seems even to have assumed, 
that such a body, so long as it did not attempt 
to introduce any new doctrines or practices, 
and contented itself with hearing God's word, 
and deciding all controversies according , to 
that, could not fall into error. If He regarded 
the Grand Council as no less the ecclesiastical 
than the political representative of the rights 
of the commune. His plan of proceeding 
w^as, as he once expressly declared, to con- 
tinue to discuss each question in his sermons 
till everybody was convinced ; and not till 
then to bring it before the Grand Council ; 



§ Bernhard Weiss in Fiissli Beiträgen, ii. 42. 

11 Gemeinde. — We have no word that eApresses the 
double sense, ecclesiastical and civil, of tJiis. [ hnve 
therefore been obliged to resort to the French word L'o.ii- 
mune, which will be generally understood.— Trans. 

V Second Disputation. Liv. W. i. p. 470. " Hence a 
follows also that this our convocation, which hath ujat 
together, not for the injury of certain Christians, but to 
hear the word of God, cannot err; for it undertaketh not 
to settle or to unsettle, but will only hear what can be 
found out from certain portions of tlie word of God." 



310 



SECESSION OF ZURICH 



Book V. 



after which the forms necessary to be estab- 
lished should be determined on, in concert 
with the ministers of the church. The council, 
says he, holds the supreme power as represen- 
tative of the commune.* 

It is manifest that this theory furnished a 
totally different basis for an infant ecclesias- 
tical society, from that on which the reformers 
of Germany were building. In fact and prac- 
tice, the difference was not, however, so great ] 
in Germany, the preachers united with the 
sovereign of the country; in Switzerland, with 
the civic authorities of tl^e city : but the cir- 
cumstance, that the former were referred to a 
Recess, while the latter already possessed the 
sovereignty de facto, and now exercised it in 
spiritual as well as in temporal affairs, forms 
a very marked distinction in theory, and one 
very important to the future development of 
the institution. 

The bishop issued a new decretal, anathe- 
matizing the doctrine, that a Christian was not 
bound to live according to the rules laid down 
by the Church ; but wit^hout the sligiitest avail ; 
since the very opinion which the commune 
held to with the greatest tenacity, was that 
which emancipated it from his authority. 

The only real difficulty in their way, arose 
from the obstinancy of certain dissentients in 
their own body. There were still among them 
men who denounced Zwingli as a heretic. 

In order to put an end to this state of things-, 
and on the ground that the explanation which 
it had demanded had never been given, the 
council ordained a conference of its secular 
priests, curates of souls, parish priests, and 
preachers. This was in all respects agreea- 
ble to Zwingli's notions. He said that God 
would not ask wdiat the pope and his bishops, 
or what councils and universities, had decreed, 
but what was contained in his word. The 
bishop, w^ho does not yet appear to have given 
up all hope, also sent some delegates, under 
his vicar-general Faber ; not indeed exactly to 
take part in the disputation, but to be present 
at it, and to endeavour to reconcile the con- 
tending parties. t The conference, however, 
ended completely in Zw^ingli's favour. What, 
indeed, could his opponents say, after the prin- 
ciple had once been conceded, that the Scrip- 
ture, which neither lieth nor deceiveth, was 
the sole rule of faith? It is matter of surprise 
that so prudent a man as Faber should venture 
upon such slippery ground. He boasted that 
he had proved from Scripture the doctrine of 
the invocation of saints, to a priest infected 
with the heresy ; upon which Zwingli chal- 
lenged him to adduce the same proof, now, on 
the spot. He failed, as might be expected, 
thereby affording Zwingli one of his most sig- 



* Ante omnia multitudinem de quaestione probe docere: 
jta factum est ut quicquid diacosii (the grand council) cum 
verbi ministris ordinarent, jam dudum in animis fidelium 
orriinatum esset. Denique senatum diacosion adivimus, 
nt ecclesiffi totius nomine, quod usus postularet, fieri jube- 
rent. Diacosion senatussummaest potestasecclesiffi vice. 
Subsidium de Eucharisiia. 0pp. iii. 339. 

t " Nit zu disputiren, sondern allein uffhören, rath ge- 
hen und schidiiit zu seyn :" "not to dispute, but only to 
listen, to give counsel, and to be peace-makers." Faber 
Warlich Unterrichtung bei Hettinger, i. 437. 



nal triumphs. In short, even zealous adver- 
saries then confessed — what it is impossible 
to read the report of the proceedings without 
seeing — that Zwingli obtained a complete vic- 
tory. Hence it followed, that the council ex- 
pressly authorised him to continue in the 
course he had adopted, and repeated its admo- 
nitions to the clergy, neither to practise nor to 
teach, any thing which they could not prove 
from the word of God. 

We must observe w^ell the words, ' practise 
or teach;' they involve an alteration of the 
ceremonies as well as of the preaching. 

Already the change in the externals of the 
church was in full progress. The clergy mar- 
ried ; nuns were at liberty to quit their con- 
vents, or to remain in them: "Know, dear 



Master Ulrich, 



rote the steward of the con- 



vent of Cappel, to Zw^ingh, "we are all of one 
mind with our abbot, — to accept the holy 
gospel and divine w^ord, and to abide by it till 
death."§ Although there were still some 
zealous adherents of the old opinions in the 
monastery attached 1o the cathedral, yet the 
resolution to reform their body was adopted 
by the canons themselves, and executed in 
concert with some delegates of the council. 
By far the greater part of the stole fees were 
abohshed ; and such arrangements made vfith 
regard to tithes and other sources of revenue, 
that a large and excellent school was estab- 
hshed out of the funds. But the doubts which 
agitated the public mind more than any others, 
were those concerning the veneration of im- 
ages and the mass, — two questions which 
were now daily more and more debated. 
Writings against the canon of the mass al- 
ready appeared, and acts of violence had been 
committed upon the sacred images. The 
council deemed it necessary to lay these ques- 
tions before a special ecclesiastical assembly, 
which w^as convoked in October 1523. 

It w^as impossible for the independent cha- 
racter of an association detaching itself from 
the great hierarchical body, and assuming a 
constitution of its own, to exhibit itself in a 
more striking light, than at this meeting. The 
Bishop of Constance took good care to send 
no more delegates. The aged Conrad Hof- 
mann, formerly Zwingli's great abettor, in vain 
repeated that a commune was pot qualified to 
dispute concerning things of this kind. II Zwin- 
gli's great principle was, that the church con- 
sisted not of pope, cardinals, bishops, and 
their convocations; but of the commune, the 
Kilchhori (church-hearers) : that was the 
church, like the first church at Jerusalem. 
(Acts, xv.)ir And the present meeting did, in 



X Proceedings of the assembly in the worshipful city of 
Zürich, by Hegenwaldt, with extracts from Faber's War- 
licher Unterrichtung (true account) in Zwingli's Works, 
i. p. 105. 

§ Jacob Leu, the steward, to Zwingli. Epp. i. 367. 

11 " I was ten or thirteen years at Heidelberg, and 1 wen\ 
to the house of a learned man, the same was called Dr. 
Joss, a good and godly man, and with him I ate and drank 
oft ... . there I continually heard that it was not seemly 
to dispute concerning these matters." Chunrad Hoffmanns 
Schriftlicher Fürtrag wider Zwinglis Reformation : Füssli 
Beiträge, iii. 93. 

IT " ' Ja Hong und Küssnacht ist eine gewissere Kirche , 



•. III. 



FROM THE CHURCH OF ROME. 



311 



fact, consist only of the clergy of the town 
and country of Zürich, with a few strangers 
(as, in the example above quoted, it was re- 
marked, there were messengers from Antioch), 
who under the presidency of the bürgerraeis- 
ter, Marx Roust, met at the town-lions'^, to 
take counsel together concerning two of the 
weightiest questions that could occupy Chris- 
tendom. Master Leu (Leo Judee), secular 
priest of St. Peter's church, and Zwingli laid 
before the meeting the propositions, which 
they were prepared to defend ; the one, that 
it was unlawful to use any image in the wor- 
ship of God ; the other, that the mass was not 
a sacrifice : they invited every man who ob- 
jected to these propositions to confute them 
out of Scripture. One after another rose for 
this purpose, but their arguments were easily 
answered. Those who had the most zealously 
opposed the new doctrines as heretical, were 
then called upon severally, by name, to prove 
their words. Some did not appear; others 
were silent ; others declared themselves at 
length convinced, and merely apologised for 
having shared the general error. At the close 
of the proceedings, the Abbot of Cappel, whom 
we have already mentioned, exhorted the men 
of Zürich now undauntedly to espouse the 
cause of the Gospel.* Hereupon the priests 
were commanded not to preach against the 
two articles which had been triumphantly es- 
tablished at the conference. Zwingli drew up 
instructions for them, which were published 
by authority, and may be regarded as the ear- 
liest of all the symbolical books of the evan- 
gelical churches. 

Thus did Zürich sever itself from the bish- 
opric (and hence from the whole system of 
the Latin hierarchy), and undertook to found a 
new form of church government on the basis 
of the commune or congregation. 

Though the political constitution of the city 
rendered it impossible to complete the struc- 
ture in exact conformity with the plan thus 
laid down, it is undeniable that the inhabit- 
ants of the town and country took a voluntary 
share in^all the changes. No innovation was 
attempted to be put in practice till the result 
was rendered certain by the express approba- 
tion of the city communes ; the Grand Council 
did not originate opinions, it only adopted 
them. Already had the clergy of the chapter i 
of Zürich repeated the resolutions of the city; 
afterwards the several communes (congrega- 
tions) announced their approbation of the pro- 
ceedings of the civic body, in separate acts of 
adhesion. The whole population was filled 
with that positive spirit of Protestantism which 



denn alle zusamniengerottete Bischöfe und Päpste.' Die 
Versammhiiür seihst ist freilich auch keine Kirche, aber 
sie vindicirt der Gemeinde das Recht der Autonomie. Sie 
ist der erste Ansatz zur Presbyterialverfassung." " ' Yes, 
Höng and Küssnacht (names of two towns or villages) is 
a more certain (truer) church than all the bishops and 
popes banded together.' The roimretration is, indeed, not 
proi)erly speakinor a church, but it is an assertion of the 
independence of the commune. It is the foundation-stone 
of the presbyterian form of church government." 

* Records of the second disputation {^C\ 27, 28. Wyn- 
monats), Zwinglis Werke, i. 539. There exists also a re- 
port of it by Johann Salat, clerk of the Court at Lucerne. 
It is noticed in FüssÜ, Beiträgen, iii. 1. 



has ever since distinguished it: and which 
has, from time to time, displayed its ancient 
spontaneity of action m the most remarkable 
manner. 

RELATIONS OF THE SWISS REFORMERS TO LU- 
THER. CONTROVERSY CONCERNING THE LORD^S 
SUPPER. 

It is clear that there was nothing in these 
proceedings that can justify us in regarding 
them as a mere repetition of what had been 
passing at Wittenberg. As the growth and 
development of the characters of the two re- 
formers, so were also the nature of the civil 
authority to which they adhered, and of the 
oppositions they had to combat, widely differ- 
ent. Essential divei;gencles in the direction 
of their ideas, and in the character of their 
doctrines, also manifested themselves, in spite 
of the various analogies between them. 

The principal difference is, that, whereas 
Luther wished to retain every thing in the 
existing ecclesiastical institutions that was not 
at variance with the express words of Scrip- 
ture, Zwingli was resolved to get rid of every 
thing that could not be maintained by a direct 
appeal to Scripture. Luther took up his sta- 
tion on the ground already occupied by the 
Latin Church : bis desire was only to purify ; 
to put an end to the contradistinctions between 
the doctrines of the Church and the Gospel. 
Zwingli, on the other hand, thought it neces- 
sary to restore, as far as possible, the primitive 
and siinplest condition of the Christian Church; 
he aimed at a complete revolution. 

We know how far Luther was from incul- 
cating thß destruction of images ; he merely 
combated the superstitions which had ga- 
thered around them. Zv\-ingli, on the cor>- 
trary, regarded the veneration addressed to 
images as sheer idolatry, and condemned 
their very existence. In the Whitsuntide of 
1524, the council of Zürich, in concert with 
him, declared its determination of removing 
all images ; which it held to be a godly work. 
Fortunately, the disorders which this measure 
excited in so many other places, were here 
avoided. The three secular priests, wdth 
twelve members of the council, one from 
each guild, repaired to the churches, and 
caused the order to be executed under their 
own supervision. The crosses disappeared 
from the high altars, the pictures were taken 
down from the altars, the frescoes scraped 
off the walls, and whitewash substituted in 
their stead. — In the country churches the 
most precious pictures were burnt, '• to the 
praise and glory of God." Nor did the organs 
fare better; they^ too were connected with 
the abhorred superstition.! The reformers 

t Bernhard Weiss, p. 49. Bullinger Reform. Gesch. i, p. 
102. Leben Leonis Judae Misc. Tigur. iii. 33. "Anno 24 
stalt man ab die processionen der Mönchen und Pfaffen, — 
ordnet Leut, die über die Sürch (Reiiquienkästen) gingend 
und vergrubind die Gebein oder Heilthnm. Man täht die 
Orgien aussden kilchen,das todteniäuten ward abgestellt, 
das wychen des Saltses Wassers Palmen : das verrichten 
der Krankeen ;— hernach thät man in der Stadt die Bilder 
US den Küchen und uf dem Land wo es das Mehr werden 
möcht." "Anno 24 the processions of monks and priests 



312 



CONTROVERSY CONCERNING 



Book V. 



would have nothing but the simple Word. The 
same end was proposed in all the practices of 
the church. A new foi^m of baptism was 
drawn up, in which all the additions "v\hich 
have no ground in God's word" were omitted.* 
The next step was, the alteration of the mass. 
Luther had contented himself with the omis- 
sion of the words relating to the doctrine of 
sacrifice, and with the introduction of the 
sacrament in both kinds. Zwingli estabhshed 
a regular love feast (Easter 1525). The com- 
municants sat in a particular division of the 
benches between the choir and the transept, 
the men on the right, the women on the left ; 
the bread was carried about on large wooden 
platters, and each broke off a bit, after which 
the wine was carried aboutln wooden cups.t 
This was thought to be the nearest approach 
to the original institution. 

We come now to a difference, the ground 
of which lies deeper ; and which related not 
only to the application, but also to the inter- 
pretation, of Scripture, in reference to the 
most important of all spiritual acts. 

It is well known how^ various were the 
views taken, even in the earliest times, of 
this mystery; especially from the ninth to 
the eleventh century, before the doctrine of 
transubstantiation became universally pre- 
dominant. It is therefore no wonder if, now 
that its authority was shaken, new differences 
of opinion manifested themselves. 

At the former period, they were rather of a 
speculative nature 5 at the latter, in conformity 
with the altered direction of learning, they 
turned more on interpretation of Scripture. 

Luther had no sooner rejected the miracle 
of transubstantiation, than others began to 
inquire whether, even independently of this, 
the words by which the sacrament was insti- 
tuted were not subject to another interpre- 
tation. 

Luther himself confesses that he had been 
assailed by doubts of this kind ; but as, in all 
his outward and inward combats, his victo- 
rious weapon had ever been the pure text of 
Scripture taken in its literal sense, he now 
humbly surrendered his doubts to the sound 
of the words, and continued to maintain the 
real presence, without attempting further to 
define its mode. 

But all had not the same reverent submis- 
sion to the literal meaning as Luther. 

Carlstadt was the first who, in the year 
1524, when he was compelled to flee from 
Saxony, offered a new explanation. This was 
indeed exegetically untenable and even ab- 
surd, and he himself at last gave it up: in 
the attempt to establish it, however, he put 
forth some more coherent arguments,!- which 

were abolished. People were ordered to go in search of 
reliquaries and dig up the bones or shrines. The organs 
were taken out of the churches, the death-bell abolished, 
the consecration of the salt and water and palms; the 
preparation of the sick ; afterwards the pictures were 
taken out of the churches in the city and in the country, 
wherever there were the most of them." 

* Zwinglis Werke, II. ii. p. 230. 

t Preface ; Werke, II. ii. p. 234. 

I Dialogue of the ungodly Misuse of the Sacrament. 



gave a great impulse to the public mind in 
the direction it had already taken upon this 
point. 

The modest (Ecolampadius of Basle, among 
whose friends similar notions were current, 
began to be ashamed that he had so long sup- 
pressed his doubts and preached doctrines of 
the truth of which he was not thoroughly con- 
vinced ; he took courage no longer to conceal 
his view of the sense of the mysterious insti- 
tutional words. § 

The young BuUinger approached the ques- 
tion from another side. He studied Berenga- 
rius's controversy, and came to the conclusion 
that on this important point. — the very point 
afterwards established by the reformation, — 
injustice had been done to that early reformer. 
He thought Berengarius's interpretation might 
even be found in St. Augustine.il 

The main thing, however, was, that Zwingli 
declared his opinion. In studying the Scrip- 
ture after his manner, rather as a whole than 
in detached passages, and not without a con- 
tinual reference to classical antiquity, he had 
come to the conviction that the is of the insti- 
tutional words signifies nothing more than 
'' denotes.'' Already, in a letter dated June 
1523, he declares that the true sense of the 
Eucharist cannot be understood, until the 
bread and wine in the Lord's Supper are 
regarded in exactly the same manner as 
the water in baptism. IF While attacking the 
mass, he had already conceived the inten- 
tion of restoring the Eucharist to itself, as 
he expressed it.** As Carlstadt now brought 
forward a very similar interpretation, which 
he was unable to maintain. Zwingli thought 
he could no longer remain silent. He pub- 
lished his exposition : first in a printed address 
to a parish priest in Reutlingen (November 
1524), then more at length in his essay, On 
true and false Religion. Although he was 
little satisfied with Carlstadt's explanation, he 
nevertheless availed hinrself of some of the 
same arguments which that theologian had 
employed ; e. g. that the body of Christ was 
in heaven, and could not possibly be divided 
realiter among his disciples on e^rth. He 
rested his reasoning chiefly on the sixth chap- 
ter of the Gospel of St. John, w^hich was thus, 
as he thought, rendered perfectly clear. 

No longer ago than the autumn of 1524, the 
great division of the Church, into Catholic and 
Evangelical, had been formally accomplished ; 
and already an opinion was broached w^hich. 
was destined to work a violent schism in the 
Evangelical Church. 



Walch. XX. 2878. Of the unchristian Misuse of the Lord's 
Bread and Cup. Ibid. 138. 

§ Collection jof the various declarations of CTIcolanipa- 
dius in his life, by Hess, p. 102. 

II Lavater von Laben und Tod Heinrychen Bullingers, 
1578, p. H. 

"il To Hans Wyttenbach, 15th June, 1523. Panem et 
vinum vere esse puto\ac edi etiara, sed frustra, nisi edens 
firmiter credat hunc solum esse animse cibum. Omnia 
sunt planiora si rri auKa cvku, i. e. ficus ficus appellaveri- 
mus, panem dixerimus panem, vinum vinum. (Epp. i. 
258.) 

** Deliberavimus usui esse futurum si missa evertere- 
tur, qua eversa speravimus etiam Eucharistiam sibi re- 
slitui posse. De vera et falsa Religione, p. 269. 



Chap. III. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



313 



Luther did not hesitate to denounce Zwingli 
as a wild enthusiast, with whom he had fre- 
quently had to contend; he disregarded the 
fact that the removal of images in Zürich had 
been effected under the sanction of the civil 
authority, and that the Swiss reformers had 
found a point at which civil order might se- 
curely subsist, only a few steps further re- 
moved from traditional usage than that to 
which he had himself advanced. Indeed his 
notions of the affairs of Switzerland were alto- 
gether very vague and imperfect. He began 
the contest with great vehemence. 

This is not the place to enumerate the po- 
lemical writings exchanged, or the arguments 
employed, on either side. The historian may, 
however, be permitted to make one remark. 

It appears to me undeniable that the contro- 
versy was not to be terminated by a purely 
exegetic process. 

That the is in the text might have a figura- 
tive sense, cannot be denied, nor in fact does 
Luther attempt to deny it. He grants it in 
expressions such as, Christ is a rock, a vine, 
&c., '-because Christ cannot be a natural rock." 
He only denies that the word had, or must 
have, a figurative meaning in the case under 
discussion. =* , 

Hence it clearly appears, that the ground of 
the controversy lay m their general view of 
the subject. 

Zwingh's chief objection to the hteral inter- 
pretation is, that Christ himself says, "I shall 
not be with you always ;" thus implying that 
he would not be present in the Eucharist; 
and that, according to this interpretation, he 
must be omnipresent; whereas a local omni- 
presence is a contradiction in terms. The 
reply -of Luther, who had an instinctive aver- 
sion to any departure from the simple, clear 
and Hteral meaning of words, is a general one : 
— that he holds fast to the infallible Word, and 
that to God nothing is impossible. But it is 
abundantly clear that he would never have 
been satisfied with this defence, had he not 
felt himself elevated above the objections of 
his antagonists, by the higher region from 
which he contemplated the whole subject. 
Being harder pressed, he at length enounced 
the doctrine of the union of the divine and 
human natures in Christ, which he regards as 
far more intimate than that between body and 
soul. Not even death, he says, had power to 
loose it: the human nature of Christ was 
raised above all natural existences, above and 
beyond all created beings, by its union with 
the Godhead. We have here a case, and by 
no means the only one, in which Luther, with- 
out being even conscious of it himself, reverts 
to opinions which were current before the de- 
velopment of the hierarchical supremacy, and 
the organisation of the system to which it 
gave birth. In the ninth century, Johannes 
Scotus Erigena reconciled the doctrines of the 
Eucharist and the two natures, if not in ex- 
actly the same, yet in a very similar manner.! 

* Greater Confession, in Walch's Collection of Luther's 
Works, Part xx. p. 1138. 
t De divisione naturae: Neander Kirchengeschichte, iv. 
40 '2b 



Luther goes on to teach that the identity of 
the divine and human nature is showed forth 
in the mystery of the sacrament. The body 
of Christ is the entire Christ, of a divine na- 
ture, exalted above all the conditions of the 
creature, and hence also easily communicable 
in the bread. The objection, that Christ says 
he would not be present always, he conclu- 
sively answers by the remark, that Christ was 
there speaking of his earthly existence. 

It is evident why the sort of proof adduced 
by Zwingli had no longer any cogency for Lu- 
ther. His own hypothesis enabled him to 
abide by the strict meaning of the words, as 
he was fond of doing; since they no longer 
presented any co-ntradiction. And this hypo- 
thesis, which touches the highest mysteries 
of religion (though, with a reverent awe of 
dragging the mysterious into the conflict of 
the day, he rarely brought it forward), was, 
therefore, perfectly satisfactory to his mind. 

Luther indeed here appears to ns in the 
most characteristic light. 

We have often remarked that he deviated 
from tradition, only so far as he felt himself 
absolutely constrained to do so by" the words 
of Christ. To go in search of novelties, or to 
overthrow any thing established that was not 
utterly irreconcilable with Scripture, were 
thoughts which his soul knew not. He would 
have maintained the whole structure of the 
Latin Church, had it not been disfigured by 
modern additions, foreign to its original de- 
sign, and contrary to the genuine sense of the 
Gospel : he would have acknowledged the 
hierarchy itself, if it had only left him free- 
dom of speech ; but, as that could not be, he 
was compelled to take upon himself the work 
of purification. He was so profoundly attached 
to the traditions of the Church, that it v/as not 
without the most violent inward storms that 
he emancipated himself" from accidental and 
groundless additions. But he held with the 
more unshaken tenacity to the great mystery, 
in so far as it was in accordance with, and sup- 
ported by, the literal meaning of Scripture.; 
His mind embraced it with all its native depth ; 
he was not only susceptible of^the sublimest 
mysticism, but his whole soul was steeped 
in it. 

It is true, Luther fell off from the Church 
of Rome (or rather he was expelled from it), 
and wrought it more damage than any other 
man W'hatever. But he never denied its origin. 
If we take a comprehensive view of the great 
historical movement of opinion and doctrine 
throughout the w^orld, we shall see that Luther 
was the organ through which the Latin Church 
resumed a freer, less hierarchical form, and 
one more in harmony with the original ten- 
dency of Christianity. 

We must, however, admit that his view^s. 



47-2. The difference mainly consists in this ; that Scotus 
assumes more decidedly the glorification of the human 
nature by the divine. Caro in virtutem transformata 
nullo loco continetur. 

X E. g. Carlstadt asked, Where has Christ commanded 
that the elements should be lifted up and shown to the 
people? (Walch, 2876.) Luther answered, Where does 
Christ forbid it? (p. 252.) 



314 



REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 



E( 



especially of this subject, were always some- 
what individual, — not fitted to produce con- 
viction in all men, any more than the point 
from which he took tnose views could be 
shared by all. Nor were the more profound 
and eminent spirits who took an active part in 
the general movement of the century, by any 
means so well inclined towards the Church as 
Luther. And as the evidence adduced, by 
Zwingli failed to convince Luther, so Luther's 
hypothesis produced no impression upon 
Zwingli. 

Zwingli had, as we have said, none of Lu- 
ther's deep and lively conception of the u-ni- 
versal Church, or of an unbroken connexion 
M'ith the doctrines of past ages. We have 
seen that his mind, formed in the midst of re- 
publican institutions, was far more occupied 
with the idea of the commune ; and he was 
now intent on keeping together the communes 
of Zürich by a stricter church discipline. He 
tried to get rid of all public criminals j put an 
end to the right of asylum, and causecl loose 
women and adulterers to be turned out of the 
city. With these views of politics and morals, 
he united an unprejudiced study of the Scrip- 
tures, freed from the whole dogm.atic structure 
that had been raised upon them. If I do not 
mistake, he did, in fact, evince an acute and 
apt sense for their original meaning and spirit. 
He regarded the Lord's Supper (as the ritual 
he introduced proves) in the hght of a feast 
of commemoration and affection. He held to 
the words of Paul ; that we are one body, be- 
cause we eat of one bread; for, says he, 
every one confesses by that act that he be- 
longs to the society which acknowledges Christ 
to be its Saviour, and in which all Christians 
are one body; this is community in the blood 
of Christ. He would not admit that he re- 
garded the Eucharist as mere bread. "If," 
said he, "bread and wine, sanctified by the 
grace of God, are distributed, is not the whole 
body of Christ, as it were, sensibly given to 
his followers?" It was a peculiar satisfaction 
to him, that by this view he arrived directly 
at a practical result. For, he asked, how can 
the knowledge that we belong to one body fail 
to lead to Christian life and Christian love ? 
The unv/orthy sinned against the body and 
blood o^ Christ. He had the joy of seeing 
that his ritual and the views he had put forth, 
contributed to put an end to old and obdurate 
hostilities.^ 

Although Zwingli insists much on what 
there still was of supernatural in his scheme 
of the Eucharist, it is clear that this was not 
the mystery which had hitherto formed the 
central point of the worship of the Catholic 
Church. We can easily understand the effect 
produced on the common people, by the at- 
tempt to rob them of the sensible presence 
of Christ. Some courage was required to re- 
solve on such an experiment ; but when this 
was actually made, the public mind was, as 
OEcolampadius says, found to be far better 
disposed for its reception than could have 

* Ei-positio fidei, Works II. ii. 241. 



been suspected. This is, however, very ex- 
plicable. People saw that they had gone too 
far to retract, in their defection from the 
Church of Rome ; and they found a certain 
gratification of the feeling of independence 
which that defection had generated, in ren- 
dering it as complete as possible. 

Luther had, from the first moment, been 
treated with the greatest harshness; Zwingli, 
on the contrary, with the utmost gentleness : 
even in the year 1523 he received an ex- 
tremely gracious letter from Adrian VI., in 
which no allusion was made to his innova- 
tions. Yet, it is obvious that Zwingll's oppo- 
sition to the existing forms and institutions of 
the Church, was far more violent and irrecon- 
cilable than that of Luther. Neither ritual 
nor dogma, in the forms which they had ac- 
quired in the course of centuries, any longer 
made the smallest impression upon him : 
alterations, in themselves innocuous, but to 
which abuses had clung, he rejected with the 
same decision and promptitude as the abuses 
themselves ; he sought to restore the earliest 
forms in which the principle of Christianity 
had found an expression : — forms, it is true, 
no less than those he abolished, and not sub- 
stance ; but purer and more congenial. 

Luther, notwithstanding his zeal against the 
pope, notwithstanding his aversion to the se- 
cular dominion of the hierarchy, was yet, both 
in doctrine and discipline, as far as it was pos- 
sible, conservative, and attached to the his- 
torical traditions of the Church; his thoughts 
and feelings were profound, and profoundly 
impressed with the mysteries of religion. 
Zwingli was much more unsparing in rejec- 
tion and in alteration ; attentive to the practi- 
cal business of life; remarkable for sobriety 
of mind and good sense. 

Had Luther and his disciples stood alone, 
the principle of the reformation would proba- 
bly have rapidly acquired stability.; but it 
would perhaps as rapidly have lost its living, 
progressing power. It is difficult to imagine 
Zwingli as standing alone; but had views 
like his arisen without those of Luther, the 
chain of the historical development of the 
Church would have been violently broken. 

Thus it was decreed by divine Providence, 
if we may presume to say so, that these two 
systems should make their way together. 
They co-existed, each in its place ; each the 
offspring of a sort of internal necessity ; they 
belonged to each other, they completed each 
other. 

But, from the time of the establishment of 
the inquisition — of the intolerant domination 
of a dogmatical system — so rigid an idea of 
orthodoxy had obtained in the world, that 
these two sections of the great party of re- 
form, regardless of their common antagonist, 
attacked each other with furious zeal. 

We shall frequently have occasion to recur 
to the various movements excited by this hos- 
tility. We must now trace the progress of 
Zwingli on his own ground — Zürich and 
Switzerland. 



Chap. III. 



ANABAPTISTS IN ZUKICH. 



315 



DEFENCir.- PKOPAGATION. 



Although Zwingli had gone much farther 
than Luther, he was soon opposed by a still 
more extreme- party : he had to contend with 
the anabaptists. 

He was called upon to form a separate con- 
gregation of true believers, since they alone 
were the subjects of the promises. He re- 
plied, that it was impossible to bring heaven 
upon the earth; Christ had taught that we 
were to let the tares grow together with the 
wheat.* 

It was then demanded that he should at 
least invite the whole commune of Zurich to 
take part in the deliberations, and not content 
himself with the Grand Council, which con- 
sisted only of two hundred members. But 
Zwingli feared the influence of fanatical de- 
magogues and pretenders to inspiration, on 
a larger assembly. He maintained that the 
commune was adequately represented, not 
only politically but ecclesiastically, in the 
Grand Council. The tacit assent of the com- 
mune he held to be a perfectly sufficient 
sanction of the decrees of the Grand Council. 
This, it was true, exercised the spiritual 
^ower, but under the condition that it did not 
offend against the rules laid down in the Holy 
Scriptures in the smallest particular ] for that 
had been promised to the commune by its 
preachers. Zwingli adhered steadily to the 
idea of the commune, though he could not 
perfectly realize it ] just as, in modern times, 
even in countries where the principle of the* 
sovereignty of the people is fully admitted, 
the body of the people do not, in fact, take 
an active part in the government. 

Zwingli was determined not to suffer the 
newly established order of things to be dis- 
turbed. In order to obtain some advantage 
from it, the oppositionists demanded the abo- 
lition of tithes, which, they said, rested on no 
divine authority whatever. Zwingli replied, 
that the tithes had either already passed into 
the handfe of third parties by civil contract, or 
had been applied to the foundation of churches 
and schools. t He did not, like Luther, take 
his stand intrepidly on the principle of the 
supremacy of the civil power; but he was 
equally resolved not to allow the political 
edifice which had just been constructed, to 
be shaken. He saw that the agitation must 
stop somewhere, unless every thing was to 
be called in question. He had reached a cer- 
tain point, but he would not be drawn on one 
step further ; and he had the general will, on 
which in a republic every thing depends, on 
his side. 

At this juncture anabaptism also made its 
appearance in Zürich. The rite of the second 
baptism is the only symbol of that doctrine 
which requires perfect uniformity of opinion 
and genuine Christianity as the basis of 
the commune (congregation). A community 
founded on sucn. ideas, however. Mdll always 



* Elenchus contra Catabaptistas. 0pp. iii. 363. 
t Fiissli's Beiträge, i. 235. 



apply to temporal the principle which governs 
spiritual affairs; and accordingly, we very 
soon find the anabaptists at variance with the 
constituted authorities. When summoned be- 
fore the tribunals, they declared that they 
were not subject to any earthly power; that 
God was their only sovereign. They did not 
perhaps maintaiu in so many words, that no 
temporal authority ought to be endured ; but 
they taught that a Christian could not fulfil 
any temporal office, or draw the sword ; so 
that, according to them, Christianity did not 
recognise the temporal power. They repre- 
sented a community of goods as that ideal of 
our condition on earth after which we ought 
to strive. i As, however, notions of this kind 
had produced such fearful effects during the 
revolt of the peasants, and as the Zürich ana- 
baptists (as Zwingli affirmed he positively 
knew) preached the doctrine, that it was law- 
ful to kill, and necessary to kill priests ; the 
whole force of the existing order of things, in 
concert with the preachers, rose up in arms to 
rid the territory of them. Some were ban- 
ished, others fled ; a few of the ringleaders 
were drowned without mercy.§ The new 
constitution of the Church was firmly estab- 
lished, without peril or injury to the institu- 
tions of the city or the state. 

Meanwhile, in another quarter, a still more 
dangerous opposition had arisen out of politi- 
cal motives affecting the whole Confederation. 

Zwingli had propagated his political, as well 
as his religious opinions in Zürich; he had 
combated the abuses of foreign enlistment 
and foreign pensions with complete success : 
the priests were compelled solemnly to for- 
swear all pensions; and in the year 1521, 
Zürich alone, of all the cantons, refused to 
accept the French alliance. The disasters 
which this alliance brought in its train, were 
used by Zwingli, as means of gaining others 
over to his system. It is necessary to read 
"The Divine Warning," which he addressed 
after the battle of Bicocca, "To the oldest and 
right honest Confederates at Schwyz," in order 
to perceive the connexion which subsisted be- 
tween his religious and his political labours. 
His. persuasion was, that reason and piety 
were blinded by secret gifts from foreigners, 
and nothing but discord engendered. He 
urges his countrymen to lay aside selfish con- 
siderations. And if any one asked how this 
was possible, seeing that selfishness has its 
root in every human heart, he answered, that 
care must be taken that the word of God be 
taught clearly and intelligibly, and without 
any of the encumbrances of human wisdom. 
For so would God gain possession of the heart. 
" But where God is not in the heart of man, 
there is nothing but the man himself, and he 
thinks of nothing but what ministers to his in- 

X Confessions and documents in Fiissli's Beiträgen, i. 
2-29, 2-19, 258, ii. 263. 

§ In Rodolplii Gualtherj Epistola ad Lectorem, prefixed 
to the second part of the Works, 1544, it is protested that 
Zwingli did not desire this. " Q,uod homines veesani, non 
jam infideles raodo, verum etiam seditiosi, reipublicpe tur- 
batores, magistratuum hostes, justa senatus sententia 
damnati suat, num id Zwinglio fraudi esse poterit V 



316 



TRIUMPH OF THE 



Book V. 



terests or his lusts." His political views, and 
indeed all his ideas, are pervaded by that 
higher morality, which is at the same time 
mysticism and rehgion. In Schwyz, where 
he had a number of personal friends, his 
addresses made such an impression, that on 
the 18th May, 1522, the rural communes de- 
clined the French alliance, and admonished 
others to renounce it; "all those whom it had 
a right to admonish." It was quite to be ex- 
pected that Schwyz, where Geroldseck and 
Zwingli and Leo Juda had so long had influ- 
,ence, would now follow the example of Zü- 
rich in religious affairs. 

By this course, however, Zwingli necessarily 
created the most formidable enemies. The 
leading men in the communes, who received 
foreign pensions, and the hired captains who 
led the warlike youth into foreign service, 
constituted factions which were not disposed 
to let slip their advantages so easily ; — oligar- 
chies which, united, governed the popular 
assemblies. Zwingli himself discovered that 
ii new nobility was as dangerous as the old 
one. And in fact these governing parties were 
powerful enough to induce the Schwyzers to 
revoke their resolution against foreign service. 
The influence of Hans Hug, Schultheiss of 
Lucerne, chiefly contributed to maintain the 
existing policy in the VVald cantons.* At the 
diet of 1523 a complaint was formally laid 
against Zwingli, and it inevitably followed 
that the hostility to his political opinions was 
reflected back on his religious exertions. In- 
deed it is impossible to deny that they were 
most intimately connected. His views on 
both subjects were simultaneous in their ori- 
gin, and had thus far been prosecuted toge- 
ther. In the year 1524, the diet required the 
Zürichers to desist from their innovations. 
As they gave an evasive answer, the other 
cantons threatened that they would no longer 
sit with them in diet, and would send them 
back the briefs of confederation. Some dis- 
sentient opinions were indeed expressed at 
the diet, and occasionally prevailed. In the 
year 1525 a very remarkable resolutiou was 
passed; the purpose of which was to limit the 
spiritual jurisdiction, t after the manner of the 
German diets. But those who were strongly 
attached to Rome would hear of no limitation 
of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, in the 
main, this more orthodox opinion predomi- 
nated. The prelates who, shortly before, had 
been in no little jeopardy, felt the ground 
once more firm under their feet : they formed 
the closest alliancQ with the oligarchs. At 
this point of our researches, we come upon 
the remarkable actions of John Faber, the 
Vicar-general of Constance, who at an earlier 
period had shared the literary tendencies 
of his High German contemporaries, and en- 



* Zwingli's Complaint, Feb. 19, 1523, to Steiner. Epp. 
i. p. 275. 

t E. g: the clergy shall rntain what relates to affairs of 
marriage, or places of worship and sacraments, or errors 
of faith ; but these too shall first be laid before the secular 
authorities, which shall refer them, only when they deem 
it necessary, to the epiritual judges. Articles in Bullinger, 
J. 203. 



cou raged Zwingli to resist the sale of indul- 
gences. In 1521, however, he returned from 
Rome totally changed, and now devoted his 
life to the maintenance of the ancient faith. 
He laboured by every means to promote the ^ 
alliance we have mentioned, and to render it 
effective. The conference at Baden in May, 
1526, at which Eck was also present, was the 
expression of the new understanding between 
the oligarchs and the spiritual power. :|: With 
greater confidence, and with greater proba- 
bility, than ever, the orthodox party main- 
tained that the victory was on their side. 

Yet this very conference turned out highly 
injurious to them. 

Zwingli did not attend it, probably alarmed 
at the executions which had just taken place 
in the see of Constance ; for example, that of 
Hans Hüglin : on the other hand, Bern and 
Basel sent two representatives of the new 
doctrines. Berthold Hallerand (Ecolampadius, 
who were not only far from conceding the 
victory to their opponents, but, on their re- 
turn home, excited a patriotic interest in their 
cause in the minds of their fellow-citizens. § 
Bern and Basel also, on their side, denoanded 
their share in the publication of the acts of 
the conference, ancl would not quietly allow 
them to remain in the hands of the Catholic 
majority. A misunderstanding had already 
arisen between those cities and the others, 
on the question of jurisdictions, and an entire 
division now seemed inevitable. 

'But a further political crisis was necessary 
•to bring this to an open breach. 

If the new doctrine, however, had made 
enemies by its connexion with politics, it had 
also secured friends. In all these cities a. 
powerful democratic party in the Grand Coun- 
cils, together with the body of the citizens, 
stood opposed to the oligarchies. As the 
latter adhered to the spiritual power, so the 
former inclined to reform. Two parties, op- 
posed in pohtics and religion, were formed, 
and long was the victory doubtful. There is 
no question that the spirit of ecclesiastical re- 
form, established so firmly and so continually 
gaining strength among the people, mainly 
contributed in the powerful canton of Bern to 
give the final ascendancy to the more demo- 
cralical party. The troubles concerning the 
conference of Baden had the same result. At 
the new elections in the year 1527, a con- 
siderable number of adherents of reform and 
adversaries of the oligarchs, entered the Grand 
Council. The first consequence of this was, 
that the Grand Council demanded the restitu- 
tion of all its ancient rights. Twenty years 
long it had acquiesced in the lesser council 



t Zwingli to Vadian,. i. 485. " Istiid unum raveo, ne 
optima plebs Helvetica horum nebulonum, Fabri videlicet 
et Ecciorum, strophis committatur, id autem Oligarcha- 
rum perfidia." 3 Kal. Apr. 1526. 

§ As the song by Nicolas Manuel shows: "ain Lid in 
schilers Hofthon.'' Grüneisen, p. 409. " Egg zahlet mit 
füssen und henden, fing an schelken und sehenden,— er 
sprach ich hlib by dem verstand, den Bäbst Cardinal Bis- 
chof hand." " Egg strove with hand and foot, and began 
to scold and to abuse:— he said, I hold to the understand- 
ing (opinion) that the pope, cardinals and bishops have." 
—He appears just the same ia Baden as in Leipzig. 



Chap. III. 



REFORAUTION IN SWITZERLAND. 



817 



being composed of Vennern and Sechzeh- 
nern :* and it now resumed its inherent right 
to elect the members of the latter body.t 
After it had thus, agreeably to the constitu- 
tion, united in itself the entn-e civic power, it 
proceeded to the discussion of religious affairs. 
The mandates commanding the people to hold 
fast to the ancient faith were revoked ; a dis- 
putation was held, at which Zwingii was pre- 
sent, and which ended entirely in his favour. 
All his plans for Zurich were adopted in Bern. 
In the year 1528, the adherents of the old 
faith were turned out of both the councils. The 
commune was assembled in the church ; man 
by man, — gentlemen, masters of trades, and 
workmen, all swore allegiance to the two 
councils. t The next question, as might be 
expected from the twofold character of the 
reform, was the system of foreign pensions, 
which had many advocates in Bern, even 
among the evangelical party. Not without a 
hot contest, and a second appeal to the opinion 
of the people in city and country, were the 
pensions refused (24th August), and notice of 
the same sent to the King of France,§ 

The existing government of Basel stood its 
ground a httle longer; it flattered itself that 
it would still be able to maintain the balance 
between the two confessions. Gradually. 
however, the evangelical communes became 
aware of their superiority; and at length, at 
a meeting of the people in January 1529, 
only eight hundred Catholics were present, to 
three thousand reformers. In the following 
February, a violent commotion broke out. 
The first thing was to alter the constitution. 
The guilds resumed their ancient independ- 
ence, and acquired the perpetual right of 
sending sixty of their members to the Grand 
Council. No one was to sit in the lesser 
council, who was not nominated by the 
greater ; all the Catholics left the lesser coun- 
cil. II Psalms and hymns in the German lan- 
guage were immediately sung in the churches; 
and on the 1st of April a form of divine ser- 
vice on the pattern of that of Zurich was pub- 
lished, breathing the religious earnestness and 
austere morality which were among the chief 
internal causes of this revolution, and con- 
taining allusions to the suppression of wanton 
wars. , 

A code determining their relations was 
now agreed on by the three cities. This was 

* Local titles of magistrates. The sixteen (Sechzelinern) 
still exist at Bern, thougli their functions are reduced to a 
shadow.— TR.4.NS. 

t "Ad viginti annos 4 Pandareti cum 16 e civibus sena- 
tum minorem elegerunt, ea conditione ut per eos delectos 
civium turma non haberet abjicere: nunc ablata est illis 
potestas et concio universa civium senatum deligit." 
Letter from B. Haller to Vadian in Kirchhofer's Berthold 
Vadian, p. 89. 

I Stettler, ii. 6. 

§ Bnllinger, ii. 13. Haller calls it pecunia sanguinaria; 
Hofmeister speaks of execrabile foadus Galücum. Manuel 
too v>?as one of those who attacked the pensions. Grünei- 
sen, 109. Kirchhofer, 133. 

IJ See Ochs, Geschichte von Basel, v. p. 626, f. The dioe- 
cesium suftragio, cumdioecesiis disponenda in CEcolampa- 
dius' Report with which Ochs (v. 653) torments himself 
so much, is doubtless diacosion suffragio, cum diacosiis, by 
which word Zwingii, and also fficolampadius (e. g. in his 
letter to Hess, p. 506), usually denotes the Grand Council. 
2b* 



in fact a treaty of alliance for the defence of 
the new order of things which they had 
estabhshed, and into which they contem- 
plated the admission of all the confederate 
cantons, "when," as they express it, ''they 
shall be so far instructed in the word of 
God." 

Of this event, indeed, ther»- seemed to be 
a considerable probability. In Glarus, Ap- 
penzell, and the Grisons, the reforming party 
was very active; in Schaffhausen the council 
incessantly vacillated between the opposite 
tendencies ;1[ in St. Gall the victory was al- 
ready decided. In the year 1528, after a 
cliange of the council of that city, the Catho- 
lic ceremonies were discontinued, and articles 
of a radical reformation promulgated.** The 
same took place in ]\Iühlhausen, where the 
secretary of the city, Gamshorst, one of the 
statesmen who had taken an active part in 
the internal affairs of the Confederation and 
in its relations to the pope and the emperor, 
encouraged the movement by his well-founded 
authority. In the years 1528 and 1529, St. Gall, 
Biel, and Mühlhausen (the latter not without 
some difficulty, and only in consequence of 
the especial interposition of Bern) were re- 
ceived into the Christian civic alliance. ft 

These changes, great and important as they 
were, originated in a single profound thought, 
embracing political and religious objects. 
Zvvingli had resolved to purify at once the 
church and his country from the most per- 
nicious abuses of both kinds. He could not 
have accomplished the ecclesiastical reform 
without the political, nor the political without 
the ecclesiastical. Nothing short of the con- 
current progress of both would have realized 
his original conception. We shall see here- 
after how far he was successful. 

Germany was chiefly affected by his viev/ 
of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper* But- 
zer and Capito, the reformers of Strasburg, 
had taken part in the conference at Bern, and 
had long been zealous advocates for Zwingli's 
system. Lindau and Memmingen soon fol- 
lowed Strasburg. The same doctrine was 
preached by Somius in Ulm, Cellarius in 
•Augsburg, Blaurer in Constance, Hermann in 
Reutlingen, and by many others in the towns 
of that part of Germany. In some indeed, 
the project of attaching themselves by close 
and indissoluble ties to the evangelical towns 
of the Swiss Confederation was talked of. 
And this took place at the very moment when 
an evangelical church, organized accordiiig 
to Luther's views, arose in so many parts of 
eastern Germany. 

The antagonism which thus arose between 
the opinions and the new-born institutions of 
eastern and western Germany was undoubt- 
edly a great misfortune. The polemical writ- 



TT This undecided state of opinion appears clearly in 
the individual case of Hans Stockar, wliose journal was 
published in 1839. 

** Arx, Geschichte von St. Gallen, ii. 529, cursory as to 
the main point, circumstantial in the collateral and spite- 
ful details. 

ft Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, ii, p. 46. 



318 



POSITION OF THE EMPEROE. 



Book V. 



ings of that period filled all minds with mutual 
antipathy. 

But this reflection is by no means the only 
one which the course of events is calculated 
to excite. The antagonism in question arose 
not merely from, a different apprehension of a 
dogma; it lay in the very origin of the move- 
ment on either si^e; in the political and eccle- 
siastical condition from which each party had 
to emancipate itself. Whether, as to dogma, 
an explanation satisfactory to both parties 
might not still be discovered, was as yet un- 
certain. But that reform in Switzerland origi- 
nated in causes and in sentiments native and 
peculiar to the Country, that it struck root in 
its own soil, and assumed a form and growth 
of its own, was unquestionably fortunate for 
the world at large ; since it gave to the gene- 
ral principle of the reformation fresh vigour 
and stability. 



CHAPTER IV. 

POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE YEAR 1529. 

The situation of the world was at that time 
as follows :^ 

The great political relations betw^een East 
and West, upon which, during the middle ages, 
every thing had depended, were unsettled. 
The puissant prince in whom the warlike 
power of the East centred, was once more 
meditating an attack upon Christendom, from 
which he was justified in anticipating success 
as complete as that which had attended his 
former enterprises: it was not likely that the 
very feeble preparations for resistance which 
had since then been made by the German 
powers in Hungary, would have the effect of 
arresting his course. A conflict of the Ger- 
man forces by land and the Roman by sea, 
with those of tKe Ottoman, seemed imminent. 

But Christendom itself was torn with divi- 
sions. 

Peace was not yet restored between its tw^o 
highest potentates. The emperor had even 
entertained the thought of stripping the pope 
of all his temporal authority; while, on the 
other hand, the emperor's adversaries had 
conceived a plan for deposing him, with the 
aid of the pope. These projects were not 
yöt entirely abandoned. 

Nor was the military superiority of the two 
great powers which had so long stood con- 
fronted in arms, more decided. From year to 
year the fortunes of the house of Austria had 
been in the ascendant ; yet France scorned to 
acquiesce in the loss of the predominant con- 
sideration she had long enjoyed, or to renounce 
her possessions in Italy. 

To this conflict of political interests was 
now added that of religious opinions; at this 
moment less noisy, but pregnant with far more 
•weighty consequences. The authority of the 
Roman Church, which had ruled the West for 



so many centuries, now encountered an oppo- 
sition, to w'hich it appeared likely to succumb. 
Enemies had frequently arisen; but never be- 
fore did they manifest a religious sentiment at 
once so energetic and so firm ; never had their 
efforts been so intimately connected with the 
general intellectual life, and the progress of 
civilisation throughout Europe ; and, accord- 
ingly, never had their opinions been propa- 
gated with such rapidity and vigour. 

It had happened, moreover, that the schemes 
of reform had taken two perfectly diflerent, 
and even opposite directions. The one sys- 
tem attached itself as closely as possible to 
the existing doctrine of the church, and to the 
established forms of the state. The other 
was, from the first, blended with projects of 
radical political changes, and assumed as its 
end the restoration of the primitive state of 
Christendom. And they were directly op- 
posed in their views of the most important 
dogma. 

These were not disputes about this or that 
measure to be taken for the future, or about 
this or that interest already vested ; they were 
contests concerning the interests and aflairs of 
the deepest importance to mankind at large ; 
the relations of the East and the West; of the 
empire and the papacy ; of the two preponde- 
rant powers of Europe to each other : a con- 
test on the one side for the permanency of 
the hierarchical powers, and on the other for 
the introduction of new ecclesiastical forms; 
and, even with regard to ihe latter, a contest 
between those who advocated the preserva- 
tion of all that it was possible to preserve, 
and those who desired radical and sweeping- 
changes. 

As it is clear, however, that all these an- 
tagonisms, however they might affect the 
world at large, chiefly concerned the German 
nation, and came into collision on the German 
soil (for Germany had immediately to fight 
out the battle with the Ottomans on the con- 
tinent, to maintain its supremacy in Italy, and 
to bring the religious quarrels to a decision or 
to a compromise), the whole course of affairs 
depended on the attitude which the emperor 
might assume in the general shock and con- 
flict of these various movements. 

Hitherto the fluctuating nature of events 
had forced him upon political measures not 
always consistent with one another ; but now 
that the time for decision was at hand, it was 
absolutely necessary to adopt a system, and 
to carry it through. 

The w^ish of the German people was, as 
we have already remarked, that the emperor 
would place himself at the head of the resist- 
ance to the hierarchy, and, supported by all 
the energy of the nation, assert the rights of 
the empire, of whatever kind, and drive back 
the barbarians beyond the Danube. It seems 
hardly possible that the emperor's inclinations 
should not have gone with this policy. Had 
he not. from the moment of his accession, 
spoken of a reformation of the church, and 
had he not of late frequently repeated the 
same word '? Was not the most violent and 



CaA?. IV. 



SPANISH CATHOLICISM. 



319 



dangerous jealousy of his house to be found 
in those German princes who had espoused' 
the cause of the hierarchy? It would seem 
that he must necessarily have regarded an 
alhance with the popular tendencies (on whose 
irresistible progress all his letters from Ger- 
many dwelt) as a means of mcreasing his 
power. 

But a man placed in the midst of the con- 
flict of opposing powers and influences of such 
magnitude, is seldo/n able to come to a per- 
fectly free, deliberate and unbiassed decision. 
I do not believe that Charles V. ever so much 
as asked himself the question, which side he 
ought to espouse. The German nation was 
not destined to attain to its further develop- 
ment under the guidance of a common head. 
Charles Y. found himself compelled by his 
personal situation, and by the previous course 
of events, to adopt a policy contrary to its 
wishes. 

Recent experience had proved that an at- 
tempt to carry on a further contest with the 
pope would involve him in perplexities of 
which it was impossible to foresee the end. 
In the presence of this urgent necessity, there- 
fore, he had resolved not only upon a more 
conciliatory demeanour, but on an alliance 
with Rome. 

It is remarkable how all his foreign rela- 
tions conspired to confirm him in this resolu- 
tion. 

We have already observed that the honour 
of his house utterly forbade him to listen to 
the doubt, whether the Court of Rome was 
warranted in granting Henry YIII. the dispen- 
sation for his marriage, which that monarch 
now declared to be null. 

In the northern states, the enemies who had 
driven his brother-in-lav\' Christiern into exile, 
manifested a strong leaning to the German 
notions of reform, which indeed had nearly 
become predominant in Sweden. The empe- 
ror could only restore his brother-in-law to the 
throne, and re-establish the influence of the 
house of Austria in the north, by a union 
with the various parties still attached to Ca- 
tholicism. 

Yet further: the alliances v>diich the re- 
formed towns of Switzerland contracted with 
their co-religionists and neighbours of North 
Germany, caused the Catholic cantons to seek. 
a support in the house of Austria : they forgot 
their hereditary enmity to it, and in the early 
part of the year 1529 concluded a formal 
treaty with King Ferdinand. 

In the quarrel with the AYoiwode and his 
adherents in Hungary also, it vras very im- 
portant to the success of Charles's cause that 
the church should acknowledge his rights. 

And if the emperor cast his eyes over thef 
German empire, he could not fail to see that 
his authority had most to gain from a union 
with the spiritual princes. We may remem- 
oer how anxious Maximilian was to fill the 
episcopal sees with men devoted to his in- 
terests, and to gain over the body of the clergy. 
This became a far easier task, as soon as the 
bishops, whose spiritual privileges were me- 



naced by the current ideas of the age, looked 
for protection to the imperial power. Consi- 
dering the weight which the hierarchical in- 
gredient in the constitution of the Germanic 
empire still possessed, it was, indeed, no slight 
advantage to have it as an ally. I have no 
documentary evidence to prove that these 
considerations presented themselves to Charles 
Y. ] but they are certainly too obvious to have 
escaped him. We all know that, at a later 
epoch, the dissolution of the spiritual piinci- 
palities was the signal for the overthrow of 
the imperial throne. Something similar might 
have taken place then, however little it might 
be contem.plated. The imperial authority had 
not firm root enough to sustain itself among 
merely temporal powers, even had they not 
been all hereditary ; or if it did sustain itself, 
it could only be by vast and continued efibrts; 
it was infiriilely easier to turn the long-estab- 
lished institutions to account. Zwingli once 
said truly enough, that the empire and the 
papacy were so closely interwoven, that it was 
impossible to make war upon the one without 
attacking the other. 

The result of all these circumstances v.'as, 
that the emperor's policy was totally difierent 
from that vrhich vrould have been agreeable 
to the German nation . He meditated a recon- 
ciliation with the pope ; the e-xaltation of the 
imperial power, but solely on the established 
hierarchical basis ; resistance to the Ottoma.ns, 
but entirely in the usual spirit of Latin Chris- 
tendom : he had no sympathy with the Ger- 
man ideas of church reform, — on the contrary, 
they were utterly distasteful to him, and Vv-e 
shall see that he detemiined to extinguish 
them. 

This is mainly to be ascribed to the fact, 
that he vras not only Emperor of Germany, 
but King of Spain. He- had passed the im- 
portant years of adolescence, in which a man 
enters definitively upon the path which he 
pursues through life, in Spain, and had im- 
bibed the opinions prevalent in that country 
on some essential points. 

Catholicism — which, had it really become a 
lifeless, unmeaning foi-ra, m.ust unquestiona- 
bly have perished in the storms of this cen- 
tury — had deep and living roots in the Roman 
part of Europe, and especially in Spain. 

In Spain, the State, such as it existed in the 
middle ages, — the State, in which the attri- 
butes of the monarchy and the priesthood 
were combined, — was still in full vigour and 
activity. 

The conflict with Islam, which had so ma- 
terially contributed to the development of this 
form of Church and State, was here still going 
on ; the government was constantly employed 
in christianizing the country, and no acts of 
violence tending to that end excited either 
reprobation or remorse. In the year 1524, 
Charles got a dispensation from the oath v.-hich 
bound him to tolerate the Moriscos of the 
crown of Aragon.* The victory of Pavia had 
insphed him wdth redoubled fervour ; he once 

* Pope's Brief of the J2th March, 1524. Llorente, i. 427 



320 



SPANISH CATHOLICISM. 



Book V. 



used the remar]iable expression, that since 
God had dehvered his enemies into his hands, 
he was bound lo convert God's enemies :* and 
he immediately set about this work in Valen- 
cia, where the Christian population was as yet 
in a minority ; the Christian families being 
estimated at 22,000, and the Moorish at 26,000". 
A sort of crusade was set on foot against the 
latter : and at last the Germans, who had fol- 
lowed the emperor into Spain, were forced lo 
march against the Moors of the Sierra Espa- 
dan. Hereupon the mosques were transformed 
into churches, and tithes were collected for 
the benefit of the twofold hierarc^iy. Of all 
the thousands who were baptized, says San- 
doval, there were not six whose inclinations 
were changed ; but woe to him who did not 
prostrate himself at the sight of the host I 
The most rigorous inquisition watched over 
every outward demonstration. 

This might indeed be necessary. Even in 
1528, a man was discovered among the Moors 
of Valencia v^^hom they secretly regarded as 
their king.t His design seems to have been 
to make a rising on the first absence of the 
emperor. He was put to death together with 
his whole tribe. 

The colonisation of America was carried on 
in the same spirit. The great discoverer, on 
his return to Seville, was seen to take part in 
a procession, habited in the dress of a Fran- 
ciscan. Columbus thought himself destined 
lo propagate the Christian faith in the country 
of the Great Khan, which he believed he had 
discovered. He continually expressed his 
hope of being the instrument of procuring to 
the crown the means of re-conquering the 
Holy Sepulchre. t And we may remark in 
all his successors, curiously mingled with the 
desire to be rich, powerful, and glorious, the 
most ardent zeal for the extension of the reli- 
gion of Rorae,§ For the crown, this was a 
sort of necessity, since it deduced all its rights 
from the Fvoman Seej such was the official 
doctrine which it proclaimed to the Indians. 
It transferred the entire form and character of 
the Latin Church, only if possible yet more 
gorgeous and magnificent, to the nevr world. 

It must not, however, be understood that all 
men were imbued with these seQtiments. It 
is a remarkable fact, for example, that Cortez 
did not approve the importation of the com- 
plete hierarchy into America; he would have 
no bishops, only an active lower clergy and 
zealous monks ; and occupied himself in de- 
vising means for dispensing v^^ith episcopal 



* Sandoval, i. 673, who is here generally our authority. 

t "Uno que se dize rey encuhierto, que es nombre de 
baxa suerto,— publican, que eran muchos con el que esta- 
ban deternfjinadosdepassando el einperador de malar a la 
reyna Germana y el duque de Calavria su marido e levan- 
tarse por rey esto dicho rey encubierto. — Han fecho morir 
ata 50 hombres que se dezia ser de su lignage y tienen 
presos mas de ata ciento." Advertimiento de la Corte del 
Emperador. Bib. du Roi, Paris. Bethune's Collection, 
8531, f. 110. 

+ Humboldt, iii. 250. 

§ Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 418, 
quotes, a very remarkable passage from Gonzalo di Ovie- 
do: "Who can doubt that powder against the infidels is 
incense to the Lord ?" 



ordination. li But so strong was the attach- 
ment to the whole mass of established usages, 
that even he, the conqueror and lavi'giver, 
could make no effectual resistance to it, 

Spain was, indeed, not so secluded from the 
rest of Europe, that the innovating spirit and 
tendencies of the current literature had not 
penetrated there. Antonio de Lebrixa, for 
example, deserves to be placed in the same 
class with Erasmus and Reuchlin. He, too, 
devoted his labours to the ^cred writings, and 
pubhshed a work under the title, "A Hundred 
and Fifty Passages of the Holy Scriptures, 
translated in an improved manner. ''T But the 
Dominican Inquisition, which Germany would 
not endure within its bosom, ruled in Spain 
with absolute sway. The grand inquisitor, 
Diego Deza, Bishop of Palencia, robbed the 
learned author of the greater part of his book, 
and did not attempt to conceal that his inten- 
tion in doing so was to restrain him from pub- 
lishing any thing in future on that subject. In- 
deed it is asserted that this bishop would, if 
he could, have extirpated the original language 
of the sacred books. *^ Deza's successor, Xime- 
nes, was, as is well known, far from sharing 
these narrow views ; he felt that depth and 
force of the original which no translation can 
adequately convey, and ordered the text to be 
published in his polyglot. But he estimated 
the received version of the Latin church, the 
vulgate, far beyond its value. He compared 
the Greek an^ Hebrew texts, between which 
the Latin was printed, to the thieves on the 
right hand and the left of the Saviour.tt It is 
an indisputable fact, that he altered the words 
of the Septuagint. and even the Greek text of 
the New Testament, in accordance with the 
vulgate ; and adopted a passage of great im- 
portance as dogmatic evidence, which is found 
in none of the manuscripts, merely in defer- 
ence to that translation. li In short, the slight- 
est deviation from the established system of 
the Latin church would not have been tole- 
rated. It is a very remarkable fact, that at 
the epoch we are treating of, the school philo- 
sophy rose into consideration in Spain just as 
it declined throughout the rest of Europe. In 
the university of Salamanca, Alfonso of Cor- 



li Report of Cortez, 15th October, 1524, by Koppe, p. 487. 

TT Qiiinqnagenre tres locorum sacrce scripturte noa vul- 
gariter enarratorum. 

** " Bonus ille prtBsul in tota quKstione sua nihil magis 
laborabat, quam utduarum linguaiiim, ex qiiibus religio 
nostra pendet, ueque ullum vestigium relinqueretur, per 
quod ad dignoscendam in rebus dubiis certitudinem per- 
venire possemus." (Apologia pro se ipso. Nie. Antonii 
Bibl. Hisp. Nova, i. p. 13S.) 

ft Proloffns ad lectorera. Medium autem inter has (the 
Hebrew arid Greek texts) Latinam beati Hieronymi trans- 
lationem velut inter synagogam et orientalem ecclesiam" 
posuimus: duos hinc et inde latrones, medium autem 
Jesum, h. e. Romauam sive Latinam ecclesiam, coUo- 
cantes. 

XX Semler's Accurate Examination of the bad Execution 
of the Greek New Testament, printed at Alcala, 1766. 
They omitted the Doxology in the 6th Chapter of St. Mat- 
thew, which, though Chrysostom had adopted that reading, 
they maintained had, even in his time, been interpolated 
ex corruptis originalibus (p. 117). The passage in ques- 
tion is, as is well known, St. John i. 5—7. In this they 
adopted the criticism of St. Thomas. Salmeron too says, 
videtur plus fidei tribuendum Latinis codicibus quam 
Gri3ecis. 



Chap. IV. 



SPANISH CATHOLICISM. 



32] 



dova proclaimed the nominalist, and, at the 
same moment, Francisco of Vittoria, the realist, 
doctrines, as something new and for the first 
time to be disseminated in the country; they 
wished to render it unnecessary for Spaniards 
to resort to the schools of Paris. Francisco 
of Vittoria had the greatest following ] he gave 
a new development to the moral philosophy 
of the schools. Bellarmine called him the 
happy father of excellent masters; and, in- 
deed, the most eminent Spanish theologians 
issued from his school.* As another proof of 
the unaltered state of the public mind in Spain, 
we may mention, that a great part of the 
''Romancero general" owed its origin to the 
sixteenth century. The spirit of the ages of 
priestly dominion still bore exclusive sway in 
the polity and hterature of the country. 

^The natural consequence of this state of 
public opinion was. an intense hostility to the 
aberrations, as they were deemed, of the rest 
of the world. Not only were the ordinances 
against Luther's heresy executed with the ut- 
most rigour, but even Erasmus, spite of the 
favour he enjoyed at court, found no mercy 
from monkish pedantry. Diego Lopez Zuniga, 
a man familiar with both languages, made it 
the main object of his life to oppose the inno- 
vations of the witty and learned Dutchman.t 
During the Lent of 1527, certain Dominicans 
formally accused Erasmus — or rather his 
writings, for luckily he was out of their reach 
— of heresy to the inquisition. A tribunal 
was appointed; and although its members 
could not immediately come to any unanimous 
decision, the inquisition thought itself justified 
in prohibiting the '-Colloquies," the '-Praise 
of Folly," and the " Paraphrase of the New 
Testament, "t 

In every country there prevails a moral 
atmosphere, from which there is no escape ; 
and we perceive that it was impossible for 
the young emperor, surrounded by such in- 
fluences as these, to acquire energy and inde- 
pendence of mind. 

The archives at Brussels contain a Spanish 
criticism of Luther and fficolampadius, writ- 
ten in the spirit of the church, and presented 
to the emperor, to fortify him against the in- 
fluences of the new opinions. § In this, the 
full right of the church to impose the punish- 
ment due to a mortal sin is insisted upon ; 
otherwise, it is urged, every man would fol- 
low only his own inclination. The disputed 
articles of faith are then defended in all their 
rigour ; marriage, confirmation, consecration, 
extreme unction, are maintained to be sacra- 

* Nie. Antonii Bibliotheca Hisp. N. I. s. v. Franciscus. 

t He too maintained the superiority of tlie vulgate. 
" Sciendum est," says he of John i. 5—7. " Graecorum codi- 
ces aprertissime esse corruptos, noEtros vero veritatem ipsam 
continere." Nevertheless in this very passage the vuIgate 
is interpolated. See Griesbach, App. 12. 

X Llorente, i. 459. Erasmi Epistola?, 989, 1032. He men- 
tions Pedro di Vittoria especially as his antagonist. 

§ Siguense los errores de Luther y Colampadio su dis- 
cipulo con la determinacion de I'iglesia. The several 
articles were discussed in succession: e. g. Art. 3, as 
above ; Art. 6. Santo es y justo commendarnos a los San- 
tos y adorar sus imagines. 7. La iglesia puede licita- 
mente tener patrimonio y poseer bie'nes temporales. 8. 
Justa pena es por los hereges, que seen quemados. 
41 



ments, instituted by Christ himself. In con- 
clusion, it is proved that the proper punish- 
ment for heretics is burning. 

These opinions did not obtain such a com- 
plete ascendancy over the emperor's mind as 
to lead him to an abject submission to the 
papacy; or to stifle his projects of purifying 
the church from its abuses, and of undertaking 
the work of its reformation himself; but it is 
unquestionable that his residence in Spain 
contributed to confirm him in views of policy 
with which the exclusive domination of the 
Latin church is intimately connected. It 
strengthened his antipathy to the unauthor- 
ised innovations of individual teachers or 
bodies. We shall soon witness the eff"ects of 
these sentiments. 

The very first instructions he gave the im- 
perial ambassadors who were sent to the cap- 
tive pope, contain expressions concerning the 
necessity of extirpating the erring sect of the 
Lutherans. li In consequence of this the pope, 
in the treaty of the 26th of November, 1527, 
promises a council, " whereby the church 
may once more be set right, and the Lutheran 
sect be rooted out." In the spring of 1528, 
the imperial vice-chancellor, provost Wald- 
kirchen, repaired to Germany, with a view to 
revive the Catholic spirit. As he travelled 
from town to town, and from one prince's 
court to another, it was universally believed 
that his intention was to form a league against 
the evangelical party .*iF The exhortations of 
the pope to that effect grev/ more and more 
earnest and vehement. We possess a letter 
of Sanga's, dated October, 1528, in which he 
tells the nuncio at the imperial court, to press 
the emperor in, the most urgent manner to 
devote himself more than heretofore to the 
affairs of religion : already, he said, there 
were people who went further than Luther: 
already they denied the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper and infant baptism : — what 
would posterity say, when it read that, under 
the greatest emperor who had governed it for 
centuries, Germany swarmed with heresies !** 

Of the emperor's antipathy to them there 
could be no doubt. The executions which 
took place in thq Netherlands, where he was 
absolute master, afforded sufficient proof of 
it. Erasmus, who knew him well, was per- 
suaded that he would not think himself em- 
peror, if he did not succeed in suppressing 
Lutheranism.tt 

And at this juncture events occurred which 
rendered it probable that he would acquire 
the power of doing so. 

We saw how warlike and menacing was 
the aspect of things, even so late as the be- 
ginning of the year 1529 ; but the emperor's 
good fortune frustrated the schemes, and 
broke the spirit, of his enemies. 



II Bucholtz, iii. 99. 

TT Stetten, p. 303. Von der Li th, p. 217. 
** Lettere di divevsi, 56. 

tt Erasmi Epp. p. 963. In Hollandia mire fervet carni- 
ficina. This sounds very differently from the remark of 
Le Clay, Correspondance de Maximilien et Blarguerite, ii 
p. 449, in justification of Margaret. 



3'22 



ITALIAN WARS, 1529. 



Book V. 



The Venetians and the French still cherish- 
ed the idea of conquering Milan; in the spring 
of 1529 they marched again from both sides 
on that capital ; they reckoned on the exhaus- 
tion and the discontent of the citizens, and 
the small number of the troops, and were 
resolved on an immediate attack. 

It soon became evident what Milan had lost 
in losing Genoa. By the possession of that 
city, the emperor gained the advantage of 
being less exclusively dependent on German 
auxiliaries than heretofore. He was now en- 
abled to send a few thousand men from Spain 
to Genoa, whence they afterwards pushed on 
to Milan, which the enemy were not sufR- 
ciently masters of the field to prevent. They 
were troops of the very worst appearance, — 
barefoot, half-naked, squalid^ and starved. 
But to the emperor they were invaluable. 
Such as they were, they were most cordially 
received by his commander-in-chief, Antonio 
Leiva. Leiva had hitherto carried on his de- 
^ fence chiefly by the aid of Germans ; in Sep- 
tember, 1528, he numbered 5000 of that na- 
tion, and only 800 Spaniards ]^ it may easily 
be imagined how welcome was this reinforce- 
ment of his own countrymen, whose bravery 
would, he knew, be sharpened by their 
necessities. 

The allies immediately perceived that they 
were not strong enough to make a seiious at- 
tack on the city. They therefore determined 
to surround it at some distance, and to cut off 
its supplies. St. Pol even indulged a hope of 
.making some successful attempt upon Genoa, 
and quitted rjilan with that view. 

But he thus gave his foes an opportunity of 
striking a great blow, such as the Spaniards 
had often struck with success. Leiva's troops 
moved forward in the night, without drums or 
trumpets, and with shirts over their armour : 
he himself, though suffering from the gout, 
would not stay behind; fully armed and ac- 
coutred, even to the waving plume upon his 
■helmet, he caused himself to be carried on a 
litter to the field. Just as the French were 
breaking up their camp near Landriano, — at 
the moment when St. Pol was giving orders to 
pull down a house, the beams of which he 
wanted to force a piece of artillery out of the 
mud,t they were surprised by Leiva, who 
gained a complete victory, and led back St. 
Pol and the chief officers of his army, prison- 
ers to Milan. 

This victory rendered the emperor as com- 
pletely master in Lombardy as he already was 
in Naples. A fresh attack upon his forces 
would have required new and mighty efforts, 
which no one felt able or disposed to make. 

Indeed, such a course was the less to be 
tbought of, since the long-pending negotia- 
tions with the pope were brought to a conclu- 

* Letter from Leiva to the emperor. Sandoval, ii. 19. 

t The morning of the 27th of June: in sul passar dell' 
Ambra. Barchi, 214. According to Leoni the loss was 
caused by St. Pol disregarding the advice of the Duke of 
Urbino, 1o send on the artillery in front and to divide his 
other troops into two columns, the one of which was to 
support the other. Vita di Francesco Maria, 414. 



sion, exactly at the moment of this decisive 
affair in the Milanese territory. 

The proposals made to the pope were, as 
we have remarked, of the most advantageous 
nature, both as regarded German and Italian 
affairs, the supreme direction of which was 
to be in his hands : the emperor promised to 
follow his advice in every respect; to restore 
to him the lands belonging to the church; to 
conclude a general peace with his mediation ; 
and made many other flattering concessions'. 
But we are not to imagine that Clement was 
influenced by these alone. The proximate 
and determining motive was fear. In April, 
1529, he complained to Cardinal Triülzio of 
the eagerness with which he was urged to 
conclude the treaty by the imperial agents: 
he declared that he would never accede to it, 
were he but strong enough to resist ; but, he 
added, he was surrounded on all sides by ad- 
herents of the emperor, and might at any 
moment be exposed to some fresh'disaster,— 
he was still, in fact, no better than a prisoner; 
he saw no difference, except perhaps, that be- 
fore, he could not run away, and that now he 
could certainly do that : in fact, he must either 
escape and abandon the states of the church 
to the enemy, or make the least disadvan- 
tageous temis v.-ith them he could. He ex- 
pressed all this with so much energy, that he 
completely convinced the cardinal. '••! know 
not," says Triulzio, '-what the holy father 
will determine upon. But if he consents to 
sign the treaty, I see that it will be only be- 
cause he is forced, and dragged into it by the 
hair of the head. "I 

I will not take upon myself to maintain 
that this feeling exclusively possessed the pope 
during the whole of these negotiations; — he 
well knew that Cardinal Triulzio, to whom he 
said all this, was a partisan of France : — but 
he was not so thorough a dissembler as to 
feign it altogether, and it is probable that, 
though generally suppressed, it was occasion- 
ally beyond his control. 

He was likewise influenced by considera- 
tions of his own personal interest. His con- 
nexion with the emperor afforded him the 
only prospect of becoming master of his ene- 
mies in his native city of Florence. 

For a time he had entertained the hope of 
attaining to this most cherished wish of his 
heart by peaceful means, and with that view 
he kept up a certain degree of intercourse, 
not direct indeed, but through friends, with 
the Gonfaloniere Caponi. It seemed not im- 
probable that the Medicean and the repubh- 
can parties would severally moderate their 
claims, and come to a peaceable compromise. 

But at this very juncture, a contrary move- 
ment took place in Florence. A violent re- 
publican party, which, in spite of the entire 
change of circumstances, would not give up 
the persuasion that it could maintain itself as 
firmly as formerly, accused the Gonfaloniere 
of these connexions and designs as crimes, 



J Lettera del Cardinale Triulzio a M. Hieronymo, Roma, 
9 Apr. 1529. Bibliotheque du roi, 3IS. Bethune. 



Chap. IV. 



PEACE OF BARCELONA. 



J23 



and effected his deposition (April, 1529); 
though he was afterwards acquitted of all real 
delinquency. From that time all posts were 
exclusively filled by the most violent enemies 
of the Medici; the pope was spoken of with 
hatred and contempt, and a reconciliation with 
him was out of the question. Clement VII. 
fell into a rage whenever he thought of the 
affairs of Florence. Among other Fhings, the 
story of his illegitimate birih was brought up 
again; he was declared to have been. disqua- 
lified from ascending the papal throne, and 
even the title of pope was denied him..* The 
English ambassador found him one day in a 
state of great exasperation. Clement said he 
would rather be chaplain, nay, groom, to the 
emperor, than allow himself to be insulted by 
his own disobedient subjects.! To the feeling 
of the impossibility of throwing off the yoke 
imposed upon him, were united revenge and 
ambition, v.diich he could satisfy in no other 
way than by submitting to it. 

On the 29th of June, a treaty of peace was 
concluded at Barcelona, between the emperor 
and the pope; which was chiefly remarkable 
for the pope's acquiescence in the emperor's 
domination in Italy, against which he had so 
vehemently struggled. He renewed the in- 
feudation for the crown of Naples, and re- 
mitted the tribute which had always been 
paid for it, retaining only the gift of the sump- 
ter horse. He no longer positively insisted on 
the maintenance of the Sforzas in Milan, but 
consented that their guilt or innocence should 
be decided by a regular tribunal: he was 
satisfied with the emperor's declaration that 
he would take no steps as to the new investi- 
ture of the duchy without the pope's consent. 
He granted the imperial troops free passage 
through his territory, from Naples to Tuscany 
or Lombardy. On the other hand, the em- 
peror promised to restore to the see of Rome 
possession of the countries wrested from it by 
Venice and Ferrara (but with express reserva- 
tion of the rights of the empire), and to rein- 
state theMedicean family on the ducal throne 
of Florence.:!: The emperor formed the most 
intimate alliance with that house. He pro- 
mised the hand of his natural daughter to the 
young Alessandro de' JMedici, on whom the 
lordship of Florence was to devolve. For so 
greatly had things altered, that it was now the 
emperor's turn to protect the pope against the 
immediate influence of the Ligue. Now, as 
in the year 1521, the emperor formed an alli- 
ance w'ith a pope of the house of Medici. 
But how vast was the difference ! Leo X. 
might have reasonably entertained a hope of 
becoming master of ^vlilan and Genoa, and of 
conquering Ferrara. Clement VH. was fain 
to content himself with receiving back the 
States of the Church from foreign hands, and 
reconquering his native city by foreign aid. 



* Vaixhi, Storia Fioreutina 208. Jovius, HistoriE, 
27, 45. 

t Casalis in Herbert, 233. 

I Tractatus Confoederationis inter Carolum V. Impe- 

ratorem Roinanoruiu et Ciementuin, VII. Roinaniim 

Poüliücem conclusus. Du Moat, iv. ii. 1. 



To this arrangement af Italian affairs other 
stipulations were appended, though they were 
not all included in the treaty. 

John Zapolya, who had hitherto enjoyed the 
favour of the apostolic see, w^as now aban- 
doned by it, and shortly afterwards visited 
with the most rigorous ecclesiastical censures. § 
In respect of English affairs. Ferdinand's am- 
bassador united his entreaties to those of the 
imperial envoys. The trial had already begun 
there, in virtue of the commission already is- 
sued ; but the pope pledged his word to both 
brothers that no sentence should be pro- 
nounced. They, in return, promised him, in 
the most solemn manner, their assistance in 
matters of religion. In the treaty of Barce- 
lona the emperor declares, that he has it at 
heart to find an antidote to the poisonous in- 
i fection of the new opinions.',! If, hov.-ever, it 
should be found im^possible to bring back the 
, minds of the erring by mild measures ; if they 
j should refuse to hear the voice of the shep- 
j herd, and remain stiff-necked in their errors; 
I '-'then," continues this document, '-both the 
I emperor and the King of Hungary and Bohe- 
mia would set all their forces m motion, and 
avenge the wrong offered to Christ with their 
utmost power." 

Such was the unexpected turn which events 
took. The emperor was chiefly indebted for 
his victory to the sympathy in his cause, pro- 
duced in the German nation by Lutheran 
opinions : it was only by means of the power 
which this gave him that he forced the pope 
to make peace. Yet in the very treaty which 
he concluded with the pope, he promised him 
the extirpation of these very Lutheran opi- 
nions. 

These events, as the pope had foreseen, 
rendered it impossible for Francis I. to avoid 
entertaining serious thoughts of peace, how- 
ever unpalatable they were to him. 

In the negotiations of the year 1527, the 
emperor had no longer demanded the restitu- 
tion of his hereditary dominions so ab.solutely 
as before ; he had shown a disposition to ac- 
cept two millions of scudi as an equivalent. 
But the whole negotiation had been rendered 
abortive by the king's refusal to give up Milan 
and Genoa, or to withdraw his troops out of 
Italy .^ It appeared as if the French regarded 
the re-conquest of Älilan as a point of duty 
and of honour. Chancellor du Prat declared 
that he should never cease to feel the shame 
and dishonour that had fallen upon him by 
the less of that country to the crown of France, 
during his administration ; could he but re- 
cover it for his sovereign, he would be content 
to die the next hour.** 



§ Katona, xx. i. 551. Zapolya's Complaint respecting 
the Bull, from which he saw, " S. Sanctitatem— me et in- 
colas regni per censuras ecclesiasticas devovisse et a 
capite iiostro Jesu Christo, quod in ea erat, resectos de- 
clarasse." 

]! Cum Csesarese Majestati cordi sit, ut huic pestifera 
morbo congruum antidotum praeparari posslt. 

IT Ce qui a ete dit en la communication tenue ä Pa- 
lencia, in du Mont, iv. i. 502. 

** Bellay, 13 Juill. 1Ö29, MS. Maitre de Barre tells him 

that the expressions which had come to the knowledge 

1 of Margaret, and also of the emperor, prevented the 



324 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 



Book V. 



Nevertheless, the necessity of acquiescing 
in this loss had arrived. 

In the first place, a continuance of the war 
no longer offered any prospect of success. 
Even the king's partisans in Italy reminded 
him that it would be impossible to put an 
army into the field before the emperor ap- 
peared in Italy: that Charles's aUiance with 
the pope would make him master in Upper as 
Avell as in Lower Italy ; Florence would not 
be able to resist him ; Venice was herself in 
danger from the defection of Mantua, and 
could think of nothing but her own safety : he 
would have to contend single-handed against 
the emperor, who had the bravest troops in 
the world, and the favour of fortune.* 

The kingdom and the court, it was also 
urged, could no longer suffer the French 
princes to remain captives iii Spain, whence 
occasionally unsatisfactory reports of their 
health arrived. 

Thus, therefore, while preparations for war 
were going on, while hopes of the king's 
ariival in person were held forth to the Ita- 
lians, and an invasion of Germany was pro- 
jected ; the negotiations for peace, which had 
never been definitively broken off, were re- 
sumed with fresh earnestness. 

It was long reported in Rome that the pope 
was to undertake the task of mediation,! and 
that he was to conduct affairs in person at 
some place on the frontiers of France and 
Spain" for example, Perpignan. To this he 
seemed well inclined; even in March, 1529, 
the galleys that were to transport him were 
still pointed out. In the end, however, all 
this was given up, and the matter fell into 
totally different hands. 

At a considerably earlier period M'e find a 
secret emissary of Francis I. in Spain, through 
whom, addressing himself immediately to his 
betrothed bride, Queen Leonora, he expressed 
his wishes that all obstacles to their union 
might be removed as quickly as possible, and 
placed all his affairs with the emperor in her 
hands. The queen was, as maybe imagined, 
delighted at this message ; she declared that 
she had alwa)-« relied on the king's good in- 
tentions, and had therefore overlooked all that 
had passed. As the envoy refused to treat 
with the Grand Chancellor on the ground that 
he was a lover of war, — perhaps because his 
consideration at court was increased by keep- 
ing those eminent men whom war would have 
rendered necessary, at a distance from it, — 
Queen Leonora declaied that the negofeation 



peace. They were these: "pui-qne le roi avoit perdu 
Milan estaiit luv en adminisiration des affaires, il aime- 
roit inieux la morl que de faillir d le luy faire recouvrer: 
cela fait il 6toit content de mourir une heure apres." 

* Ottaviano Sforza al vescovo di Lorii : Molini, ii.2l0. 
Bgl. histruzione di Teodoro Triulzio, Guido Rangoni et 
Joachim a Mess. Mauro da Nova, Venezia, 15 Luglio, in 
Moliiii, ii. 219. "In effecto quest' inipresa de tanta ex- 
trema importantia si deve extiniare, quanta possa essere 
cial'onore al disonore o per megiio dirlo dal vivere al 
niorire de la prima corona, re et re^io di Christianita." 

t Hieronymus Niger to Sadolet, v. Gal. April, 1529. 
*'Q,'iotidie in ore habet (pontifex) divinum consilium 
suum de profectione ad CsEsarem et de pace publica, quo 
quidcm consilio si integris rebus usus fuisset, non labora- 
remus." Sadoleti Epp. lib. via. p. 323. 



was now her business, and that she would 
bring it to a conclusion alone. ^ 

I cannot ascertain precisely the date of this 
mission. Suffice it to observe, that it was an 
attempt to withdraw the negotiations from the 
usual channel, and the regular mode of pro- 
ceeding. 

Duchess Louisa next addressed herself to 
the emperor's aunt, the Governess of the Neth- 
erlands. Her motives were doubtless chiefly 
personal ; for while her grandsons were pri- 
soners, she could not endure the thought of 
the fresh campaign which she saw that her son 
must almost inevitably undertake. She repre- 
sented to Margaret that it more especially de- 
volved on them, the two oldest female rela- 
tives of the contending princes, to endeavour 
to effect a reconcihation between them.§ 
Margaret, too, was of opinion, that the ani- 
mosity between the two monarchs had been 
raised' to such a pitch by long-protracted hos- 
tilities, by the letters and documents that had 
beeuxinterchanged, and by the challenges that 
had been sent, that women alone could suc- 
ceed in bringing about an accomxmodation.il 
The emperor still thought himself bound in 
honour to insist on the execution of the treaty 
of Madrid: he wondered not a little that Mar- 
garet, entirely contrary to her former character 
and habits, listened to the flattering language 
of the duchess.lF It was no easy task for her 
to change his dispositions, and indeed she after- 
wards took credit for its accomplishment. At 
last, on the 8th of April, she received the 
fullest authority to negotiate that it was pos- 
sible to imagine.** Charles V. promised, on 
the word of an emperor, on his honour, and 
under pain of forfeiting his private domains, 
to ratify any terms which she might con- 
clude. It was easier for Francis I. to grant 
full powers. Among the reasons why it was 
expedient that not the king, but his mother, 
should conduct the negotiations, one of the 
principal was, that she had not, like him, per- 
sonally contracted engagements with the Ita- 
lian powers, Milan, Florence, or Venice. 

On the 5th July the two ladies entered Cam- 
bray from opposite sides, and took up their 
abode in two houses connected by a covered 
way, so that they could see and speak to one 
another without being observed. 



X D6chiffrenient d'une depesche 6crite d'Espagne, Bibi. 
du R. MS. Bethune, 854^3, f. 182, without date, place or 
signature. Perhaps of the year 1527, at all events, of the 
time during which the French princes were in prison. 
"Elle me demanda, si vous vouliez mettre en sa main 
I'affaire d'entre vous et I'empereur ; je luy ai dit que pour 
cet effet m'aviez depesche vers eile.— Elle m'a dit, que la 
fiance qu'elle avoit toujours eu en votre bonne voulonte 
envers eile, I'avoit tenue en bonne esperance et lui avoit 
fait porter patiemment tout ce qui avoit passö. Qu'elle 
vouloit niener cette affaire et que autre ne se meslat 
qu'elle, et c'estoit son propre fait." 

§ Teneur du pouvoir, donnö ä rarchiduchesse. DM. iv. 
2, 15. 

11 Her own expressions— Hormayr, Archiv. 1810, p. 108. 

TI Charles V. to the Sieur de Montfort, 16 JWars. Pap. 
d'etat de Granvelle, i. 450. Search ought to be made for 
Margaret's letter which brought the matter to a conclu- 
sion, and which must have been written about this time. 

** As "Procuratrix gönöralle et especialle avec plain 
pouvoir auctoritö et ma'ndcment especiall pour et en nora 
de nous pour parier — et finallement traiter et conclure 
bonne ferme secure paix amitie ligue et coufederatioia." 



CffiP. IV. 



PEACE OF CAMBRAY. 



525 



The negotiations could not be very difficult, 
since the preliminaries must have been agreed 
on before they were opejied. France now 
actually engaged to pay the two millions de- 
manded ; to abandon all her claims and con- 
nexions in Italy ; and lastly, to renounce her 
suzerainty over Flanders and Artois. On the 
other hand, Charles V. gave up some compa- 
ratively imimportant claims; e. g. to Peronne 
and Boulogne ; and, for the present, relin- 
quished his scheme of conquering Burgundy.* 
The principJe which then prevailed through- 
out Europe — that of severing states, and mak- 
ing them independent of each other — was 
observable in this treaty of peace. Whilst 
France gave up its foreign enterprises, its in- 
ternal affairs remained untouched. Burgundy 
and Valois at length, after so many bloody 
wars, separated. Burgundy had not indeed 
reaUsed all its pretensions, but it had gained 
immense advantages. It had succeeded in 
cn-cumscribing the house of its rival within 
the limits of France. 

But it w^as not to be imagined that every 
thing was thus concluded. Francis I. pro- 
tested against the treaty of Cambray, as he 
had done against that of Madrid. He per- 
sisted in affirming that Asti and Milan were 
his inalienable inheritance, and that of his 
children; that Genoa belonged to him; that 
it was impossible for a treaty wrung from him 
first by his own captivity, and then by that 
of his children, to be binding upon him.t 
When the verification of it was laid before 
-the parliament, the procureur-general, Maitre 
Fran9ois Rogier, solemnly protested against 
it, on the ground that it had been brought 
about by the violence done to a feudal lord 
by his vassal, and was therefore contrary to 
the fundamental laws of the empire. t But 
these protests were only the utterance of the 
feeling that France yielded to force, — and 
very reluctantly; they were an act of reser- 
vation for the future, wholly insignificant for 
the present; and therefore attracting no at- 
tention. 

At first every one rejoiced that peace was 
actually concluded. On all the points but 
those in which an express alteration had 
been agreed on — and these were but four — 
the treaty of Madrid was confirmed; they 
were now both proclaimed together, and en- 
tered in the state register. The letter in 
which Duchess Louisa announces the conclu- 
sion of the treaty to her son is very charac- 
teristic ; the safety of his person, she tells 
him, resulting from the peace which God had 



* The Emperor, however, remarks in his counter report 
of 1536, that he " ursach und gevvalt gehabt hätte, noch 
grössers und mehrers von ihm (dem Konig) zu begeren 
und abzunehmen, dieweil ich damals zu Avasser uiid zu 
land sighaft von Gott und mit treffenlicher rüstung gefasst 
und— vil sterker denn er gewesen bin." " . . . . had at 
that time cause and power to demand and to take greater 
and more things from him (the king), since I was then by 
God's grace victorious by land and water, and prepared 
v/ith excellent armaments, and much stronger than he." 

t Protestation du Roy Francois contre les Traitös de 
Madrid et de Cambray. Tlie title of the document printed 
ia Du Mont, in Dupuy's collection, 179. 

I Protestation du Procureur-General. Du M. iv. ii. 52, 
nr. 39. 

2c 



granted them, is dearer to her than her own 
life ;§ the personal danger into which he was 
a^out to rush, was the chief motive for her 
efforts. The Netherlanders were very proud 
that such an act had emanated from their 
regent ; the French delegate was asked at a 
dinner, whether people had imagined that 
lady capable of such a v/ork, and whether the 
French were satisfied with it 1 The French- 
man replied, '4hat a part of the merit w^as 
due to his king ; that on the mere worjd of the 
archduchess he had discharged 15,000 lands- 
knechts, with whom he could have struck 
some decisive blow.''i| The pope was more 
delighted than anybody; he found no words 
strong enough to express his sense of the ser- 
vice which Duchess Louisa had rendered to 
Europe. It was a peculiar satisfaction to him 
that the treaty contained no stipulations in 
favour of the members of the Ligue, of whom 
he had to complain. In spite of all its pro- 
visions, he had no belief in any long con- 
tinuance of the emperor's ascendancy. The 
protests of the French are quite in accordance 
with Clement's intimations, that as soon as the 
king had his sons back again, and not till then, ^ 
remedies would be found for all the other 
evils. IF 

Nor was this the only cause of the pope's 
satisfaction. In the course of the negotia- 
tions, as well as in the treaty itself, the king 
showed himself no less an enemy of the re- 
ligious innovations than the emperor. In the 
full powers granted by Francis, he alleges as 
one of the grounds of his desire for peace, his 
earnest wish to suppress the heresies which 
had arisen in Christendom ; '• that the Church 
might be honoured as the salvation of souls 
required."** In the 43d article of the treaty 
of peace, it was said, that the emperor and 
the king were determined to manitain the 
holy see in all its dignity and consideration, 
as beseemed their imperial and royal station 
and power. Among the articles of the treaty 
of Madrid that were confirmed, was the one 
in which the king promised the emperor his 
aid against the heretics, no less than against 
the Turks. So entire a change being thus 
effected in the relations of the great powers, 
the most important question now was, What 
would be the course pursued by the King of 
England, whose projects of divorce had, by a 
sort of reaction, so largely contributed to the 
chancre ? 



§ Lettre de Madame au Roi apres le Iraite de Cambray. 
Bethune, 8471. Copie. " La seurete, Monseigneur, en la 
quelle je cognois votre personne par la paix, que j'estinie 
plus que ma propre vie." 

II De la Pommeraye au connetable, 17 Sept. 1529 Beth. 
8610. 

TT Lettre de Raince, 12 Aout, 1539. " Surtout ne pour- 
roit etre plus content qu'il est de ce qu'il entend qu'on a 
eu memoire de luv, et semble qu'il ayt quelque advis que 
aucunsdes confederes soient aucunenient (in some degree) 
demeures en derriere ; que luy conörme la satisfaction en 
quoi il est autant ou plus que nulle autre cliose et fait 
bien compte, s'ils vouloient aller le chemin qui sera re- 
quis, que delivres et retournes en France Messieurs que ä 
tout se aura bon remede." 

** "Pour extirper les heresies qui pullulent en la 
Chrestiente et que l'eglise soit reveree et honoree ain.si 
qu'il appartient pour le salut de nos ames." Du M. ii. 
iv. p. 16. 



326 



DIVORCE OF HENRY VIII. 



Book V. 



Wolsej^'s hope of carrying through these 
projects had been founded on political combi- 
nalions which now no longer existed. He 
thought himself justified in the largest antici- 
pations from the influence of the French court 
on the see of Rome, and on the gratitude of 
the latter towards England. 

As to the pope, his real opinion was, that 
the king would do better to take another wife, 
without any further agitation of the question, 
and then to call in the Apostohc See as judge.* 
This, however, the respect for the letter of 
the laws, which, even in that age, distin- 
guished England, did not permit. The king 
wished to have the legitimacy of the possible 
issue of a second marriage fully established : 
he chose that the power which had bound, 
should also loose him from his ties. Wolsey 
hoped that the successes of the Ligue would 
lead the pope to consent to this. He repeat- 
edly urged Francis to do as much for the 
dissolution of the marriage, as the King of 
England had done for the restitution of the 
children of France ; adding, that he had only 
to declare to the pope that he thought the 
cause of the King of England just, and that 
if Rome refused Henry's petition, he should 
regard it as an offence done to himself, and 
should never forget it. Francis well knew 
the importance to himself of Wolsey's con- 
tinuance in power ; and Wolsey reminded him 
that he should be ruined if "this afl^air were 
not brought to a successful issue, after the 
positive assurances he had given the king.t 
And; in fact, the pope himself wished that 
the joint importunities of England and France 
had been such as would have enabled him to 
excuse himself to the emperor, on the ground 
of a sort of moral compulsion. t But it does 
not appear that the French thought it expe- 
dient to go so far. They had not yet aban- 
doned the idea of a marriage betw^een the 
Princess Mary, the presumptive heiress to the 
throne of England, and one of their princes. § 

As Henry would not proceed in the affair 
Vvüthout the pope, and as no measures seemed 
likely to be taken for extorting Clement's con- 
sent, he was obhged to resort to diplomatic 
negotiations, the progress and result of which 
vrere, from their very nature, dependent on 
contingencies. 

The English delegates who, in March and 



* Casalis, 13 Jan. Fiddes, p. 461. "Quia nullus doctor 
in mundo est, qui de hac re melius decernere possit quam 
ipse rex ; itaque si in hoc se resolverint, ut pontifex credit, 
statini committat causam (in England), aliam uxorem 
ducat, litem sequatur, mittat pro legato." 

tBellay ä Montmorency, 22 Mai, 1528: "en la quelle 
(raffaire du divorce) s'il ne s'employoit tant et si avant, 
qu'il voudroit faire pour le recouvrement des Messrs. les 
enfans, il pourroit etre seur d'avoir cause ä mon d. Sr le 
legat une totale ruine, pour les grandes asseurances qu'il 
en a toujours baillö ä son dit maistre." 

+ D. Knight. Herbert, 218. The pope thinketh he might 
by good colour say to the emperor, that he was required 
by the English ainbassadeurs et Mr. de Lautrech to pro- 
ceed in the business. 

§ Bellay mentions this motive in a despatch of the 8th 
2iov. He, for hia own part, scruples to concede the point 
of the nullity of Catharine's marriage, because of the use 
that might be made of that concession, " ou le mariage de 
M. d'Orleans tireroit. Aucuns de deca disent, que, quoique 
on fasse, qui espousera la princesse sera apres roi d'An- 
gleterre." 



April, 1528, remained with the pope, did not 
deceive themselves. " The difficulties and 
delays which we encounter in this affair, 
arise," say they, "mainly from fear; we find 
every one as well disposed as possible to for- 
ward the matter, but people are afraid that 
any unusual favour granted to the king may 
lead to a new captivity, provided the emperor 
retains his power." il The ambassadors again 
made an attempt to combat fear by fear. They 
one day represented to the pope that he would 
lose the only prince who was really attached 
to him ; '■' not only the King of England, but 
the Defender of the Faith," as Wolsey once 
expressed himself. Then would the papacy, 
already nodding to its fall, be completely over- 
thrown, to the joy of all men. The pope was 
not insensible to this danger; he walked up 
and down the room in their presence, making 
violent gesticulations, and it was some time 
before his excitement was calmed.! He did, 
in fact, make some advances to the English 
in consequence; naming Cardinal Campeggi 
(who was on the best footing with Henry VIII., 
and whose appointment was proposed by the 
ambassadors) legate to England, and granting 
him authority to declare the papal dispensa- 
tion on which Henry VIII. 's marriage was 
founded, operative or the contrary, and the 
marriage itself valid or invalid, according to 
his own judgment. This he did in the begin- 
ning of June, 1528, while the affairs of the 
French before Naples were in the most pro- 
mising state.** The ambassadors had also 
promised him to induce the Venetians to re- 
store his cities. ft 

Shortly after followed the defeat of Lautrec 
before Naples; we have seen what a com- 
plete revolution the papal policy instantly un- 
derwent in favour of the emperor, and this 
now necessarily' extended to the English affair, 
in which Charles took so deep an interest. 

On the 2d of September, Campeggi was re- 
minded that, however strongly his Holiness 
might feel himself bound to the King of Eng-^ 
land, he must also show all possible considera- 
tion for the victorious emperor, and not furnish 
him with fresh occasion for a rupture, which 
would not only be an obstacle to peace, but 
would bring utter ruin on the States of the 
Church.lt 

In October, 1528, Campeggi came to Eng- 
land, However strong were the expressions' 
which he used with regard to the emperor, it 



II Gardiner and Fox Orviet, the last day of March, in 
Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. v. p. 402, that if 
there were any thing doon novum et gratiosum agaynst 
the emperors purpose, it should be materia novae captivi- 
tatis. 

ir The same Monday in Easter week, ibid. 423. The 
pope also gave the French ambassador hopes "qu'entre 
cy et demain prendra quelque bonne forme de conclusion, 
qui pourra satisfaire au roy d'Angleterre." Raince; Le 
Grand, iii. p. 190. 

** Commission Viterbii, VL Jun. (8th June), printed in 
Herbert, p. 233. 

tt This is evident from Casalis's letter in Burnet's His- 
tory of the Reformation, Records ii. nr. 17. The pope 
says to the ambassador, Vos scire volo, promissum mihi 
fuisse, si legatus hie in Angliam mitteretur, futurum ut 
mihi civitates a Venetis restituerentur. 

tl Sanga to Campeggi. Viterbo, 2d Sept. 1528. His- 
tory of the Popes, i. 126. 



Chap. IV. 



FALL OF V/OLSEY. 



327 



was very soon evident that lie had no inten- 
tion of offering any serious resistance to him. 
He admonished both the king and Wolsey to 
desist from their project. He utterly refused 
to produce the bull by which Wolsey hoped 
to prove to the Privy Council the pope's fa- 
vourable intentions towards the king: proba- 
bly he burned it.* He affected at every step 
to have recourse to Rome for instructions. He 
rejected with the utmost vehemence the pre- 
valent notion thatj as a marriage w^ith a bro- 
ther's widow was forbidden in the Old Testa- 
ment, this was a case in which the pope had 
no dispensing power. It only remained, there- 
fore, to prove that the dispensation in question 
was not based on tenable grounds. Here too, 
however, insurmountable difficulties presented 
themselves, as the queen, on whose testimony 
the whole matter depended, constantly af- 
firmed that the marriage whh Prince Arthur 
had not been consummated. She was a wo- 
man of so noble and dignified a character, 
that she was universally believed. She also 
availed herself of her legal right of protesting 
agamst her two judges, on the ground of par- 
tiality.! 

During these delays, however, the pope be- 
came (especially after the affair of Florence) 
more and more intimately allied with the em- 
peror, who declared that he regarded the in- 
terests of his aunt as his own. In May. 1529, 
the English envoy expressed his fears that the 
commission of the two cardinals would be 
formally recalled. j 

This was probably the motive which led the 
king to open the proceedings without further 
delay. 

On the 31st of March, 1529, they com- 
menced ; but on the 29th, instructions had 
already been sent to Campeggi from Rome, to 
protract them as much as possible, and by no 
means to suffer judgment to be pronounced. § 
These orders he punctually obeyed. The 
affair had not got beyond prehminaries and 
matters of form, when, on the 28th July, Cam- 
peggi adjourned the sittings to the 1st of Oc- 
tober. He also claimed the holidays of the 
Roman rota for himself. 

After concluding his treaty of peace with 
the emperor, Clement was still in time to 
evoke the suit from England to the tribunals 
of the curia. 

On the 9th of July the pope declared to the 
English envoys, tnat he shared the opinion 
common to all the Roman lawyers, that this 
evocation could no longer be refused. The 



* Pallaviciui denies (lib. ii. c. xv.) the existence of this 
bull which Guicciardini affirmed. But it is only neces- 
.sary to read the above-mentioned report by Casalis on 
his negotiations with the pope in Dec. 1528, in order to 
dispel all doubt. S. D. N. injecta in meum brachium 
manu— dixit — bullam decretalem dedisse, ut tantum regi 
ostenderetur coiicremareturque. Burnet, Records, ii, 17, 
p. 42. What this bull contained we cannot of course 
make out, as nobody saw it but the king and Campeggi. 
I am not disjiosed to believe Guicciardini's assertion. 

t Bellay, 17th Nov. 1528. 

t Gardiner, 4th May, which was confirmed by divers 
other letters from our agents. Herbert, p. 232. 

§ Sanga al 01. Campeggio, 29 Maggio, 1529. Sua Beati- 
tudine ricorda, che il procedere sia lento et in modo alcu- 
no non si venghi al giudicio. Lettere de' principi, ii. 



ambassadors used every possible means of 
dissuading him from it; but he replied that 
he was hemmed round by the power of the 
emperor, who could not only force him to do 
justice, but in whose hands he himself was. 
" I see," said lie, " the consequences as clearly 
as you do ] but I am between the hammer and 
the aavil. U I oblige the king, I draw down 
the most destructive storm on myself and on 
the church. "II 

On the 18th of July peace was proclaimed 
in Rome between the pope and the emperor. 
On the 19th, the pope sent word to Cardinal 
Wolsey that, to his great regret, he found him- 
self compelled to evoke the cause from Eng- 
land to the curia. 

Wolsey had always assured his sovereign 
that he should be able to carry through the 
affair to which, as affecting him personally, 
Henry attached the greatest importance. The 
king now saw himself cited to appear in person 
in Rome, and w^hat particularly irritated him, 
under an express pecuniary penalty. IT He 
thought this so offensive to his dignity, that he 
did not choose to let his subjects know it. 

Wolsey had also assured him that France 
would never desert him. Even in May, 1529, 
he would not believe this possible ; he caught 
with eagerness at every rumour of a new rup- 
ture between that country and the empire, 
and founded fresh plans upon it. But what 
he refused to believe came to pass. 

Nothing remained for King Henry but to ac- 
cede to the peace. His participation in the 
war had of late been so slight, that the peace 
which he concluded seemed but a supplement 
to that of France; it has hardly a place in 
English history. It was enough for the king 
that France undertook to pay the money 
which he claimed from the emperor, out of the 
above-mentioned two milhons.** 

But no one acquainted with the character 
of Henry, could for a moment expect that he 
would desist from his great project, the di- 
vorce. The desire of having a legitimate heir 
and successor by Anne Boleyn, was become 
his ruling passion. Indeed the affair now as- 
sumed a far more important character than 
heretofore. 

Above all, the downfall of Wolsey was be- 
come inevitable. Already had his anti- Aus- 
trian measures experienced opposition, not 
only in the Privy Council, but in the nation. 
Any war with the Netherlands \vas unpopular 
in England; the Enghsh merchants, discon- 
tented at the breach of the peace, had been 
at one time brought only by a sort of compul- 
sion to resort to the markets as theretofore. 
The king had been mainly persuaded into this 
policy by Wolsey's assurances that the alli- 
ance would be productive of immediate pecu- 



II Burnet, from the ambassadors' despatches, p. 76. 

"^ " The K. Highness supposeth — that it should not be 
nedeful any such letters citatorial,conteyning matier pre- 
judicial to his persone and royal estate to be showed to 
his subjects." — Gardiner to Wolsey, 4 Aug. State Papers, 
i. p. 336. 

** See Commissio ad tractandum de jocalibus recipien- 
dis. Rymer, vi. ii. 19. " Cum oratoribus," says Francis 
I., "Anglice regis, pro omnibus obligationibus absque pig- 
nore coiiiractis convenimus." 



828 



PROJECTS OF THE EMPEROR. 



Book V. 



niary advantage to himself. The cardinal 
often represented to the French ambassadors 
what arts, ''what terrible alchemy," as he 
expressed it, were necessary to enable him to 
withstand his enemies.* But all his resources 
were now exhausted. His foreign policy, 
which had been calculated on a union between 
England, France, and Rome, had completely 
failed. Despairing of being able to carry 
through the projects which he had so zea- 
lously encouraged, it is unquestionable that 
he at length advised the king to desist from 
them. But he thus lost, as might be expected, 
the king's grace and favour; he irritated a 
considerable party, which Anne Boleyn had 
won over, and particularly her father, who had 
been created Marquis of Rochfort : old ene- 
mies and new rose up against him; and just 
then Suffolk, who during his stay in France 
had shown himself little disposed to favour 
the cardinal's schemes, returned, and now 
openly quarrelled with him.t Norfolk had 
never been his friend. 

Thus fell Wolsey. In November, 1529, he 
was deprived of the Great Seal ; in December 
he was found guilty of having infringed the 
privileges of the kingdom, by an undue exer- 
cise of his power as legate. Neither the re- 
turning support of the French, nor (to use 
Norfolk's words) "the counsels of his star- 
gazers," could save him. 

A still more important point, however, was, 
that these affairs became the subject of an 
angry controversy between the king and the 
pope. The declaration of the foraier, — that 
he would marry Anne Boleyn. if the pope 
allowed it, and if the pope did not allow it, 
he would still marry her. — sounds like a 
jest;| but it was the prelude to an event 
which changed the history of England. Wol- 
sey is reported to have urged the pope to ex- 
communicate the King of England, because, 
in that case, the people would revolt against 
him.§ Whether this be well-founded or not, 
the bare rumour was sufficient to determine 
the king to put an end at once to the possi- 
bility of such an interference with the internal 
affairs of his kingdom. 

To return to the emperor. It was doubtless 
advantageous to him that he w^as for the pre- 
sent delivered from the hostility of England, 
and had his hands free in that direction ; yet 
he soon expressed a doubt whether he should 
not be compelled, by the honour of his house, 
to draw his sword again in the cause of his 
aunt, Henry's repudiated wife. 

His letters show that he by no means calcu- 
lated on the stability of peace, when, in the 



* Bellay, 16th Feb. 1528, in Le Grand, Hist, du Divorce, 
iii. p. 84. 

t According to a letter of Bellay's of the 29th May, the 
king was persuaded by the cardinal " qu'il n'a tant avancö 
le mariage qu'il eust fait, s'il eust voulu." Le Grand, 
p. 313. 

X From a letter of the emperor to Ferdinand, 10th Jan. 
1530. 

§See the extracts from a letter from Chapuis to Charles 
in Hormayr's Archiv. 1810, p. 131. The Joncquim there 
alluded to is no other than the Genoese, John Joachim, 
who is elsewhere so frequently mentioned. 



summer of 1529, he made serious preparations 
for going to Italy, 

This design he had long seriously enter- 
tained. He seemed suddenly conscious that 
the years of youth were past for him ; he felt 
himself a man. and wished to take a personal 
share in the great concerns which had hitherto 
been carried on in his name; ''to show the 
world," as one of his confidential friends said, 
"his true self, his mind and heart, which 
hitherto had been known to them alone. "II 
He w^as animated by a completely personal 
and chivalrous ambition. He hoped either 
immediately to bring about a peace in Italy, 
or to give such an impulse to the war as w^ould 
lead to its successful termination ; then to re- 
ceive the« imperial crown, and to repair to 
Germany, whither, as he said, he was called 
by his anxiety lest the greater part of the 
country should secede from the church of 
Rome, or be overrun and conquered by the 
Turks-IT In reply to a message from his bro- 
ther, respecting an impending invasion of the 
Turks, he sent him word that he would not 
only assist him, but, if possible, take the field 
himself. 

Had- not this desire been so strong within 
him, he would not so easily have entered upon 
a negotiation, in which he ceded to Portugal 
the claims of the crown of Castile to the Mo- 
luccas, for the sum of 350.000 florins. The 
Spaniards were not very well satisfied at this, 
but the emperor wanted to be rid of these dis- 
puted questions, which had already led to san- 
guinary quarrels in the East ■** and, above all^ 
he was in want of money. He was well con- 
tent that the Portuguese found means to pay 
him by rapid instalments. 

He now turned a deaf ear to all opposition. 
He said he could not be satisfied with him- 
self till he had taken this journey. 

On the 27ih of July, 1529, the emperor took 
ship at Barcelona, and on the 12th of August, 
landed at Genoa. ft 

In all the plenitude of a power, not (like 
that of the emperors of old) composed of Ger- 
man elements alone, but formed of a wonder- 
ful combination of the south and the north, 
Charles now appeared on the Italian frontiers 
of the ancient empire. In his retinue we find 
all the glorious names of Castilian history ; 
Mendoza, Guzman, Pacheco, Manrique, Zu- 
niga, Toledo, Cueva, Rojas, Ponce de Leon; 
every great house had sent a representative, 
and the most brilliant among them all was 
Alvarez Ossorio, Marquis of Astorga. They 
were joined by Navarrese, Catalans, and Ara- 
gonese. He also brought fresh troops from 



II Philibert of Orange's Instructions to Balanca, Pap. 
d'etat, de Granv. i. 434: Apres avoir veu le taiit grand 
desir quy (I'empereur) montre, de se trouver en quelque 
lieu pourdonner a cognoistre a tout le monde ce que 
preca nous aultres ses serviteurs avons cogneu, qu'est 
d'avoir le cceur tel quil a. 

IT Sandoval, ii. p. 25. 

** Herrera Historia de las Indias, Dec. iv. lib. v. p. 117. 

ft L'enipereur au Sieur de Montfort. Pap. d'etat, i. p. 
415. When difficulties occurred, he said, " que je n'estois 
en fasson du monde delibere de lasser de faire ce voyage, 
et que je ne me pouvois satisfayre de moi-raesme si je ne 
le faisois." 



Chap. V. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE EMPIRE, 1528, 1529. 



329 



Malaga to reinforce those in Milan and Na- 
ples. The imperial power, personified in the 
emperor, acquired a romantic and highly Ca- 
tholic character, from the new elements com- 
bined with it. It was only necessary to look 
at this court, in order confidently to predict its 
intentions. 

Let us next observe how, meanwhile, mat- 
ters had gone on in Germany. 



CHAPTER V. 

DIET OF SPIRES, A. D. 1529. 

We have seen how great was the influence 
of political affairs on the rise and progress of 
religious reform. Had it not been for the 
divisions existing between ^ the two highest 
powers of Europe, the decisive resolutions of 
the diet of 1526 would never have passed. 

Since that time, however, no further pro- 
ceedings of practical importance had taken 
place in the empire. 

The mission to the emperor, which was then 
resolved on, was withheld under frivolous pre- 
tences. The Saxon party confidently main- 
tained that this was solely the efl^'ect of the 
secret intrigues of the spiritual estates, who 
seemed to fear that the growing differences 
between the emperor and the pope might lead 
the former to decide in a manner disadvan- 
tageous to them. 

A congress of the princes of the empire held 
at Esslingen, in December, 1526, had no other 
object than the defence of the country against 
the Ottomans; the resolutions which it passed 
were neither important in themselves, nor 
productive of the slightest results. 

In May, 1527, a diet was convoked at Re- 
gensburg; but it was so ill attended that those 
present did not even consider themselves 
authorised to deliberate upon matters which 
had been expressly referred to them; e. g. the 
affair of the deputation to the emperor above- 
mentioned. They passed a resolution ''to un- 
dertake no business w^hatever."* 

In March, 1528, a new diet was appointed 
to be held at Regensburg ; but the pope's ad- 
herents were still not without apprehensions 
as to the probable decisions of the assembled 
states; affairs in general were indeed still too 
uncertain to enable them to form any settled 
opinions themselves. In the first place. King 
Ferdinand postponed the opening of the meet- 
ing from March till May ;t then, an edict of 
the emperor's appeared, which peremptorily 
forbade it, without assigning any satisfactory 
reasons; only, to quote the words of the edict, 
from "notable grounds and causes. "J We 



* I remark that the extract from this recess in Häberlin 
(xi. 46) does not precisely correspond with the original 
(Reichsabschiede, ii. 185). 

t Neudecker Actenstiicke, i. 26. 

% Proclamation in the Frankfurt Acts of the 10th April, 
which, however, reached Germany in time. 

42 2c* 



find from records of the papal court, that "no 
good conclusion" was anticipated there. § 

But the more weighty matters of foreign 
policy were now decided, and a complete 
change in the internal affairs of Germany was 
inevitable. 

The emperor's sentiments were learned, 
from a distance indeed, but quite unequivo- 
cally. We have already alluded to the pro- 
ceedings of his vice-chancellor, Waldkirch. 
He declared to the people of Augsburg, in the 
plainest manner, that the emperor was dis- 
pleased with them because they had introduced 
changes in religion. In Strasburg he threat- 
ened the nobles who sat in the council with. 
loss of life, if they did not oppose the abolition 
of the mass. II The impression he made, and 
the hopes excited by the renewed connexion 
with the imperial court, may be inferred from 
this, among other circumstances ; — the chap- 
ter of Constance, which shortly before had 
been compelled, to yield to the force of the 
new opinions, and to emigrate to Ueberlingen, 
now chose him, the vice-chancellor, as coad- 
jutor. 

The peace concluded by the emperor with 
the pope was of immense advantage to the 
bishops, as it not only reconciled, but united, 
the two supreme powers. The clergy could 
now once more reckon on strenuous and effi- 
cient support. 

This w^as the more welcome at a moment 
when they all felt the dangers by which they 
were threatened by the progress of refonn in 
Switzerland. We discover from numerous 
publications expressive of their opinions, what 
anxiety Zwingli's departure from the estab- 
lished doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper 
excited in all quarters; it was feared that the 
Oberland cities, infected with the new heresy, 
would separate themselves from the empire. 1 

Nor can w^e deny that the violent courses 
into which the landgrave had suffered him- 
self to be led by Pack's forgeries, had exer- 
cised a very unfavourable influence on the 
cause of the reformation. They had con- 
firmed the Swabian league in its anti-evan- 
gelical system; and it now excluded the 
Memmingen delegates from its council, be--- 
cause Memmingen had abolished the service 
of the mass, and embraced Zwingli's opinions. 

In his brief of October, 1528, to M-hich we 
have alluded, the pope had solemnly called 
upon the emperor to take up the cause of re- 
ligion at the approaching diet with greater 
earnestness than heretofore : immediate care 
must, he said, be taken that at least the evil 
be not suffered to spread. One effect of this 
was that, on the last day of November, the 
convocation of a new diet, to be holden at 
Spires on the 21st of February, 1529, was 
issued. The States were apprised that no 



§ Sanga a Castiglione, Lettre di diversi autori, p. 56. 
Prudentemente penso, poter facilmente essere che ne suc- 
cedesse qualche non buona de.terminatione. 

II Röhrich Gesch. der Reform im Elsass, I. 360. 

tr Es weisst der gmein Man nitt glich, ob er sy Schwytz 
oder ghör zum Rych, iPhe common people do not rightly 
know whether they are Swiss, or belong to the empire. 
(Lied gegen Constauz, bei Vierordt, p. 34.) 



830 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE EMPIRE, 1528, 1529. 



Book V. 



those who were present would proceed to 
busmess in the same manner as if the assem- 
bly were complete.* The subjects specially 
announced for deliberation were, the arma- 
ment against the Turks, the violations of the 
public peace, and, above all, the rehgious 
innovations. 

This time the announcement of a diet was 
serious and sincere; the imperial commission- 
ers made their appearance at the time ap- 
pointed ; the ecclesiastical princes came in 
greater number than usual, and those w^ho 
did not come, sent the most zealous of their 
•mmisters in their stead. t The Bishop of Con- 
stance, for example, was represented by the 
same Faber, who. as we saw, took an active 
part in the political and religious troubles of 
Switzerland. He had seen Erasmus on his 
way, and expressed himself in such terms, 
that the latter expected nothing but war and 
violence.! The Catholic principle had also 
gained new adherents among the secular 
princes. D'oke Henry of Mecklenburg, who 
had hitherto been reckoned among the evan- 
gelical party, now entirely concurred with his 
son Magnus, Bishop of Schwerin, — one of the 
most violent opponents of change. The Elec- 
tor Palatine, who had almost formally joined 
the reformers, forbade his people to attend 

» the preachings. It was thought that he had 
been persuaded to take this course by his 
brother, the Count Palatine Frederic, who had 
once more conceived hopes of obtaining the 
hand of an Austrian princess. ^'The Palati- 
nate,'' says a letter from Spires, "will have 
nothing more to do with Saxony." 

Under these circumstances, surrounded by 
opinions favourable to their wishes, the impe- 
rial commissioners were enabled to bring tor- 
ward measures of a decisive nature, in the 
Proposition§ which they delivered on the 
15th of March. 

While, in consequence of the pope's con- 
sent, they announced a council with greater 
certainty than before, and at the same time 
touched upon the old question — how affairs 
were to be carried on in the interval — they 

^proposed formally to revoke the article of the 
recessll of 1526, in virtue of which all existing 
innovations were recognised and admitted ; on 
the ground, that it gave occasion to '' much ill 
council and misunderstanding ;"1 and to sub- 



* The printed copy of the extract names the first, the 
MS. copy, the twenty-first. "And if you do not appear 
within ten days after the day appointed, our envoys and 
coniinissaries will, notwithstanding, discuss and deter- 
mine affairs with the States then and there present, in all 
respects as if you and others who absented yourselves on 
slight and frivolous grounds, liad been present. All which 
we shall attend to and execute with firmness and vigour, 
in the same manner as if all the States, whether present 
or absent, had agreed to them." 

t " I. am afraid," writes Jacob Sturm to Peter Bütz in 
the middle of March, " from what I see of the persons 
here, there will not be much to be obtained."—" In sum- 
ma, Christus est denuo in manibus Caiaphae et Pilati." 
Jung, Gesch. des Reichstags zu Speier, Beil. nr. 4. 

I Erasml Epistolce, ü. 1220. 

§ See p. 152, Translator's note. 

)| Abschied. See Preface, Translator's note. 

IT " Your Imperial Majesty," says the Proposition, " here- 



stitute for it another ordinance of a directly 
opposite tendency, in favour of the spiritual 
authorities. 

This was the notion entertained by most of 
the orthodox. In the instructions given by 
Duke George of Saxony to his ambassador to 
the diet, we find that he too regarded this arti- 
cle as the cause of all the existing troubles.** 
He demanded that a uniform standard of faith 
should be established, and that the represent- 
ative and government of his imperial majesty 
should not surrender their power. 

The first thing was to appoint a committee 
to deliberate and report upon the Proposition. 

In this, as was fully to be expected, the 
orthodox party were greatly superior. Amojig 
the electoral votes, only that of Saxony was 
on the evangelical side. Of the nine princes' 
votes, five were ecclesiastical, and three of the 
secular decidedly Catholic ; while not only Fa- 
ber, but Leonard von Eck, the leader of the 
reaction in Bavaria, was a member of the 
committee. There could be little doubt of 
the result. On the 24th of March the com- 
mittee declared its assent to the proposed arti- 
cle, and only added the following provisions. 
•' Those who had held to the edict of VVormSj 
should continue to do so : in the districts 
which had departed from it, no further innova- 
tion should be introduced, and no one should 
be prevented from saying mass. No ecclesi- 
astical body should be deprived of its author- 
ity or revenues, on pain of ban and reban. 
Lastly, the sects w^hich deny the sacrament 
of the true body and blood of Christ, should 
in no wise be tolerated any more than the 
anabaptists." With these additions the report 
was laid before the Slates. 

All the measures of the States in favour of 
the evangehcal doctrines had been the conse- 
quence of the leaning of the majority towards 
them. The majority was now^ reversed. What 
the former had enacted, the present sought to 
repeal. In the sittings of the 6th and 7th of 
April they adopted the report of the commis- 
sion without the smallest alteration. 

Nor were the friends of reform to be de- 
luded by the mere sound of the words, into 
the idea that the only thing intended was to 
check the progress of the movement. This 
was undoubtedly the immediate purpose ; but, 
on a careful examination, it was evident that 
these ordinances were incompatible with the 
maintenance of the changes already effected 
in the several countries, on the strength of 
former recesses. 

One leading motive to the previous recess 
had been, the necessity of appeasing the in- 
ternal troubles in the several countries; hence 



by repeals, revokes, and annuls the above mentioned arti- 
cle contained in the above-mentioned recess, now as then, 
and then as now, all out of your own imperial absolute 
power (Machtvollkommenheit).", Müller, Historie von 
der evangelischen Stände, Protestation und Appellation, 
p. 22. 

** "Denn dieweil es ein Jeder sol machen wie er wil 
und gegen Gott und kais. Maj. vornimmt zu verantwor- 
ten, so kann kein Einigkeit seyn." — " For since every man 
is to do as he will, and as he thinks he can answer it to 
God and his imperial majesty, there can be no unity." 
Instrument in the Dresden Archives. 



'. V. 



RESISTANCE OF THE MINORITY. 



331 



it had been left to princes and subjects to 
come to an understanding with one another 
on religions questions, as they could. Now, 
those who had prohibited the Latin mass 
were compelled to tolerate it, and nothing 
could be expected but an entire dissolution 
of all that had been settled. 

Further : the very existence of the changes 
that had been adopted, rested on a tacit denial 
of the episcopal jurisdictions ; the authority of 
the bishops (that is, their spiritual authority) 
was now established anew^ The right of ap- 
pointing or removing preachers was, among 
others, unquestionably restored to them.*' 
How could this be endured for a moment ? 

The reforms were still going on most pros- 
perously in many cities. Some had delayed 
to take the final step, because they were still 
in expectation of some new express conces- 
sion from the diet of the empire ; e. g. the ad- 
mission of both elements in the sacrament. 
They were now condemned to abide im- 
plicitly, and for ever, by the established 
forms. 

Lastly, Zwingli'S followers w^ere absolutely 
excluded from the peace of the empire. 

In short, though the dissidents were not 
expressly admonished in the recese, to return 
to the bosom of the church they had aban- 
doned, it was unquestionable that by assent- 
ing to it they would bring about the total and 
speedy ruin of the evangelical church, which 
was just rising into importance. 

It appeared^as if the religious reforms which 
nad begun to acquire consistency from the 
situation of the political affairs of Europe, 
were now about to be overthrown by the 
changes which those affairs had undergone. 
The great community of the empire, which 
for a while had Vv^avered, now resumed its 
station on the side of the two great combined 
powers. 

There remained also the most important of 
all considerations for the evangehcal party; 
viz., whether, supposing they were inclined 
to venture to resist those powers, they had 
lawful grounds for doing so. 

The question arose, whether, in the present 
case, a resolution of the majority of the states 
of the empire was binding upon the minority. 

This question was of a general nature : 
When an institution has been established by 
lawful means, and has actually attained to 
full life and vigour, can the supreme power 
morally assume the right to overthrow and 
annihilate the new structure? Has not the 



* Fürstenberg, Wednesday after Cluasimodogeniti (7th 
April): "Es werden in dem allerlei VVörtlia ingesch- 
lichen, die den Städten, als den man ufsetzig und gefer ist, 
iiit treglichnoch leidlich seyn; mit Namen dass man nie- 
mand an seiner Oberkeyt und Herkommen vergweltigen 
soll, damit wird den Geistlichen, so solcher Artikel ange-, 
nommen und verwilligt wird, erfolgen, die Prädicanten 
zu setzen und zu entsetzen, alle Missbrauch wieder zu 
erheben und andere wieder anzurichten." — " Tliere were 
all sorts of little words slipped in, which are not tolerable 
or endurable to the cities, against which, they (the ortho- 
dox majority) are violent and dangerous ; and especially 
that their authority and traditional jurisdiction should be 
forcibly set aside, in order that the clergy (in case the 
said article is accepted and granted) may continue to ap- 
point and to displace the preachers, to restore all the old 
abuses, and to estabUsti new ones," Frankf. Acten. 



body which has thus legally and efficiently 
constituted itself, the right to exist, and to 
defend its existence ? 

The imperial power had, on a former occa- 
sion, found itself unable to heal the general 
divisions, and had voluntarily abandoned its 
functions to the several territorial sovereigns; 
was it justified, now that it had acquued 
greater strength, in destroying what was in 
fact the result of its own act of delegation'? 
This nobody could admit ; otherwise institu- 
tions of the greatest antiquity might, during 
some of the vacillations to which power vest- 
ed in a fluctuating majority is exposed, be 
brought into question. Nothing would be 
secure or permanent : for when once institu- 
tions had received the sanction of law, how 
were they to be distinguished in principle 
from those which had subsisted for ages ? 

In the present case, too, it w^as to be ob- 
served, that with regard to one of the most 
important of those ordinances, — that enjoin- 
ing the toleration of the mass, — nothing was 
said either in the proposition, the report of the 
commission, or the transcript.! Landgrave 
Philip would not admit that the majority of 
the states had the right to pass decrees so 
deeply affecting the internal affairs of the 
territories of the minority, without their as- 
sent. 

In this declaration, Hessen, electoral Sax- 
ony, Lüneburg, and Anhalt, toaether with 
Mai" 
red. 

The cities viewed the matter under another 
aspect. Their delegates in the committee 
remarked, that Faber had worked upon the 
princes mainly by insisting upon and exag- 
gerating the dangerous consequences of the 
former concessions. t To this they replied, 
that Germany was indebted for the tranquil- 
lity she enjoyed, to that Very recess which 
they were now called upon to revoke. If, in 
these hasty times, they were to pass resolu- 
tions of such gravity, directly opposed to the 
former, nothing could be expected to result 
but division, and indescribable perplexities 
and evils. § As yet the cities were unani- 
mous; those which had remained Catholic, as 
well as those which had become Protestant. 
The reply above mentioned is their common 
work. Vainly did Count Palatine Frederic 
represent to the reformers that they were dis- 
obedient to the imperial edict ; that their in- 
novations led rather to discontent and trouble 
than to the honour of God ; they replied, that 
w^hat they had done was not an act of hos- 



t Extract from the Protest (Beschwerungsschrift), MÜI. 
ler, p. 33. 

I Matthias Pfarrer bei Jung, nr. vii.: "Der Doctor Fa- 
ber bildt mit solcher Unworheit und Lügen indie Fürsten, 
— was uss der Ler gefolg hab und noch folgen werd, das 
do frilich in keines menschen gedanken ich geswige thun 
file, und verbittert die Fürsten mit solchen Reden." — " Dr. 
Faber represents with such falsehood and lies to the 
princes what has followed and will follow from the doc- 
trine, such as truly never could come into any man's 
thoughts, much less to act upon, and embitters the princes 
against us with such discourse." 

§ " Der erbern Frei und Reichsstäte Gesandten Beden- 
ken." " The scruples of the worshipful the envoys of the 
free and imperial cities," (Sth April,) Jung. nr. 26, 



332 



DIET OF SPIRES, 1529. 



Book V. 



tility or insubordination to the emperor, but 
a measure intended to maintain peace among 
their people, and for the rehef of consciences ] 
that none could have a greater dread of any 
kind of disturbance than they. King Ferdi- 
nand entreated them two or three times to 
assent to the report laid before them, and 
added, that the emperor would hold this in 
most gracious remembrance. They replied, 
that they would obey the emperor in all that 
could further the maintenance of peace and 
the honour of God.* 

Overpowering as the majority was, it did 
not think it expedient to show an utter dis- 
regard of so determined a resistance. The 
cities especially, had strongly objected to the 
use of the word supremacy, in the article con- 
cerning the spiritual power — a word which 
had been carefully avoided in the recess of 
1526. The majority at last thought it better 
to omit this word, and, as before, only to forbid 
the subtraction of revenues and lands from 
the church. It added, that no one should pro- 
tect the lieges and subjects of another state 



against their lawful lords 



But this, too, was 



strongly objected to by the evangelical minor- 
ity. They feared that, if the words were 
taken literally, a bishop would think himself 
entitled to regard the preachers as his sub- 
jects and lieges, and that, in conformity with 
the article of the recess, they must be deli- 
vered up to him — an obligation which had 
been disclaimed long before the introduction 
of the new doctrines. Forty years ago, Frank- 
furt had refused to comply with such a de- 
mand made by Archbishop Berthold. More- 
over, this was only a single point, and their 
causes of complaint were numerous. 

But the majority w-as inflexible ; and it now 
remained for the evangelical party to consider 
whether they should allow a resolution which 
threatened them with destruction, to acquire 
the validity of ]aw^ 

On the 12th of April, the Saxon envoy, Mink- 
witz, declared in the full assembly of the em- 
pire, that they were resolved not to allow this. 
He insisted chiefly on the religious grounds. 
In affairs of conscience, he said, a majority 
had no force ; but besides, by what right did 
the diet venture to denounce as unchristian, 
doctrines which a part of the States held to be 
Christian, before the council, so often de- 
manded, had been holden ? The minority 
would never consent to this; they would not 
consent that those who had hitherto conformed 
to the edict of Worms, should now be forbid- 
den to abide by it ; for this would be to pass 
condemnation on their own doctrines. The 
other reformers were greatly rejoiced at see- 



* Piirstenberg, Monday after Qüasimodogeniti (7th 
April) ; " Keyserlich Maj. begeren halber wiren sie ur- 
bittig, wess sie zu der ere Gottes auch frieden und ruhe 
dienlich gehelfen mochten, sollt man sie allerunterthänig 
gehorsam spüren." — "In consequence of his Imperial 
Majesty's desire, they respectfully promise that wherein- 
soever they can be helpful to the honour of God, and the 
peace and tranquillity of the realm, you shall find them 
most dutifully obedient." 

t So it was inserted in the Recess, 5 10. Unterthanen 
und Verwandte. 



ing their cause pleaded wäth such zeal.f 
Minkw-itz urged the States of the empire to 
adhere to their former decree; if this had 
been perverted to any bad purpose (which, he 
affirmed, on the evangelical side was not the 
case), the evil might be remedied by a decla- 
ration. Under these conditions, he promised 
that the party to which he belonged would 
assent to the other resolutions. 

But all his arguments w^ere vain. 

On the 19th of April, King Ferdinand, 
Waldkirch, and the other commissioners ap- 
peared in the assembly of the States, thanked 
them for their " Christian, faithful and assidu- 
ous services," and declared their resolutions 
accepted ; so that there only remained to re- 
duce them into the form of a recess. They 
rejected the proposals and objections of the 
Elector of Saxony and his adherents, solely on 
the ground that the resolutions were " adopted 
according to ancient praiseworthy usage, by 
the greater part of the electors and princes,'' 
so that the rest must also submit to them.§ 
The evangelical princes, startled at so direct 
a refusal, which had the air of a reproof, || and, 
as it was read aloud before all the States, must 
be entered on the records of the empire, re- 
tired for a%ioment into an adjoining room, in 
order instantly to agree upon some answer. 
But the king and the imperial commissioners 
were not disposed to wait for this. In reply 
to a request of the princes, that they would 
not refuse a short delay. King Ferdinand said 
that he had received the positive commands 
of his imperial majesty ; the^e he had exe- 
cuted, and so the matter must remain: the 
articles were determined on.l" So saying, he 
and the commissioners left the house. Still 
more irritated by the contempt for their dig- 
nity and their rights which this conduct im- 
plied, the evangelical States now determined 
to execute a project which they had conceived 
some w^eeks before, as soon as they saw the 
turn afl"airs were taking at the diet. They re- 
solved to resort to the only legal means of re- 
sistance left them. It was evidently impossi- 
ble to make the assembly recede from its 
resolutions; to submit to them, would be to 
renounce their own existence. They re- 
appeared in the same sitting, — not indeed 
before the king and the imperial commission- 
ers, but before the States still assembled, — 
and caused that protest to be read aloud, from 
which they took the name their descendants 
still bear — Protestants. 

They especially insisted on the fundamental 
principles of the laws of the empire.** They 



X Fürstenberg. He conducted their affairs "with the 
greatest earnestness, bravely, and for the best." 

§ Intended message which his royal highness (Königl. 
Durchlauchtigkeit) caused to be read aloud. In the In- 
strumentum Appellationis of Müller, p. 72. 

II They call it " an almost insolent rebuke." 

•^ Narrative in the Appellations Instrument, p. 75, and 
in the letter of the Strasburg envoy, 21st April, Jung, 
nr. 44. 

** A legal argument of a general nature which they 
adduce is, that "auch in menschen Handlungen und Sa- 
chen das mirer wider das minder nicht fürdrücken mÖcht 
da die Sachen nit ir vil in ein gemein, sundern jeden sun- 
derlich belangt." — "In human dealings and affairs, the 



Chap. V. 



PROTEST. 



333 



declared that they could not be obliged, with- 
out their consent, to give up the privileges 
secured to them by the recess lately drawn 
up at Spires, which had been confirmed by 
such strong mutual promises, and attested by 
their common seals , that the attempt of the 
other States to repeal this by their separate 
act, was null and void, and had no authority 
over them; that they should go on to conduct 
themselves towards their subjects in matters 
of religio'-^ according to the terms of the for- 
mer recess, and as they thought they could 
answer it to God and the emperor. If the 
other States were not to be restrained from 
framing the present recess with the offensive 
resolutions, they begged that their protest 
might at least be incorporated with it. 

This declaration, the mere form of which is 
most remarkable, was expressed with all pos- 
sible external deference and courtesy. The 
States were all spoken of as '• our dear lords, 
cousins, uncles, and friends;" they were en- 
titled, with the most careful attention to their 
several distinctions, ''You, well beloved, and 
you, others."* To the former were addressed 
"friendly requests," to the latter, "gracious 
consideration" {gnädiges Gesinnen)\ and while 
they do not for an instant lose sight of their 
princely dignity, they beg their opponents not 
to misunderstand the course which they feel 
themselves compelled to adopt: in return, 
they promise the former to deserve this by 
their friendship, and the latter, to requite it 
by their good will. The style of the docu- 
ments of this century certainly have no claim 
to be called beautiful or classical ; but they 
are suited to the circumstances, and have a 
marked character, — like the men of that age 
and all that they do. 

The king, to whom this protest was deli- 
vered, together with some additions made the 
following day, did not think it expedient to 
accept it; nevertheless it made an immense 
impression. That a diet could thus end in 
open disunion, seemed to promise nothing less 
than immediate violence. On the 20th, Henry 
of Brunswick and Phihp of Baden were com- 
missioned by the majority to endeavour to 
mediate between the parties. 

The points on which the mediators agreed 
with the evangelical party are very remark- 
able. 

They conceded that the article concerning 
the jurisdiction of the clergy over their sub- 
jects, and others Connected with them by 
secular relations, should receive certain limita- 
tions. 

The evangelical party, on the other hand, 
promised that no further innovation should be 
attempted before the convocation of a coun- 
cil; and especially that no sect should be 



more ought not to oppress the less ; since the affair does 
not belong to many of them in common, but to each in 
particular." Müller, p. 114. 

* Eure Liebden und Ihr Andern. It is impossible to find 
in another language terms which represent the precise 
distinctions implied in these and the follo%ving words. 
The reader will understand that they are among the 
various graduated forms of respectful address.— Trans. 



tolerated which denied the sacrament of the 
true 'body and blood of Christ. 

The two parties agreed mutually to tolerate 
their differences as to the service of the mass; 
no sovereign was to have any thing to say on 
this head, out of his own secular dominions. t 

These terms were actually accepted by the 
evangelical princes ; the cities inclining to 
Zwnngli's views were also inclined to consent 
to them. 

It is evident, that, had the only question 
been, to acquiesce in some check being put 
to the progress of innovation (in so far as that 
could be effected by legal means), they would 
have 'given way ; their position was entirely 
a defensive one : it was only against the in- 
fluence of the spiritual jurisdiction, recog- 
nised anew by the diet, that they determined 
to make a stand. 

But the composition of the majority left 
httle hope that these proposals would be ac- 
cepted. They might obtain the assent of a 
few temporal princes, but the spiritual, to 
whom the revolution in public affairs appear- 
ed to open a, brilliant prospect of the restora- 
tion of their power, disdained to listen to 
them. Nor were all the temporal princes 
satisfied with the first resolutions of the com- 
mittee. Duke George of Saxony demanded 
more precise regulations concerning the de- 
serted convents and the married priests ; he 
wanted that all references to the Holy Scrip- 
tures at variance with tradition, should be for- 
bidden. :|: But above all it was impossible to 
gain over King Ferdinand. He was irritated 
that the evangelical princes had framed and 
published a protest, without first attempting 
to negotiate with him ; that they had sent ir 
to him with so little ceremony, and had even 
rejected negotiations which he had empower- 
ed Planitz to open. He w^as also greatly dis- 
pleased with the evangelical cities, especially 
Strasburg, which, shortly before the diet, had 
abolished the mass ; nor could he be prevail- 
ed on to allows Daniel Mieg, the delegate of 
that city, to take his seat in the Council of 
Regency. He therefore now declined any 
further attempt at a better understanding, and 
rejected the proposals of the two mediators. 
He refused to allow the protest to be incor- 
porated in the recess, or even any mention to 
be made of it. 

In consequence of this, the evangelical 



I "Also dass kein Churfürst noch andre Stände ussert- 
halb ihrer weltlichen Oberkeiten (Gebiete) den andern zu 
oder von sinem alten oder neuen Fürnemen oder Haltung 
der Messen in eynichem Wege vergweltigen, darzu oder 
davon dringen sol." — "So that no elector nor other es- 
tate, out of his own temporal jurisdiction (territory), 
should compel another to or from his old or new opinions, 
or, in any way whatsoever, should urge bim to or from 
the maintenance of the mass." Article of Composition. 
Müller, p. 42. Walch, xvi, 422, where, however, great 
errors occur (e. g., bessern, instead of besten). Jung. nr. 45. 

J Letter to his ambassador, 17th April. He requires the 
addition, "dass sich niemands unterstehe, die h. Schrifl 
weiter zu deuten oder Disputation einzuführen, denn wie 
dieselbigen angenommenen Lerer oder der Jiierer Tail 
unter irTen thut anzeigen und beschliessen." — " That no- 
body should venture to comment on the Holy Scriptures, 
or to introduce disputations further than the said ac- 
cepted teachers, or the greater part of them, do actually 
teach and decide." 



334 



DIET OF SPIRES, 1529. 



Book V. 



princes utlerly disregarded Ferdinand's re- 
quest that they would give no further exten- 
sion or pubhcity to the protest. 

A formal instrument, with all the docu- 
ments annexed, was drawn up, in which the 
united princes. Elector John of Saxony, Mark- 
grave George of Brandenburg, Dukes Ernest 
and Francis of Brunswick-Lünebnrg, Land- 
grave Philip of Hessen, and Prince Wolfgang 
of Anhalt, appealed from the wrongs and 
offences done to them at the diet, to the 
emperor, the next general free assembly of 
holy Christendom, or to a Congress of the 
German nation. 

On the following Sunday, April 25th, the 
necessary legal form was given to this mani- 
festo. This Took place (for the spot is pointed 
out v.dth an accuracy worthy of notice) -'in 
the lodging of Chaplahi Peter Mutterstadt. 
near St. John's Church at Spires, in St. John's 
lane of the same, in the little room on the 
ground floor." It was immediately made 
public, in order that every one might know 
that the princes had in no wise been consent- 
ing to the new recess, but were determined 
to hold fast by the former. 
> This declaration acquired great additional 
•weight from the signatures of a great number 
of the imperial cities. 

At first they appeared resolved once more 
to act together as one man. For their old 
rule was, that, if one of them had a grievance 
to complain of, all the rest were to adopt it, 
and on no account to separate their interests 
or their plan of action. We observed, in- 
deed, that the first remonstrance of the cities, 
though containing matter of a highly anti- 
clerical tendency, was signed by all. But the 
hearts of men were too deeply and intensely 
, moved by the interests of religion for them 
to attend to old rules. The imperial com- 
missioners sent for the delegates of the 
Catholic cities, commended their steady ad- 
herence to the faith, and encouraged them to 
persevere in it. John Faber had a great per- 
sonal influence over some of the smaller, such 
as Rottweil and Ravensburg. Others, it was 
affirmed, were rendered more docile by the 
hope of being rated lighter to the taxation for 
the empire. Be this as it may ; in the de- 
cisive moment when the Chancellor of Mainz 
asked which were the cities that felt them- 
selves aggrieved, the recollection of their old 
principles made them hesitate for a moment, 
— but it was only for a moment. The dele- 
gate from Rottweil was the first to declare 
that there were many among the cities that 
agreed to the resolutions of the recess. To 
this others assented.^ A list was drawn up 
in which those who thought themselves ag- 
grieved wrote their names. At first Cologne 
inscribed itself; not so much because it par- 
took of the new opinions, as because it was 
engaged in disputes wdth its clergy; but it 



* Fürstenberg's Report in the Frankf. Acts, and the 
priest Matthis, in those of Strasburg. "The separation 
between the cities began on that very day," exclaims 
Matthis; "that is what the clergy have been hitherto 
Beeliing." 



afterwards revoked its signature. Frankfurt, 
too, was at first among the number, and here 
the new opinions had taken firm root : it sub- 
sequently withdrew, because it did not choose 
to break with the emperor. But the others 
remained inflexible. In the instrument above 
mentioned, fourteen were named as joining 
in the protest. Strasburg, Nürnberg, Ulm, 
Constance, Lindau, Memmingen, Kempten, 
Nördlingen, Heilbronn, Reutlingen, Isny, St. 
Gall (which here once more appears among 
the imperial cities), Wissenburg, and Winds- 
heim. This includes, as we perceive, all 
those attached to Zwingli's opinions. In the 
mom.ent of need the Lutheran princes had 
not hesitated to unite with them. 

Sovereigns so considerable, especially in 
the north of Germany, — cities so populous 
and wealthy in the south and west, — all 
united in opinion and in will, formed a body 
which commanded respect. They were de- 
termined to defend themselves with their 
combined strength against every attempt at 
compulsion on the part of the majority. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DISSENSIONS AMONG THE PROTESTANTS. 

The discussions of the diet of 1529 turned 
rather on a question of public law than on 
any points of doctrine. 

All hope of a general agreement of the em- 
pire on matters of religion had long been at 
an end ; the division between the two great 
parties became more and more marked and 
hostile. This division had indeed been re- 
cognised and sanctioned by the supreme au- 
thority, whose language and attitude in 1526 
might be regarded as neutral. Now, how- 
ever, w-hen the first storm was over, — when 
the ecclesiastical body, after its own violent 
dissensions, had re-united for the maintenance 
of its common interests, — when the emperor 
had once more established amicable relations 
with the pope, — the Cathohc party succeeded 
in getting possession of the supreme power; 
the government of the em.pire, in the hands 
of the majority, assumed a thoroughly Catholic 
complexion and attitude. 

The evangelical party, while emboldened 
by the consciousness of a recognised legality, 
and cherishing the hope of further progress 
in the same direction, suddenly saw itself not 
only excluded from all share in the govern- 
ment of the empire (which it had for some 
years mainly conducted), but threatened in 
its very existence. 

Nothing remained but for these princes to 
organise themselves as a minority, determined 
to endure no oppression, and to resist every 
attempt of the kind with all their might. 

It must never be forgotten, that the noble 
and courageous idea of taking up this defen- 
sive position; — of entrenching themselves be- 



Chap. VI. 



THEOLOGICAL SCRUPLES. 



3a5 



hind the laws of the empire, — an idea from 
which the whole subsequent development of 
Protestantism resulted, — was founded on the 
union of the confessions of Saxony and of 
Switzerland. 

On the 21st of April, King Ferdinand re- 
fused the offered mediation of Brunswick and 
Baden ; on the 22d, Saxony and Hessen con- 
cluded ■' a particular secret agreement,'' as it 
is called in the document itself, with the cities 
of Nürnberg, Ulm, and Strasbui-g. They were 
perfectly agreed that they would defend them- 
selves, if they were aftacked on account of 
God's word; whether the attack came from the 
Swabian league, or from the imperial chamber, 
or even from the imperial government. Dele- 
gates who were to meet in June, at Rotach in 
the Franconian mountains, were to determine 
in what manner they were to assist eacli other. ^ 

No difference \Yas, as we see, made be- 
tween Nürnberg, which adhered to Lutheran 
opinions, and Strasburg, which had espoused 
those of Zwingli. 

Immediately after the diet, they proceeded 
to reconsider the terms of this compact. Two 
drafts of it have come down to us; the one 
framed by the cities, the other by the princes. 
The former proceeds on the prmciple, that a 
council should be formed of the delegates of 
the several states, who, being released from 
their special duties towards their own particu- 
lar constituents, should act only with a view 
to the common interests. The member of 
the alliance against whom the attack might 
be directed, should always appoint the leader 
of the combined forces. This project con- 
tains an ordinance ni conformity with the 
constitution of the empire; viz., that the gene- 
ralissimo should always be a sovereign prince, 
to whom should be attached a military council 
consisting of six menibers, three from the body 
of the princes, one from that of the counts, and 
two from the cities. In the draft sent in by 
the cities, great stress is laid on the point, that 
no resort should be had to arms on any but 
religious grounds; ••only,"' to use their words, 
"if they were attacked on account of their 
faith, or obstructed in the visitations of the 
churches, under pretext of a spiritual jurisdic- 
tion." In that of the princes, which is in the 
handwriting of the electoral prince, the right 
of self-defence is especially insisted on; no 
mention is made of the emperor; the recent 
edicts are treated as mere assumptions of 
arbitrary power on the part of states with 
which they (of the Protestant party) were in 
every respect equal in rank and dignity, and 
which; therefore.' it was not only their right, 
but their duty, to oppose.! 

Whichever of these projects had been pre- 
ferred, it is certain that the force which the 
two allies could have called out would have 
been considerable. The electoral prince reck- 



* Article of tiie Reflections on the confidential Conver- 
sation : in tile W^irft. Aicli. 

t Bedenken der Eynung des Evanireliunis halber (Re- 
flections on the Union on account of the Gospel) in the 
W. A., und Erstgestellte N'otel des Berstendniiss, von den 
von Nürnberg übergeben. (.First note (sketch) of the 
agreement, submitted by them of Nürnberg.) Müller. 



oned that it would bs necessary to raise 10.000 
foot and 2,000 horse; he advised that their 
friends, whether near or at a distance, should 
be invited to join them. The fact, that they 
would have had Switzerland on their side, vi^as 
of immense importance; the imperial city of 
Constance had a year ago allied itself with 
Zürich and Bern ; and St. Gall, a Swiss town, 
had signed the protest. But this union would 
not long have remained so entirely inoffensive, 
and so devoid of any application to the em- 
peror, as John Frederic intended it to be. 
Landgrave Philip and the council of Zürich, 
who were most intimately connected, hacl 
already serious schemes for the restoration of 
Dnke Ulrich of Würtenberg. 'In the negotia- 
tions on this matter between Fiance *and 
Zürich, which were opened by the latter, 
Zwingli expressly stipulated that the land- 
grave, whom he characterised as magnani- 
mous, steadfast and wise, should be invited 
to join them. J Venice, too, had been applied 
to. Whilst the emperor maintained his as- 
cendanc}' in the south of Europe, it appeared 
as if a party, bound together by religious and 
political interests, would rise up against him 
in Switzerland and Germany, and would form 
the centre of a new European opposition. At 
all events, it might be confidently expected 
that this union would off'er an insuperable re- 
sistance to the emperor and the majority of 
the states of the empire. 

But how short a tim.e elapsed ere the new 
party was compelled, by the very nature of its 
own composition, to abandon all these expec- 
tations ! 

At the time that party was organised, the 
diff"erence3 existing between the two confes- 
sions had been left wholly out of sight. This 
was indeed possible in Spires, under the pres- 
sure of a sudden, unexpected, and increasing 
danger; in presence of the common enemy, 
they felt the interests that united them, and 
the necessity for political combination. But 
as soon as they were dispersed, this impres- 
sion w^as effaced, and the old antipathies re- 
sumed their power. 

This was characteristic of the century ; the 
efforts to throw off the yoke of the clergy 
had been prompted by the theological spirit ; 
and this was too earnest and energetic to 
allow itself to be controlled by any political 
considerations. 

The parties to the new league had at first 
kept it secret from the theologians in Spires; 
and when at length it was communicated to 
them, they were obliged to acquiesce in it. 

But they were the first in whose minds 
scruples concerning it arose. JMelanchthon, a 
man who, with patient and unwearied labour, 
worked out in his own mind every difhcult 
problem that came before him, returned home 
robbed of his accustomed cheerfulness. § He 
fancied that if Zwinoli's adherents had been 



I Hottinger, ii. 282, 313. 

§ Letter from Melanchthon to Camerarius, (17th May :) 
" Redii neutiquam afferens domum illara quam solebam 
hilaritatem." To Spengler and Justus Jonas, 1069^1075 
1Ü7Ö. 



336 



THEOLOGICAL SCRUPLES. 



Book V. 



abandoned, the Lutherans would have found 
the majority more willing to make conces- 
sions ] he reproached himself with not having 
insisted upon this, as was his duty. He was 
alarmed at the idea that a subversion of the 
empire and of religion might be the conse- 
quence of this compliance. On reaching Wit- 
tenberg, he spoke to Luther about it, and we 
may easily imagine what were his sentiments. 
Melanchthon fell into the most painful state 
of inward strife. "My conscience," says he. 



in a letter of the 17th May, 



disquieted 



because of this thing; I am half dead with 
pondering upon it," On the 11th June: "My 
soul is possessed by such bitter grief, that I 
neglect all the duties of friendship, and all 
my studies." On the 14th : " I feel myself 
'in such disquiet, that I had rather die than 
endure it longer." As if with a desire to 
remedy the wrong that had been committed, 
he at length endeavoured, on his own author- 
ity, to put his friends in Nürnberg on their 
guard against concluding the projected treaty. 
'• For the godless opinions of Zwingii must on 
no account be defended." 

His sovereign master, the elector, he could 
safely leave to Luther's influence. 

Luther, as we have said, had not hesitated a 
moment to condemn the alliance with the fol- 
lowers of Zwingii. Instantly and spontaneous- 
ly, on hearing Melanchthon's statement of the 
facts, he applied to Elector John even now to 
set aside the agreement concluded at Spires. 
He represented to him that all such compacts 
were dangerous, and reminded him how the 
former one had been misused by the impetu- 
osity of the young landgrave. ''How then," 
said he, '• shall we dare to connect ourselves 
Vv'ith people who strive against God and the 
holy sacrament % We shall thus go to perdi- 
tion, body and soul." 

It can hardly be affirmed that these theo- 
logical scruples ought to have been utterly 
disregarded, or that Luther w^as to be blamed 
for entertaining them. 

We must consider that the whole reforma- 
tion originated in religious convictions, v;hich 
admit of no compromise, no condition, no ex- 
tenuation. The spirit of an exclusive ortho- 
doxy, expressed in rigid formulse, and deny- 
ing salvation to its antagonists, now ruled the 
world. Hence the violent hostility betv^-een 
. two confessions, which in some respects ap- 
proximated so nearly. 

A union of their respective followers could 
only be rendered possible, either by disregard- 
ing their differences, or by putting an end to 
them. 

In Spires, in the tumult of the diet, under 
the pressure of the common peril, the former 
had been deemed possible. But how could it 
be realised while the most violent polemical 
writings were interchanged between the lead- 
ers ? Considering the convictions v/hich both 
parties had embraced with fervour, and held 
to with the utmost tenacity, such a union 
would have seemed to prove that the original 
religipus motives had not been entirely free 
from alloy. 



Luther was wholly opposed to it, and there 
needed only an admonition from him, to deter 
the elector from any such attempt. 

Elector John sent indeed his delegates at 
the ^appointed time to Rotach, but with strict 
charge merely to listen, and report to him ] 
he would then consult with the learned men 
about him whether the thing could be exe- 
cuted without grieving the conscience. He 
thought that perhaps similar scruples would 
occur to the people of Nürnberg.* 

And in fact the opinions of the Nürnberg 
theologians were precisely those of the Saxon. 
They too exhorted the gouncil to have nothing 
to do with the "Sacramenters."t 

Hence the meeting in Rotach ended in no- 
thing beyond general assurances of mutual 
assistance, and preliminary promises; further 
dehberations were postponed till a meeting, 
to be held at Schwabach in the following 
August. This, however, never took pla-ce. 
It was already countermanded when the dele- 
gales from the Oberland arrived; they had 
made their long journey in vain. J 

Thus the same influential body — the theo- 
logians — ^^'lio had put a sudden and entire 
check to the warlike preparations caused by 
Pack's intrigues, three years before, now of- 
fered a no less strenuous and successful resist- 
ance to an alliance which appeared the only 
safeguard from arbitrary power. The same 
influence which in the one case had prevented 
attack, now proved an equally insuperable 
obstacle to all measures of defence. 

It is no wonder that Landgrave Philip, who 
had embraced the former schemes with all 
the ardour of his haughty and ambitious tem- 
per, vv'as offended and grieved at the present 
turn of affairs. He did every thing in his 
power to keep his Saxon allies to their former 
resolution; but in vain. § 

We are ix)t to imagine from this that Land- 
grave Philip had emancipated himself from 
the spirit of his age. His disposition to con- 



* Instruction auf Herr Hansen Minkwitz Ritter gen 
Rotach. (Instructions sent to Master John Minliwitz, 
Imight, at Rotach.) He was to observe whether possibly 
the Nürnberg delegates might not of their own accord say 
to him, " that they found ic would be difficult for them to 
come into any compact with those who held Zwingli's 
opinion concerning the sacrament, inasmuch as they 
would be biirthened on account of the divine word of the 
faith, as if this article were also founded on the divine 
word and the faith, which must then be received in silence 
against their consciences;" and then he was to say to 
them, "that a like ditficulty and scruple had also fallen 
upon us since the last diet at Spires." The recess is dated 
Tuesday after St. Boniface, (8th June.) 

t Chancellor Bruch said at Schnialkalden, that it all 
came from the counsels of Nürnberg. Strobel Miscella- 
neen, iv. 130. 

X Letter to Nürnberg, 23d August. They would pri- 
vately inform their friends of the affair, although it "is 
quite burthensome to us, the delegates, not only »m ac- 
count of our body's weakness, but of the length of the 
way, and the alarming gangs wandering about the coun- 
try." (W. A'' ^ meeting at Zerbst also did not take 
place; it w ^ o off because the elector "had seen good 
not to cone , that which he had conferred about with 
certain princt^s and states, concerning a friendly under- 
standing, with whom those of the Magdeburg union will 
not enter." I find that Erich, Bishop of Paderborn and 
Osnabrück, who had already joined in the first protest at 
Spires, was also invited. 

§ Reasons and counter reasons in the letters of the 
elector and the landgrave. Müller, Gesch. der Protest, p. 
236, 261. 



Chap. VI. 



CONFERENCE AT MARBURG. 



337 



cede arose from his being less firmly con- 
vinced of the truth of Luther's doctrines than 
his allies were. 

As, however, it was no longer» possible to 
disregard the dissensions between the two 
sections of reformers, it was doubly neces- 
sary to make one effort more to reconcile the 
contending theologians. 

Landgrave Philip had already seen the 
urgency of this in Spires, and had written to 
Zwingli about it. He now sent a definitive 
invitation to both parties to m.eet at his castle 
of Marburg, on the Feast of St. Michael. 
(a.D. 1529.) 

It is remarkable how differently his two in- 
vitations were received. Zwingli feared that 
he should be withheld from going by the 
Grand Council of his city; if he announced 
his intentions, he thought they would hardly 
allow him to take so long a journey through 
so many doubtful or hostile territories. With- 
out communicating his intentions even to his 
wife, or waiting for the expected safe-conduct 
from Hessen, he therefore set out. with the 
connivance of a few members of the privy 
council. On the other hand, Melanchthon 
would rather that his sovereign had forbid- 
den him the journey altogether. Luther con- 
stantly declared that the conference would 
lead to nothing. When he had reached the 
Werra, it was impossible to induce him to 
proceed any further till he had received a 
safe-conduct in all its formes from the land- 
grave. =^' 

On the other hand, the Swiss were filled 
with the most sanguine hopes; they knew 
that the prince at whose court they vv^ere to 
meet their antagonists, was entirely on their 
side in politics, and nearly so in religion. 
The Wittenberg party were sensible that they 
would have to contend, against Philip's wishes; 
they were determined however not to give 
wav, but to maintain their ground at all risks. 
The two parties met therefore in a totally 
opposite temper of mind; and, according to 
the usual weakness of human nature, pro- 
ceeded to act under the influence of the mo- 
ment. 

Yet, regarded from a higher point of view, 
this meeting had a sublime and most import- 
ant character. 

The eminent spirits who, on either side, 
had led the movement with such power, but 
between whom misunderstandings had now 
broken out, met together in order to endea- 
vour to elicit, by personal discussion, some 
means of putting an end to the quarrels 
which were so great an obstacle to the pro- 
gress of the common cause. 

In this light did Euricius Cordus regard it, 
when he addresses them all, ''t^-'e princes of 
the Word," '-the acute Luthe • 'le gentle 
CEcolampadius, the magnanimo. Zwingli, 
the honest Melanchthon," and the others 
who were come, — Schnepf, Brenz, Hedio, 
Oslander, Jonas, Crato, Menius, Myconius, 



* According to Bullinger, whose accouni of this con- 
ference is, generally, vei'y remarkable, the landgrave him- 
eelf observed this difierence, p. 214. 
43 2 a 



each of whom he designates by some eulo- 
gistic epithet, and admonishes them to put an 
end to the new schism. ''The church falls at 
your feet weeping, and conjures you by the 
bowels of Christ to take this matter in hand 
with genuine earnestness, for the salvation of 
the faithful, and to bring about a decision 
which the world may confess to have ema- 
nated from the Holy Ghost. "t It was an 
ecclesiastical council of the dissidents from 
Catholicism. Had it succeeded, means would 
have been devised to maintain the unity of 
the new church. 

Certain preliminary doubts were first satis- 
fied. Zwingli had been accused of errors 
concerning the divinity of Christ. He now 
professed opinions in entire conformity with 
the Nicene creed. He also declared his com- 
plete agreement with the Wittenberg divines, 
on the doctrine of original sin, on which the 
whole scheme of redemption rests ; on the 
efficacy of the external word ; on baptism, as 
being not a mere symbol. It is certain that 
Zwingli, in his endeavours to make out the 
meaning of Scripture for himself, had de- 
parted widely from the received opinions of 
the church on all these points. In this re- 
spect he, like Luther, reverted to the funda- 
mental basis upon which the Latin church 
rested.:^ On one point alone, the most im- 
portant of all — the point which occupied uni- 
versal attention — on the question of the Eu- 
charist, he was inflexible. Here he hoped 
for victory, and pleaded his cause with great 
vivacity and earnestness. His chief argu- 
ments were, the figurative meaning of the 
word is, in other passages; the explanation 
given by Christ himself, in the sixth chapter 
of John (concerning which, he said that '^ it 
broke Luther's neck" — an expression the lat- 
ter rather misunderstood) ; the consent of se- 
veral fathers of the church ; lastly, the impos- 
sibility that a body should be in more than 
one place at one time. But Luther saw writ- 
ten on the page before him, ^'This is my 
body." He persisted that these were the 
words of God, about which there must be no 
quibbling, and which Satan himself could not 
get over ; he would not now enter upon the 
more profound explanations with which he 
had previously combated the argument of lo- 
cality, without which it is impossible to con- 
ceive a body ; he would not endure the word 
'•signifies," for that made complete abstrac- 
tion of the body. The difference is this : 
Zwingli regards the presence of Christ as con- 
nected with the bread ; whereas Luther re- 
gards the bread itself as the very presence — 
the present body ; — the visible containing the 
invisible, as the scabbard contains the sword. § 



t The poem is inserted by Melanchthon in the Paralipo- 
menon to the Chronikon Urspergense, p. 495. 

I Löscher, Historia Motuum, p. 103, examines how far 
the present resolutions were contradicted by former ex- 
pressions of the Oberländers. Even Planck, otherwise a 
great champion of the Oberländers, admits that in this 
matter Löscher is right. 

§ The following passage in the abstract from the re- 
cords in Scultetus, p. 143, seems to me to contain one of 
the main points of difference : Lutherus affirmat (the sub- 
ject is, the Cth chapter of John) non ipsam manducatiocera 



338 



CONFERENCE AT MARBURG. 



Book V. 



He too understood the word eat in a spiritual 
sense, but he would not part with the mys- 
tery which is involved in the symbol. He 
thought that his antagonists had probably 
never had occasion to prove the value and effi- 
cacy of their exposition in the conflicts of the 
spirit ; whereas he was conscious that, by the 
aid of his, he had fought against Satan and 
hell, and had found there the consolation 
which is able to sustain the soul in the most 
desperate tempests that can assail it.* 

With a view to the progressive development 
of religious ideas, it was not, I think, to be 
wished that Zwingli should have given up his 
theory, which, by continually referring to the 
original and historical character of the insti- 
tution of the great mystery, was of such im- 
mense importance to the whole conception of 
Christianity, independent of the church as 
actually constituted. On t^e points on which 
he yielded he was not so sure or so steadfast, 
but this he had thought out in all its bearings ; 
here he was master of his subject ; it con- 
tained the principle upon which his system 
was founded, and to this he clung with the 
utmost tenacity. 

Just as httle was it to be expected, or even 
desired, of Luther, that he should assent to 
^wingli'S exposition. His opinions on the in- 
dwelling of the divine element, generally, in 
the Christian church, are the same as those of 
the Catholics; only he does not recognise it 
in the numerous incidents handed down from 
fantastical or sophistical ages. As these fail 
to aflbrd him the assurance he requires, he 
reverts to the original sources, to which the 
Catholics also refer, and receives nothing but 
what he finds there. Of the seven sacraments, 
he retains only the two of which unquestiona- 
ble mention is made in the New- Testament. 
But to these he adheres in spite of every at- 
tempt to wrest them from him, or to detract 
from their mysterious import. 

These are, as we have remarked, two views 
of the subject taken from different points, but 
equally inevitable. 

It was enough that the two parties began to 
desist from their mutual outcries of heresy. 
Luther discQvered that his antagonists did not 
mean so ill as he had imagined, while the 
Swiss abandoned that coarse conception of 
Luther's scheme which they had hitherto en- 
tertained. Luther thought the violence of the 
polemical writings w^ould now subside.'!" 



oralem, sed manducalionis moduni crassum ilium, qualis 
est carnis suillfe aiit bovinaj, rejici. CEcolnmpadius, 
arrepta inde occasione, de duplici verboruin Cliristi iiitel- 
ligentia disserit, humili sive carnali, et subiiini sive 
spiritiiali: humilem sive carnalem verbortim Christi in- 
tellectum eum esse quern Luthenis asserat a Christo re- 
pwdiatum: spiritualem sive sublimem esse ilium quern 
Christus jusserit amplecti. Contra Lutherus fieri non 
posse riec debere, ut ad spiritualem tantum intellectum 
verba ccsnce referantur, siquidein remissio peccatorum, 
vita setenia ac regnum ccElorum carnalibus istis ac hu- 
milibus ut appereant rebus per verbum dei aiinexa sint. 

* Luther's Explanation, addressed to Landgrave Philip 
in de W. iii. p. 510-. 

t Melanchthon says in the Appendix to the Chron. Urs- 
perg:— Triduo duravit colloquium, et durasset diutius spe 
uberioris turn concordise futuree, nisi borrendus ille mor- 
bus sudatorius vocatos dispersisset. This was in- 
serted in BuUinger. It shovv's at least what an impression 
I'lad been made on Melaachthoii. 



In the first place^ all the more important 
articles of faith on which they agreed, were 
drawn up and signed by the theologians of 
both parties ; the deviations from the Roman 
confession are carefully stated in it, as well as 
those from the anabaptist sects; this was a 
desirable basis of their common progress, and 
the Marburg conference will be for ever me- 
morable and important for its establishment. 
The fifteenth and last of these articles relates 
to the Lord's Supper. They agree on the na- 
ture and mode of the solemn rite, and on its 
purpose, in so far that both believe that the 
true body and true blood of Christ are here 
spiritually eaten ; the only point in dispute is, 
whether this true body is bodily in the bread. 
Here a freer interpretation of Scripture leads 
to a different view of the mystery from that 
adopted by the community of the church. 
They mutually promised that each party 
would treat the other with Christian charity. 

One point, however, Luther would not con- 
cede; viz., he would not extend brotherly- 
love to the dissidents (that is, he would not 
acknowledge that the two parties formed one 
brotherhood). t He thought the difference of 
opinion far too fundamental ," the mystery, the 
central point of the Christian's faith and ser- 
vice, far too essential, to admit of such a con- 
cession. 

We perceive therefore that, as far as the 
future was concerned, and the recognition 
that, in spite of their difterences, they be- 
longed essentially to the same confession, this 
conference was productive of important re- 
sults; but for the pohtical purposes of the 
moment, which Landgrave Philip had had in 
his eye, it effected nothing. 

Indeed, the very contrary of what he had 
aimed at came to pass. 

From Marburg Luther hastened to Schleiz, 
where Elector John of Saxony and Älarkgrave 
George of Brandenburg were at this moment 
together, in order to consult with them as to 
the expediency of the Oberland alhance. Not 
only did Dr. Luther convince the princes that 
a perfect unity of faith was necessary to a 
treaty of mutual defence, but they determined 
mutually to confess the articles whereon this 
unity was founded, and to admit no one into 
their alliance who dissented from any one of 
them.§ No sooner had the Oberland dele- 
gates arrived at Schwabach, where a fresh 
conference was appointed to be held in Octo- 
ber, than such a confession of faith was laid 
before them for their signature, before any 
further business was entered upon. These 
are the so-called Schwabach articles, and are 
seventeen in number. Little acuteness is ne- 
cessary to discover that they bear the strongest 
resemblance to the Marburg agreement. The 
sequence is the same in the first nine arti- 



t Luther to Gerbellius, (4th Oct.): — Denuntiatum est 
eis, nisi et hoc articulo resipiscant, charitate quidem 
nostra posse eos uti, sed in fratrum et Christi membrorum 
numero a nobis censeri non posse. 

§ The recess of Schleiz was only oral. We see what its 
contents were from the instructions to the councillors of 
the elector, and the Markgrave of Brandenburg at the 
Schwabach conference. Müller, p. 281, and Walch, xvii. 
p. 669, First article. 



GttAP. VI. 



DISSENSIONS AMONG THE PROTESTANTS. 



cles;* the forms of expression are for the 
most part identical also; there are but few 
alterations^ the most important among which 
is in the tenth article, wherein it is taught, 
that ''the true body and blood of Christ is 
verily present in the bread and wine ;" to 
which is annexed the polemical remark, that 
the opposite party assert them to be mere 
bread and wine. The Schwabach articles are 
a somewhat more elaborate edition of the 
Marburg agreement : Luther's scheme being 
exclusively adopted in both.t It was, of 
course, impossible for the delegates from Ulm 
and Strasburg to sign this confession. They 
remarked that it was not in conformity with 
the doctrines preached among them; that 
they were not apprised of the alteration, and 
must bring a declaration of the opinions of 
their constituents on the subject, to the next 
meeting. 

It was easy to foresee that this declaration 
would be in the negative, and that, under 
these circumstances, the alliance must be 
abandoned. 

This division took place just at the moment 
when the emperor manifested' the most hos- 
tile disposition towards reform. 

The emperor having issued a manifesto 
from Spain, expressive of his disapprobation 
of the protest, the states which had joined in 
it had sent a deputation to Italy, charged to 
justify their measures to him . Nothing, how- 
ever, could be more directly hostile to their 
views than the Spanish Catholicism which the 
delegates encountered in the emperor's court. 
The emperor only repeated his former decla- 
rations. He refused to receive the protest, 
and was greatly displeased when the envoys 
laid it on the table of the secretary who was 
transacting business with them. The whole 
court was incensed at the audacity of Michael 
Kaden, one of the envoys, who put into the 
hands of the orthodox emperor, the temporal 
head of Catholic Christendom, a writing of a 
Protestant tendenc}', given to him by the land- 
grave. The delegates were compelled to fol- 
low the court for a while as prisoners, and 
escaped from it only by a sort of flight. 

But if any hoped that the adverse and 
menacing, circumstances without, would have 
the effect of re-unitin«- the two sections of the 



* What the Schwabach Art. viii. appears to contain 
over and above, is to be found in those of Marburg, under 
the title, De iisn sacramenti. See the primed copy of the 
17 Articles in Walch, xvi. 773, and given with diplomatic 
accuracy in Weber's Kritische Gesch. der Augsb. Con. V. 
i. A p. 2. 

t Riederer found the following words in Veit Diedrich's 
handwriting on Luther's autograph preface to the 17 Ar- 
ticles, of the year 1530. Pr?efatio ad xvii Articulos Mar- 
burgi scriptos; and upon them founded liis assertion that 
the 17 Articles themselves were drawn ut) at Marburg. 
Had that been the case, Luther would have brought them 
ready with him to S^clileiz. In fact, Luther must have 
been very much occupied. On the 3Uth of September the 
theologians arrived; on the 1st, 2d, ar.d 3d of October 
they debated; on the 4th the Marburg agreement was 
signed ; and on the 5ih he went away. The scheme there 
concocted does however agree pretty well with the cha- 
racter of the 17 Articles, only they must afterwards have 
been revised, and rendered more distinct in some places, 
if what was said in Schmalkalden to the cities is true: 
"The articles are very well considered, and drawn up 
with brave counsel of learned and unlearned councillors." 



Protestants, this hope proved utterly illu- 
sory. 

At the very meeting at Schmalkalden, be- 
fore which they laid the report of these cir- 
cumstances (Dec, 1529), the separation be- 
tween them was first rendered absolute and 
complete. 

The seventeen articles were once mor.e laid 
before the Oberländers (who were here far 
more numerous than at Schwabach). Ulm 
and Strasburg, whose example was usually 
followed by the others, definitively declared 
that they would not sign them. The Luther- 
ans, in an equally decided manner, declared 
that, in that case, they could not enter into 
an alliance with them. Their own earnest 
entreaties, and the zeal with which the land- 
grave exerted himself in their behalf, — urg- 
mg that there was nothing to be expected 
from the emperor but disfavour and violence, 
— were equally vain. The other party re- 
fused even to communicate to them the re- 
port of the delegates, unless they would first 
declare their assent to the profession of 
faith.i 

In the course of these transactions, another 
question, rather of a political nature, had 
come under discussion. 

When Luther warned his master not to 
enter into a league with the Oberländers, he 
still cherished the hope that a reconcihation 
with the emperor was possible. This hope 
was inspired by the view he took of the cha- 
racter of the reformation. He contemplated 
only its widest objects and effects — the de- 
liverance of the secular powder from the pre- 
tensions to supremacy and precedency hitherto 
asserted by the clergy. He represented what 
innumerable abuses, universally admitted and 
complained of, he had removed ; while on the 
other hand, he had combated with chival- 
rous valour against anabaptists and image 
breakers ; the chief merit which he claimed, 
however, and most justly, w^as, that he had 
revived the idea of civil supremacy and 
secular majesty, and had procured for it uni- 
versal acceptance. He had so high an opinion 
of the emperor, that he was persuaded, if it 
were represented to him that the doctrines of 
Christianity were preached in greater purity 
in the evangelical countries than they had- 
been for a thousand years, he must instantly 
see the truth. Luther was little less imbued 
with the idea of the empire than with that of 
the church. I do not mean its momentary 
condition or aspect, but its import and es^- 
sence; and he felt almost an equal pain at 
having to sever himself from it. 

Negotiations w^ere in fact set on foot be- 
tween the elector and King Ferdinand. Fer- 
dinand was moved to them, as he writes to 
his brother more than once, by his anxiety 
lest a movement of the Protestants should en- 
sue before his (the emperor's) arrival, which 
might have ruinous results; the elector, by 
his natural reluctance to separate himself 



t Protocol of the meeting, Sunday after St. Catherine 
1539. Strobel, iv. 113. 



340 



RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 



Book V. 



from the head of the empire, — a reluctance 
which had been greatly enhanced by Luther's 
arguments, and which sometimes almost 
shook the confidence of the landgrave in his 
intentions. Philip once bluntly asked the 
elector, what he had to look to from him if he 
were attacked. =* 

But it gradually became evident how little 
was to be expected from these negotiations. 
It was clear that the Protestants would not, 
as the electoral prince had assumed in his 
project of a league, have to deal with the 
States alone. Even in the instructions given 
by the elector to his envoys to Schwabach, it 
was said, " the great danger will now be in 
the highest places."! 

The further question now presented itself, 
how far it was generally lawful to resist the 
authority of the emperor. Till this was an- 
swered, all union and combination was vain, 
whatever might be the conformity of opinion 
in other respects. 

Saxony remarked with justice that, until 
they were agreed on this indispensable point, 
any alliance must be merely apparent, would 
inspire no confidence, and afford no security. 

Did not the supreme power reside in the 
emperor? Were they not bound by the 
words of Scripture, to which they were con- 
stantly appealing, to pay him unqualified obe- 
dience ? 

These questions were examined in Saxony 
itself with scrupulous earnestness. The jurists 
rested their arguments on the principle of law, 
that self-defence is permitted • they justified 
resistance. The question was then submitted 
to the theologians; and, in the absence of 
Luther and Melanchthon, who were then at 
ISlarburg. Bugenhagen, upon whom the deci- 
sion devolved, brought a theological argument 
to support those of the jurists. He declared 
that if a power, however unquestionably de- 
rived from God, set itself in opposition to 
God, it could no longer be regarded as the 
sovereign authority. 

Luther, on his return, gave a totally different 
opinion. He thought that the maxims of law 
which countenanced resistance were contra- 
dicted by others which forbade it, while the 
latter were supported by Scripture. If re- 
sistance to every prince who disobeys God's 
word were to be permitted, people would at 
last reject all authority whatever at their own 
discretion. 

This opinion was shared by the theologians 
of Nürnberg. Johann Brenz gave in a report 
to the markgrave to that effect. 

The conflict was in fact between the doc- 
trines of passive obedience, and of the right 
of resistance. 

^ We knovc how greatly these doctrines, espe- 
cially in their connexion with religion, con- 
tributed to the development of political theo- 
1 ies in Europe ; it is worthy of remark that 
they were first brought into discussion in Ger- 
many, and at so early a period. 

But the time was not yet come for the vast 



* Rommel Urkundenbuch, No. 9. 

t Instructions for Schwabach. Müller, 282. 



consequences with which they were pregnant 
to be felt. In another age and country they 
touched the vital point upon which the de- 
velopment of such theories entirely turns, viz. : 
the relation between sovereign and subject: 
in Germany this was not even agitated ] the 
doubt referred only to the relation of a subor- 
dinate to a supreme government : of a prince 
of the empire to the emperor. 

In Germany the question turned upon the 
principles of public law peculiar to the em- 
pire, rather than upon those which are com- 
mon to all states. Its real bearing was, whether 
the supreme power of the empire was of a 
monarchical or an aristocratical nature. 

Luther, who saw in the imperial power the 
continuation of that of ancient Rome, as re- 
presented in Scripture, adhered firmly to the 
idea of monarchy there exhibited. He com- 
pared the relation between the elector his 
master and the emperor, with that between 
a bürgermeister of Torgau and the elector. 
Brenz was of opinion that the princes were 
as little justified in taking arms against the 
emperor, as the peasants against the nobles 
and prelates. 

These comparisons, however, clearly show 
how little the essential question was defined. 
On the other side it was contended, that there 
was no resemblance between the princes of 
Germany and the Roman prefects of the Scrip- 
ture ; not to speak of bürgermeisters and 
peasants. They were subject to the emperor 
under certain conditions insuring their freedom, 
and rights; with certain limitations, and ac- 
cording to the privileges originally granted 
them. Moreover, they were themselves sove- 
reigns, and it was their duty as such to defend 
the Gospel. rj: 

At the Congress of Nürnberg, the Chancel- 
lor of Saxony declared (but under the express 
proviso that it was only his personal opinion), 
that he was convinced of the legality of re- 
sistance to the emperor. He adduced the two 
arguments we have just mentioned; in the 
first place, that the power of the princes was 
no less derived from God than that- of the em- 
peror ; and secondly, that if the emperor de- 
sired to compel them to return to Popery, he 
was to be regarded in the light of an enemy, 
and no such compulsion w^as to be endured. 

These arguments, however, found little ap- 
probation. As he was one day going to his 
chancery, Spengler,' the secretary of the city 
of Nürnberg, whom we have had occasion to 
mention as a man of great experience in legal 
affairs, went up to him and accused him of 
error. They fell into a vehement altercation, 
which, however, they had the discretion to 
carry on in Latin, that it might not be under- 
stood by the bystanders. 

Brandenburg was of the same mind as Niirn- 
berg. Chancellor Vogler affirmed that his 
master had determined, if the emperor in- 



X Answer to the scruple put forth ; that no resistance 
mav be otFered to his imperial majesty. Hortleder (ii. ii. 
12) "places this at "about 1531:" but as it relates to the 
opposition experienced by the last of the protesting dele- 
gations, I incline to think it must be dated at the end of 
1329, or the beginning of 1530. 



Chap. VI. 



THE OTTOMANS BEFORE VIENNA. 



341 



vaded his dominions, not to defend himself, 
but to bear whatever it might please God to 
lay upon him. 

This opinion obtained permanent ascen- 
dancy, even in Saxony. Luther declared, that 
even if the emperor violated his oath, he was 
still emperor — the sovereign authority, set 
over them by God : if they were determined 
no longer to obey, they must dethrone him. 
But to what could it lead if they took up arms 
against him ? Whoever conquered, must expel 
him and become emperor in his stead, which 
could be endured by no one. 

The only counsel Luther could give was, 
that if the emperor had recourse to violence, 
the princes must not indeed assist him, for 
that would be to sin against the true faith; 
but they must not refuse to allow him to enter 
their territory, and to act there according to 
his will. He repeated, that if the emperor 
summoned him and the other reformers, they 
M'ould be forthcoming : the emperor need have 
no anxiety on that account. For every man 
must hold his belief at his own risk and peril. 

Thus a few months sufficed to put an end 
to a league which seemed destined to con- 
vulse Europe. It was entirely dissolved. Even 
the territorial alliance did not seem able to 
afford protection against the emperor. We 
perceive that the several sovereigns and states 
thought themselves again bound to act and to 
suffer single-handed. 

It is very easy to repeat the censure that 
has so often been thrown upon this decision. 
It was certainly not the part of political pru- 
dence. 

But never was a course of action more 
purely conscientious, more regardless of per- 
sonal consequences, more grand and magnani- 
mous. 

These noble men saw the enemy approach ; 
they heard his threats ; they were under no 
illusion as to his views; they were almost 
persuaded that he would attempt the worst 
against them. 

"They had an opportunity of forming a league 
against him which would shake Europe, at 
the head of which they might oppose a for- 
midable resistance to his projects of universal 
domination, and make an appeal to fortune ; 
but they would not — they disdained the at- 
tempt. 

Not out of fear or mistrust of their own 
strength and valour; — these are considera- 
tions unknown to souls like theirs. They 
were withheld by the power of religion alone. 

First, because they v\-ould not mix up the 
defence of the faith with interests foreign to 
it, nor allow themselves to be hurried into 
things whiöh they could not foresee. 

Secondl}-, they would defend no faith but 
that which they themselves held ; they would 
have feared to commit a sin if they connected 
themselves with,those who differed from them : 
— on one point only, it is true, but that one of 
the highest importance. 

Lastly, they doubted their right to resist 
their sovereign and head, and to trouble the 
long-established order of the empire. 
2d* 



Thus, in the midst of the jarring interests 
of the world, they took up a position coun- 
selled only by God and their own consciences, 
and there they calmly awaited the danger. 
"For God is faithful and true/'" says Luther, 
•'and will not forsake us.'^ He quotes the 
words of Isaiah, '-'Be ye still, and ye shall be 
holpen."' 

Unquestionably this is not prudent, but it is 
o-reat. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE OTTOMANS BEFORE VIENNA. 

The results of the two diets of 1526 and 
1529 were not less diametrically opposed than 
were their decrees. 

The former led the evangelical party, pro- 
tected and sanctioned by the empire, to lay 
the great foundations of their future exist- 
ence; the latter not only withdrew this pro- 
tection, but at the same time divided their 
body. 

The discord which had arisen since the 
publication of the regulations of Nürnberg, 
had now become an open breach. 

I think we shall be justified in affirming 
that the contrast in the consequences of the 
two diets, with relation to foreign affairs, was 
not less complete. 

At the diet of 1526, the house of Austria 
having sanctioned the progress of the evan- 
gelical party, was requited by that cordial 
I assistance of the German nation, which se- 
! cured to it the supreme power over Italy and 
'. Hungary. It was not to be expected that 
' after this house had taken so entirely different 
; a direction, it would receive the same support 
I from the affections of the nation. 

"I have heard,'" says Daniel Mieg (who 
had been excluded from the Council of Re- 
I gency) to the Altammeister of Strasburg, 
I '•' that his majesty has applied for powder : 
! my advice is, not to grant it, since such an 
j affront has been offered us. It were good 
j that we kept our money and our powder too ; 
I we shall want them ourselves.'"* 
j The conduct of the house of Austria — its 
I schemes of conquest and aggrandisement — 
had already excited universal anxiety; people 
had no desire to lend it any serious assist- 
ance. An assessor of the Council of Regency, 
Haramann von Holzhusen, delegate from 
Frankfurt — a city so conspicuous for its loyalty 
to the imperial house — remarks, '-'that many 
of the states, whether they be Lutheran or 
not, do not know what they have to expect 
from Austria; they are afraid the assistance 
they afford may in the end be turned to the 
detriment of the empire and the nation,"! 



* Saturday before Jubilate, 1529. Jung, Biel. No. 37- 
t Spires, Oct. 9. " E. W. werden auch fleissik bedenken 
und ermessen die schwinnen (geschwinden) liiuf und 
brattig (Practiken) so in etlich Jaren vorhanden gewest 



342 



SULEIMAN IN HUNGARY. 



Book V. 



A little later we find letters circulating in 
Hungaryj in which the impossibility of Ferdi- 
nand's defending Hungary is inferred from the 
religious quarrels in which he was involved 
with the magnates of Germany.^' 

Such was the state of the public mind when 
the most powerful enemy the empire had en- 
countered for centuries," the representative of 
another woildj the rival and the implacable 
foe of Christendom, appeared on its frontiers. 

It was just about this time that one Katib, 
learned in the law, asserted in Constantinople, 
that the prophet Jesus was to be preferred be- 
fore the prophet Mohammed. The divan be- 
fore whom this innovator was accused, sought 
in vain to confute him, nor was the mufti, to 
whom the matter was then referred, more 
successful ; he, however, tried and sentenced 
him to death. This sentence was entirely 
agreeable to the opinions of the sultan. 

Katib refused to recant, and suffered death 
for the name of Jesus, in the middle of the 
mosque. 

Suleiman's highest ambition was to be re- 
garded as the prophet's vicegerent on earth. 
He was the first of the Ottoman sultans who 
raised Mecca into consideration ; it was he 
who built the sacred house of the Kaaba, re- 
stored the mosque of Chadidscha, constructed 
aqueducts, and established colleges. "I, 
whose power is sustained by the grace of the 
Almighty, by the blessing of the greatest of 
his prophets, by the protection of the first four 
of his favoured disciples; I, the shadow of 
God over both worlds" — such was his manner 
of describing himself in a letter to the King 
of France. His pretensions were in harmony 
with these titles. ^'Dost thou not know," 
said his son-in-law, Mustapha (a. d. 1528), to 
Lasky, "that our lord is next to Allah? That 
as there is only one sun in the heavens, so 
also there is only one lord upon earth?" 

At a time when peace was yet unconcluded 
in Europe, when he might expect to find the 
whole combined opposition to Charles V. in 
full activity, on the 4th of May, 1529, Sulei- 
man set out with an army which has been 
reckoned at 250,000 men, to wage a holy war. 
Before him, the Hospodar of Moldavia in- 
vaded Transylvania, and put to rout the fol- 



uiid noch sint, also, das alle Chur und Fürsten, geistlich 
und weltlich, auch ander Prälaten, Herrn, und Stadt, sie 
seyen letters (lutherisch) wie man denn die nennen will 
oder nit, nit wol wissen mö^en, wes siesich versehen sol- 
len, und also das dieselhig Hilf, so gemelt mein gnst. und 
gf\. Herrn, Chur und Fürsten, auch andre Stende und Stet 
thun werden, dem hilligen Keich und Teutzer Nation und 
inen selber zu grossen unüberwindlichen Schaden und 
nachtail reichen und kommen möge." — " Your worships 
■will also carefully consider and ponder the rapid course 
and practice [of what, is not said] that for some years 
have taken place and still exist ; also, that all electors and 
I)rinces, be they Lutheran, as people are pleased to call 
them, or not, know not what to provide, and also that the 
pame succours which are demanded of my most gracious 
Jords, electors and princes, will be granted by other es- 
tates and cities, to the great and irreparable prejudice and 
damage of the holy empire, German nation, and them- 
selves." He proposes a meeting of the cities, "in order 
to have discourse and counsel concerning this and other 
things, to .agree upon an opinion and what is to be done 
herein, and what answer to be given." 

* Katona, xx. i. p. 634. Rex Ferdinandus propter dis- 
sensionem suam cum imperio et aliis magnatibus Ale- 
raanniee propter fidem, nullum habere potest populum. 



lowers of Ferdinand. Next John Zapolya de- 
scended the Karpathians with the small troop 
that had collected around him; he had the 
good fortune to meet with Ferdinand's party 
in Hungary, before they were joined by the 
Germans, and to defeat them ; he met and 
joined the sultan on the battle-field of Mo- 
hacz. Suleiman asked him what had induced 
him to come to him, notwithstanding the dif- 
ference of their faith. "The Padischah," an- 
sw^ered John, "is the refuge of the world, and 
his servants are innumerable, both moslems 
and unbelievers." Zapolya, repulsed by the 
pope and by Christendom, fled to the protec- 
tion of the sultan. This need of others for 
momentary protection had made the Ottoman 
empire what it was. 

In Hungary, Suleiman experienced little or 
no resistance. The Austrian government did 
not dare to call out the light cavalry: it feared, 
in the unfavourable state of the public m,ind, 
that this might lead to disturbances. But it 
was wholly incapable of defending the coun- 
try by its own resources. The commander 
of the fleet, who owed his men 40,000 guld., 
had the greatest difficulty in getting together 
800. Means were not forthcoming even to 
garrison the fortresses. 

Suleiman's wezir laughed at the princes of 
the West, who were forced to extort money 
from the wretched peasants before they could 
make war; he pointed to the seven towers, in 
w^hich his master had gold and silver lying in 
vast heaps, while his word was sufficient to 
place a countless army in the field. 

It is little wonder that, under these circum- 
stances, the strong party that adhered to Za- 
polya was completely triumphant. The mag- 
nates — the Hungarian Beys, as they are called 
in Suleiman's journal — rivalled each other in 
the alacrity with which they repaired to his 
camp to kiss his hand. Peter Pereny endea- 
voured at least to rescue the holy crown for 
Austria ; but he was attacked on the road by 
the Bishop of Fünfkirchen, a kinsman of 
Zapolya's, who took him prisoner Avith all the 
regalia, and carried ' them to the Ottoman 
camp.t The extraordinary veneration with 
which the Hungarians regard their crown is 
well known. They believe it to have been 
sent down from heaven, and affirm that, at 
the sight of it, drawn swords have leaped 
back into their scabbards. " The loadstone 
does not more strongly attract the iron," says 
Rewa, " than the crown does the reverence 
of the Hungarians, and they hold it to be their 
duty to escort it whithersoever it may be 
borne, without heeding cost or danger, :|: The 
Turkish notion was, that it had been handed 
down from Nuschirwan the Just; and this 
palladium, in which the Hungarians beheld a 
divine symbol of their nationality and their 
kingdom, was now in Suleiman's camp, and 
accompanied his army. . 

In this universal defection, it could hardly 



t Zermegh, Historia rerum inter Johannem et Ferdi- 
nandum gestarum. Schwandtner. ii. lib. i.§ 12. 

J Rewa, De sacra corona regni Hungariae ; Schwandtner 
ii. 456. See Tuberonis Commentarii. Ibid. 113, 114. 



'. VII. 



SULEIMAN IN GERMANY, 



343 



be expected that the German garrisons would 
be able to defend the few strong places they 
still occupied. There were about 700 newly 
raised landsknechts under Colonel Besserer, 
in Ofen, who held out against several assaults; 
J3ut when the city was taken, and the castle 
of St. Gerhardsberg, which cornnnanded it. was 
nearly in ruins, they despaired of being able 
to resist the enemy's lire with their long- 
lances, and held themselves justified in con- 
sulting their own safety; they forced their 
leader to capitulate. But they knew not the 
enemy with whom they had to deal : Ibrahim 
Pacha promised, in the most solemn manner, 
that they should march out free; they had not 
reached"^ the gates of Ofen, when they vrere 
all cat to pieces.* 

From this moment the barbarian torrent 
rolled unresisted towards the German frontier: 
'■towards a land." says the Ottoman historian, 
" which had never yet been trodden by the 
hoof of a Moslem steed." 

The mighty power of the East, erected on 
kingdoms the civilization of which was either 
in the state of undeveloped infancy or of 
semi-barbarised decay, here first came in con- 
tact w^ith the very heart of western life, where 
the unceasing progression of the human mind 
had taken root, and was in full activity. 

No sooner had they set foot in Germany, 
than the Ottomans found they had a different 
foe before them from any they had yet en- 
countered. 

They describe it as a country of Giaours 
(they make no distinctions between infidels). 
a woody land, difficult to traverse ; but they 
remark that it is peculiarly illumined by the 
torches of unbelief; inhabited by a warlike 
people, marching under fierce banners, and 
defended on all sides by castles, cities, and 
walled churches; they are struck with the 
fact that as soon as they had passed the fron- 
tier, they found every necessary of daily life 
in the greatest abundance. t They felt the 
presence of a people thoroughly imbued with 
civilisation, surrounded with the comforts of 
a long-settled population, brave and religious. 

Ibrahim toJd the Austrian ambassadors the 
following year, that the warning they had sent 

* The groundlessness of the somewhat dramatic and 
dressed-out lamentations of Ursinus Velius (lib. vi.)— that 
the Landsknechts had, on this occasion, forgotten the old 
German valour— which have found their way into modern 
histories, appears, the monieiit we recur to some simpler 
statement ; as, for example, that of the tutor of the pages 
(Pagenhofaieister) in Schardius iii. 22$: — " Arx ad volup- 
tatem magis quam vim instructa erat," etc. : or that of 
Sebast Frank (which is, by the by, identical with a 
pamphlet of that time), p. 256, where he says, the castle 
was garrisoned by four companies (Fähnlein), " die nitt 
so vil man oder einzelich personen vermochten, als der 
Turk tausend; noch hat er eilf gewaltiger stürm davon 
verloren, dass er meynetes wereu eitel Teufel im Schloss." 
— "Who were not so many men or single persons strong. 
as the Turks were thousands ; yet were these repulsed in 
eleven violent assaults, so that they thought there were 
nothing but devils in the castle." " Wo die nit gewest," 
adds Pessel, " wer vielleicht die Stat Wien übereilet wor- 
den."— "Had they not been there, the city of Vienna 
would perhaps have been taken." "Achthundert frummer 
deutscher knecht, Die hielten sich redlich und recht ;" says 
the song of Soltau, p. 337. 

t Ssoloksade in Hammer, Wiens erste türkische Bela- 
gerung, p. lOl. See Suleiman's Journal, S!-2d Sept., Osman. 
Gesch. iii. 650. 



the sultan, not to advance further, for that Fer- 
dinand their lord stood ready, sword in hand, 
to receive him, had served only to inflame 
Saleiman with fresh ardour to seek him out. 
He had expected to find him in Ofen, where 
he thought a king of Hungary ought lo hold 
his seat ; but in this he had been disappointed. 
He had then advanced to the Austrian fron- 
tier, where he thought Ferdinand would wait 
for him; on the contrar)-, the keys of Brück 
were carried out to meet him on his approach. 
Thus he reached Vienna, but there, too, he 
found neither Ferdinand nor his army; he 
only learned that the king had fled to Linz or 
Prague. At the sight of Vienna, so beautifully 
surrounded by vineyards and mountains, and 
yet lying in the midst of a fertile plain, he 
said that here he would rest ; this was a place 
worthy of an emperor ; he had spread out his 
skirts (i. e. he had allowed his light troops to 
disperse on all sides), to show that the real 
emperor was come in his might. J 

Such is the description of the event, given 
by Suleiman himself in a letter to Venice. 
He relates hov/ he had taken Ofen, and made 
himself master of Hungary, and given it to 
King John ; and how the ancient crown of 
that kingdom had fallen into his hands. "My 
purpose, however," he says, "'was not to 
seek these things, but to encounter King Fer- 
dinand. "§ He told the first German prisoners 
that were brought him, that he would seek 
out Ferdinand, even if he were in the centre 
of Germany. 

On the 20th September, he arrived befare 
Vienna, and pitched his camp there. From 
the lofty tower of St. Stephen's church nothing 
was to be descried for miles, over hill and 
dale, but tents, and the Danube covered with 
Turkish sails. The place is still pointed out 
near Sommering, where Suleiman's own tent 
stood, the internal magnificence of which may 
be inferred from the golden balls and tassels 
with which its exterior was decorated. He 
encamped in the same order as he had march- 
ed. The troops from the Porte immediately 
surrounded him; behind him lay the Ana- 
tolian army under its Beglerbeg, extending as 
far as Schwechat; before him, the Seraskier 
Ibrahim, with the European Sipahis, the 
Rumeliotes and Bosniaks, and the Sandschaks 
of Mostar and Belgrade. For, in a country 
where the state is nothing else but the army, 
the distribution of the camp represents that 
of the empire. The Hungarians, who rivalled 
the other subjects of Suleiman in their zeal 
" to adorn themselves with the collar of 
obedience," already found their place in this 
great assemblage. It consisted of western 
Asia and eastern Europe, in the form they 
had assumed, and were still assuming, under 
the influence of conquering Islam ; they now 
made their first attempt on the heart of Chris- 
tian Europe. The light troops ascended the 

j Lamberg und Juriscliitsch in Gevay, 1530, p. 36. In 
Latin, agreeing in the main, but with some peculiarities, 
p. 80. 

§ Copia della lettera del Sultan Solimano. Belgr. 9th 
Nov. Hammer, Belagerung, p. 77. 



344 



LUTHER'S OPINION. 



Book V. 



Danube in search of the fabulons bridge of 
the horned Alexander — the boundary of the 
fantastic world of oriental mythology. The 
beast of burthen of the Arabian desert vras 
driven up to the walls of a German city, laden 
with provisions and munitions of war ; there 
were 22^000 camels in the camp. The me- 
mory of those who fell before Vienna is still 
celebrated with oriental pomp. Potschewi 
says in his history, speaking of Iskendert- 
schausch Farfara, that '' immediately on his 
arrival here, he drank of the cup of Islamite 
martyrdom, and forgot the world." For the 
Turkish army believed itself to be waging a 
holy war against ^4he infidels, who were like 
dust before it." In full view of the grandest 
castle of the latest German emperors, the doc- 
trine of the sublime Porte was proclaimed ; 
that, as there was only one God in heaven, 
there must be only one lord on earth ; and 
Suleiman gave it to be understood that he 
was this lord; he declared that he would not 
lay his head to rest till he had reduced Chris- 
tendom to subjection with his sword. It was 
rum.oured that he reckoned on a three years' 
absence from Constantinople for the execution 
of this design. 

Europe was not so dull of apprehension as 
not to feel the magnitude of the danger. 

It was a crisis like that when the Arabians 
had got possession of the Mediterranean, con- 
quered Spain, and pressed on towards France ; 
or like that when the Mongolian power, after 
overwhelming the north-east and south-east 
of Europe, attacked Christian Germany on the 
Danube and the Oder. Europe was evidently 
now stronger: it was conscious that it possess- 
ed the power " to drive these devils (so they 
were called) out of Greece;" but the neces- 
sary union seemed impossible. 

There is a letter of Francis I., of this period, 
in which he declares, that he would now put 
in execution the purpose he had always che- 
rished, of devoting all the powers of his king- 
dom and his person to the war against the 
Turks ; he hoped to move his brother of Eng- 
land to do the same ; he thought that he could 
then bring 60,000 m.en into the field — a force 
that certainly was not to be despised. He ex- 
presses himself with such warmth that h^ ap- 
pears to be really in earnest; but he adds a 
condition which nullifies the whole. He pro- 
poses that the emperor should remit one of the 
two millions which he was bound by treaty to 
pay him — a, proposition to which nobody could 
expect the emperor to accede. =* 

The imperial court, too, w-here the danger 
was still more urgent, and where the Ottoman 
maxim, that every country through which the 
sultan marched belonged to him, became of 
terrible practical importance, was employed 
in devising means for rousing the whole of 
Christendom to arms. The expedient sug- 
gested is very remarkable. Hoogstraten, the 



* Lettres de Gilles de Pommeraye, MS. Bethune, 8619. 
En cas que led. empereur, pour m'ayder ä souldoyer les 
gens que je raenerois en ma compaignie, me voulust sur 
lesd. 2 millions d'escus en rabattre ung million, je me 
faisois fort, etc. 



leading minister in the Netherlands, once 
opened himself on the subject to the French 
ambassador. He said, the true way of resist- 
ing the Turks was to bring the pope to con- 
sent to a universal scheme of secularisation. 
A third of the church property, sold to the 
highest bidders, would suffice to bring an 
army into the field, capable of driving out the 
Turks and reconquering Greece. | 

It is only necessary to look at these propo- 
shions, in order to see their impracticability ; 
to see how impossible it was to carry through 
an undertaking burthened with conditions so 
remote and visionary. 

If Germany meant to defend itself, it was 
evident that it must look to its own resources 
alone. 

But even here things wore a very doubtful 
aspect. It was a question whether there were 
not people so dissatisfied with the existing 
order of things, as to wish even for Turkish 
rule. Luther himself had once said that it 
was not the duty of a Christian to resist the 
Turks, whom he ought rather to regard as the 
scourge of God : this indeed was one of the 
sentences condemned in the papal bull. And 
now the results of the diet of Spires were cal- 
culated to excite the alarm of all the adhe- 
rents of a reform in the church, and, as we 
have seen, to incline them to question whe- 
ther they ought to afford assistance to Ferdi- 
nand — the head of the very majority by vrhich 
their own just demands had been rejected. 

As to Luther, it is true that he used the ex- 
pression just quoted ; but in this passage he 
speaks only of Christians, as such : — of the re- 
ligious principle abstracted from all other con- 
siderations, such as it is exhibited in somiC 
passages of the gospel. His indignation and 
disgust had been excited by the hypocritical 
outcry for war against the Turks, for the sake 
of the Christian religion, and the appeals to 
the faithful lor contiibutions which were ap- 
plied to very different purposes. J In short, 
he utterly abjured warhke Christianity; he 
would not bring religion into so close a con- 
nection with the sword. But when it came to 
be a question of real danger, and of aiding the 
efforts of the civil power to resist that danger, 
he declared in the most emphatic manner, 
that it was a positive duty to oppose the pro- 
gress of the Turks. For that cause was the 
empire entrusted to the emperor; he and the 
princes would otherwise be guilty of the 
blood of their subjects, which God would re- 
quire at their hands. He thinks it strange, 



t Q,ue ces deux princes conduisisscnt le pape jusques ä 
ce point que 1° il se coistente de ce qu'il a, 2^ qu'il per- 
niette qu'a realise des six mille due. de rente on preigne 
les deux universellement par tonte la Ciiretiente : les 
quelles seront vendus au plus oflrant, et avec I'argent que 
les princes fourniront (for they were to do something) 
sera süffisant pour deloger ce diabie rie la Grece, qui seroit 
grandement accroistre Feglise d'y adjoindre un tel pays 
que celui la. Lettre de Pommeraye', 17 Sept. 

I " Therefore they should desist from urging and goad- 
ing, as the emperor and princes have been hitherto urged, 
to the conflict with the Turks, on the plea that, being the 
head of Christendom, the protector of the church, and de- 
fender of the faith, he ought to extirpate the religion of 
the Turks. Vom Kriege wider die Türken. Published 
about Easter, 1529. Altenb. iv. 525. 



Chap. VII. 



SIEGE OF VIENNA. 



345 



that the assembly at Spires was so much 
troubled whether people ate meat in Lent, or 
whether a uun got married, while it let the 
Turk advance, and conquer cities and coun- 
tries at his pleasure. He calls on the princes 
no longer to regard the banner of the emperor 
merely as a piece of silk, but to follow it, as 
was their duty, to the field. With a view to 
convert those who wished for the government 
of the Turks, he takes the trouble to set forth 
all the abommations of the Koran. He ex- 
horts the people to march forth boldly in the 
name of the emperor: ''he who dies in the 
performance of this duty," says he, •' will be 
well pleasing to God." 

In treatnig of this great peril of the German 
nation, we rnay be permitted to record the opi- 
nion of the man whose voice was at the time 
more potential than any other. The address 
on the Turkish war exhibits, in all its pene- 
trating acuteness, the spirit whose grand task 
it was to separate the ecclesiastical and tem- 
poral elements. 

So much at least he effected, that the pro- 
testers, though in actual dread of war and 
violence on the part of the majority, and 
though they had" not assented to the resolu- 
tions of the diet, made the same preparations 
for the defence of the country as the others. 
Even Elector John sent several thousand men 
mto the field under the command of his son.* 

From every side succours hurried to -join the 
general-in-chief of the empire, Count Palatine 
Frederic, who meanwhile had come up with 
King Ferdinand at Linz.t 

These troops were, however, far from being 
strong enough to attack the Ottoman camp, 
especially during the first panic. The em- 
peror, who heard in Genoa that Suleiman was 
not coming thither, did not find himself in a 
condition to hasten with his Spaniards to the 
assistance of Vienna, as he had promised. 

For the present, therefore, all depended on 
the ability of the garrison of Vienna to resist 
the barbarians. 

It is worth our while to pause a moment 
over the particulars of this siege, which at 
the time engrossed the attention of the world, 
and was indeed pregnant with the most im- 
portant consequences. Had Suleiman con- 
quered Vienna, he would have found means 
to fortify it in such a manner that it would not 
have been easy to recover it from his grasp. 
From this admirable post, he would have 
commanded the whole territory of the Middle 
Danube. 

Nor are we to imagine that Vienna was a 
very strong place. It was surrounded- by a 
ruinous wall, without any of the defences 
contrived by the modern art of fortification ; 
without even bastions upon which artillery, 
commanding the enemy's camp, could have 
been planted. The ditches were without 
water. The commanders of the army of 
Lower Austria had at first doubted whether 

* Spalatin Vita Johannis Electoris in Mencken, ii. 1117. 

t Hubert Thomas Leodius de vita Friderici, p. 119, lite- 
rally transcribed in Melchior Soiter de Vinda Bellum 
Pannonicum, lib. i. Schardius, iii. p. 250. 
44 



they could defend the ''wide-spread, unculti- 
vated spots-" for a moment they thought they 
would rather await the enemy in the open 
field, so that, in case of need, they could fall 
back upon the fresh troops which the count 
palatine and the king were busied in collect- 
ing; at last, however, they had come to the 
conclusion that they must not surrender their 
ancient capital, and had resolved to burn the 
suburbs, in order to preserve the city within 
the walls. 

But though the fortifications were feeble, 
Maximilian's passion for gunnery now, so long 
after his death, stood his capital in good stead. 
Not only in the citadel, and behind the loop- 
holes which had been pierced in the walls, 
but on all the towers of the city gates, on the 
houses, on the walls (which were first un- 
roofed), under the roofs, nay, in the very dor- 
mitories of the convents, falconets, culverins, 
mortars, nightingales, and other kinds of artil- 
lery stood ready to receive the enemy's as- 
sault. 

The garrison consisted of five regiments; 
four German (two of which were raised at the 
cost of the empire, and two by Ferdinand 
himself) and one Bohemian, The troops of 
the empire, under Count Palatine Philip, Fre- 
deric's lieutenant, occupied the wall from the 
Red Tower to the Carinthian gate; from hence 
the king's troops, under Eck von Reischach 
and Leon hard von Fels, extended to the Scots' 
gate. They were people of every variety of 
German race; among them many eminent 
Austrians, besides Brabanters, Rhinelanders, 
men of Meissen and of Hamburg, and espe- 
cially Franconians and Swabians; we find cap- 
tains from Memmingen, Nürnberg, Ansbach, 
and Bamberg; a master of the watch from 
Gelnhausen; the schultheiss (m^agistrate) of 
the whole army was from Frundsberg, terri- 
tory of Mindelheim, and the chief provost 
from Ingoldstadt. The Bohemians occupied 
the ground from the Scots' gate to the Red 
Tovver, A few" parties of horsemen were 
posted about on the open places within the 
city, under the excellent captains Nicolas von 
Salm, William von Rogendorf, and Hans Kat- 
zianer. There might be sixteen or seventeen 
thousand men in all. 

Whether these troops would be able to re- 
sist an enemy so enoiTnoushr superior in num- 
bers, was, however, very doubtful. 

Suleiman sent a miessage to the garrison, 
promising that if they would surrender the 
city to him, he would neither enter it himself, 
nor allow any of his troops to do so, but would 
continue his march in search of the king. 
But if they refused, he was well assured that 
on the third day from the present (jMichael- 
mas day), there would be no dnmer eaten in 
Vienna ; on that day, he would not spare the 
babe in its mother's v\'omb. 

According to the ballads and tales of the 
time, the answer of the garrison was. that he 
might come to dinner when he would, they 
would dress it for him with culverines and 
halberts. But this is not true. Their minds 
were not sufficiently at ease to send so bold 



846 



SIEGE OF VIENNA. 



Book V.. 



and haughty a reply. '-'The answer," says 
an authentic report of the general, '-stuck 
m our pen." They made the most earnest 
preparations for defence, but by no means 
with the persuasion that they should conquer. 
They saw tlie extent of the danger, but were 
determined to brave it.* 

Suleiman had therefore no other alternative 
than to take the city by force. 

First, the Janissaries posted themselves, 
with their battle-axes and firelocks, behind 
the walls of the ruined suburbs; they were 
excellent marksmen, and had v.äth them a 
company of expert archers: no one could ven- 
ture to appear on the walls or battlements, for 
the assailants commanded the whole circuit 
of the town, and the gables of the nearest 
houses bristled with arrows. 

Amidst the dust and noise caused by this 
discharge of weapons, the Ottomans now pre- 
pared a very different attack. Whoever was 
their master, — whether, as it was said, an Ar- 
menian, or of what other nation, — it is certain 
that one of the most formidable of their arts 
of besieging was the undermining of the 
walls. t The men of the West were asto- 
nished when they afterwards beheld these 
mines, whh entrances as narrow as a door, 
and gradually widening; not like the mines 
they were accustomed to work for metals, but 
smooth, regular, spacious caverns, so con- 
structed that the walls must fall inwards. 
The Turks had but little artillery, and this 
was the art which they now brought to bear 
upon Vienna. But they had here to do with 
a people well skilled in subterranean works. 
The garrison soon perceived the enemy's de- 
signs ; vessels of water and drums were placed 
so as to betray the slightest motion of the 
earth ; romantic stories are still told how peo- 
ple watched and listened in every cellar and 
underground room, and countermined accord- 
ingly. It was a sort of subterraneous war. 
On the second of October a half-finished mine 
of the enemy's was found and destroyed. 
Another was soon after discovered, at the very 
moment when they were beginning to fill it 
with powder. The miners sometimes came 
so near that they could hear each other work ; 
the Turks then turned in another direction. 
In order at all events to secure the Carinthian 
gate, the Germans thought it necessary to 
surround it with a ditch of sufficient depth; 
but this, of course, was not possible in all 
places. 

On the 9th of October, the Turks succeeded 
in blowing up a considerable portion of the 
M-all between the Carinthian gate and the 
citadel, and at the same moment they rushed 
to the storm amidst tha wildest battle-cries. 

But the besieged were already prepared. 
Eck von Reischach, who had learned at Pavia 



* Journal of the s)e?e : Hammer, p. 66. Cleaiij' an offi- 
cial repoii, as the postscript and the whole form show; 
drawn up on the 19th October. 

t At a Inter period Marsicrii took great pains to ascer- 
tain th^proceedinffs of the Turks on tliis occasion. See 
Stato militare degli Ottonianni, ii. c. xi. p. 37. The corps 
of the Lagumdschi— miners— received fiefs, not pay, and 
were therefore held in greater honour. Hammer, Staats- 
verfassung der Osm, ii. 233. 



how to receive an assault, had described to 
his people the rush and shouts of a storming 
party, and how it was to be met. We are 
told by a contemporary, that Reischach's in- 
structions gave his young landsknechts "a 
brave and manly heart ;" it is certain that they 
stood admirably. They answered the Otto- 
man war-cry with a tremendous, " Come on !" 
{Her!) Halberts, firelocks, and cannon sup- 
ported each other with the best results. '-The 
balls of the carronades and muskets," says 
Dschelalsade, " flew like flocks of small birds 
through the air; it was a banquet at which 
the genii of Death filled the glasses." The 
German accounts dwell particularly on the 
valour displayed by the aged Salm, the com- 
mander of the army of Lower Austria, at this 
moment. + The Ottomans sustained such a 
murderous loss, that they were compelled to 
retreat. The ruined walls were instantly re- 
stored as far as possible. 

But the enemy sought to repair this check 
by an attack on the other side of the Carinthian 
gate. After many false alarms, he blew up a 
considerable portion of the wall leading to the 
Stubenthor, and immediately made another 
attempt at storming. His columns were now 
more closely formed. The Asafs and Janis- 
saries had been reinforced by Sipahis of Al- 
banian origin, from Janina and Awlona ; 
armed with their crooked sabres and amall 
shields, they rushed forward in the van of the 
other troops, over the prostrate walls. But 
here Eck von Reischach, with four small com- 
panies of intrepid landsknechts, threw him- 
self in their way. He was supported, as at 
Pavia, by Spanish soldiers, skilled in the use 
of fire-arms ;§ and by field-marshal William 
von Rogendorf. - They fought hand to hand, 
and the long battle-swords which theGermans 
wielded with both hands, mingled clashing 
with the Tuikish scimeters, A Turkish his- 
torian describes the fires which flashed from 
the encounter. Thrice did the Ottomans re- 
new the assault. Jovius, who described so 
many battles, remarks that hardly had this 
century witnessed a sterner encounter. 11 But 
all the efforts of the Ottomans were vain ; 
they sustained far heavier losses now than 
before. 

This reverse entirely damped their courage. 

On the 12th October they again overthrew 
a part of the city wall ; but when they saw 
the Germans and Spaniards with their banners 
displayed on the other side, they did not ven- 
ture to advance. 

Already had the notion gained ground in 
the Ottoman camp that, in the decrees of the 
IMost High, the conquest of Vienna was not 
for the present destined to Islam. The nights 
were unusually cold for the season, and the 
mountains were covered in a morning with 

t Especially in the Jnnrnal in Anton, p. 34; concerning 
Reischach, see p. 32, 4th October. 

§ See especially the first Venetian Report in Hammer, 
p. ]5S; he mentions Roeendorf, Erich de Rays, et alcuni 
nobili con 4 bandiere de fanti insieme cum Ii Spagnoli. 

\l Jovius, 28, 69, generally follows private accounts. The 
mention of the Count of Oettingen shows that he speakä 
of the nth of October. 



Chap. VIL 



DISCONTENTS AMONG THE IMPERIALISTS, 



"347 



hoar-frost ;* they thought with anxiety on the 
length and danger of the way back, and re- 
membered that no preparation was made for 
the three years' absence of which Suleiman 
had spoken. Added to this, there were ru- 
mours of approaching rehef. An army of the 
hereditary subjects of Austria was assembhng 
in Moravia, while armaments were actively 
making in the circles of the Swabian league. 
Schartlin boasts what admirable soldiers he 
recruited in Wiirtenberg. Count Palatine Fre- 
deric, who had remained in the neighbour- 
hood of Vienna, assumed a more menacing- 
attitude. The peasants had already begun 
successfully to resist the bands of skirmishers. 
Suleiman perceived what would be his posi- 
tion if he were attacked here, in a hostile 
country, without any fortified places, and in 
the bad season, by an enemy whose valour he 
had now learned to appreciate. He deter- 
mined to make one last attempt on Vienna, 
and if that failed, immediately to raise the 
siege and retreat. He chose a day which he 
reg-arded as lucky, the 14th of October, — the 
day on which the sun enters the Scorpion. 
Exactly at noon he assembled a large part of 
his army within sight of the walls. Tschausche 
proclaimed rewards, mines were sprung, 
breaches opened, and the signal for storming 
was given. But the soldiers had lost all con- 



forces besides himself, and beyond his power 
to subdue. 

For the moment, however, he had reason to 
console himself; he had wrested Hungary 
from the Germans. John Zapolya received 
the sacred crown from the hands of the Otto- 
man authorities ; though called king, he was 
in fact only a lieutenant of the sultan. 

It might have been thought that Ferdinand 
would take advantage of the disorder of this 
retreat, and of the army collected for the re- 
lief of Vienna, to reconquer the kingdom ; and 
in fact the frontier towns, Altenburg, Trent- 
schin, &c. fell into his hands; but the castle 
of Gran held out, and the troops which came 
up were far too weak to recover Ofen.§ The 
cause of this failure is evident enough ; — the 
king had no money. It v\'Ould have required 
at least 20,000 gulden to set the troops in 
motion ; he could raise only 1400 gulden (and 
even that sum in base coin), and a few thou- 
sand gulden worth of cloth. The discontent 
was universal. The Tyrolese, who were 
urgently entreated to take part in this enter- 
prise, had unanimously refused ; the people 
flatly declared they had no mind to serve any 
longer. II Suleiman, on retiring from before 
Vienna, had rewarded the Janissaries for their 
efforts, however unsuccessful, with rich gifts ; 
while the landsknechts, who had so gallantly 



fidence; they were driven forward almost by and so successfully defended the city, were 
force, and then came within range of the guns not paid even the storming-money [Sturmsold) 
on the walls, so that whole ranks fell without to which they had a sort of right. The con- 
even seeing the enemy. Towards evening a i sequence was, a violent mutiny broke out 
band was seen to advance from the vineyards, i among them. Such being the state of things 
and instantly to retire again. t | in the imperial army, their adversaries in 

Hereupon a general retreat began : the Ana- j Hungary were soon predominant. In the upper 
tolians now formed the main guard ; in the districts we find several German captains of 
night the sultan himself struck his tent ; the note (especially that Nickel I\Iinkwitz, who 
Janissaries set fire to their encampments in j gave the Elector of Brandenburg so much 
the suburbs, and hastened to accompany their j frouble) in the service of Zapolya; from Kes- 
lord. A few days afterwards Ibrahim followed mark he traversed the country and set fire to 
with the rest of the European troops. j Leutschau.l JMean while the Turks made an 

irruption over the Bosnian frontier, and Croatia 
was in danger of falling into their hands ; a 
disaster, the consequences of which extended 
even to the remoter parts of the country. In 
Bohemia, Zapolya had so many warm sup- 
porters, even among the most considerable 
men of the kingdom, that when Ferdinand 
went to Prague, at the end of January, 1530, 
he cameto the conviction that he must get rid 
of all those who had any share in the govern- 
ment, if he meant to be master of the country.** 
This disastrous state of things, however, only 
proves more strongly the immeasurable im- 
portance of the defence of Vienna. 

The emperor advised his brother to con- 



It was the first time that an enterprise of 
the victorious sultan had so totally failed. He 
now perceived that he was not, so absolutely 
as his poets boasted, '^ the gold in the mine of 
the world — the soul in the body of the world ;"'| 
that there were other vioorous and invincible 



* Poniis uvisque immaturis ve?cebantur: equi strictis 
arboriiiii frondibus el Vitium pampiiiis tolerabautur. Ur- 
sinus Velius. 

t " Sie haben kurz den Fuxen nicht wollen beissen" (in 
sbort they would not bite the fox), says the official report 
(Hammer, p. GS), which is written with the joyous humour 
of a victorious soldier. Hans Sachs says inhis Historia 
der türkischen Belagerung der Statt Wien, und handluiig 
beyder tail, auf das kürzest ordenlich begriiien (Thl. i. 206), 

"Da sach man naus auf manchem tburn. 
Das die Türken getrieben wurn, 
Von iren waschen mit gewalt, 
IMit saybeln prügeln jung und alt, 
Aus iren hütten und gezelten, 
Aus den Weinbergen und den weiden. 
Das sie anlaufen stürmen solten, 
Das sie sich ärsten und nit wollen." 

"Then the people saw from many a tower that the 
Turks were driven *-ith force from their watches, youns 
and old, with blows of sabres, out of their huts and their 
tents, out of the vineyards and woods ; that they should 
[were ordered to] rush to the assault, and that they halted 
and would not." 

X Baki's Kasside, translated by Hammer, p. 7. 



§ Ursinus Velius, lib. viii. 

Ij Instructions of the military commissaries in Presburj 
for Count Nicholas zu Salm the younger, imperial coun- 
cillor and chamberlain to King Ferdinand: Hormayr, 
Taschenbuch auf 1840, p. 506. 

IT Sperfogel, and the journal of Pastor Moller of Leuts- 
chau, whose own full barns were set on fire, Katona. sx. 
1, p. 540, 546. Minkwitz is here called Xicholaus iWynko- 
witz; he went soon after from Kesmark to Ofen. 

** Letter from' Ferdinand to Charles, 21st January, 
1530, in Gevay, p. 68. Entre tant que ils ont le governe- 
ment, je ne saroie avoir obeisance ne poroie raeintenirla 
justice. 



348 



NEGOTIATIONS IN ITALY. 



Book V. 



elude a truce with the sultan ; sincej at this 
moment, their combined forces were not suf- 
ficient to confront him, and no other prince 
would afford them assistance. 

Nay, even in Italy, he had felt the reaction 
consequent on the triumphs of the Ottoman 
arms. 



/ CHAPTER VIII. 

CHARLES V. IN ITALY. 

Notwithstanding the numerous victories 
obtained by Charles V., notwithstanding their 
sudden abandonment (contrary to all promise) 
by Francis I., the Italian states were still in a 
condition to oppose a formidable resistance to 
the imperial arms. 

Venice was in possession of her entire 
Terra firma, some towns in the States of the 
Church, and several strong places in the Nea- 
politan territory, which she successfully de- 
fended : she kept a noble army in the field, 
which, if it had won no celebrated victory, 
had never been beaten : under the conduct 
of a leader who knew how to satisfy the cau- 
tious and jealous senate, and, at the same 
time, to maintain his ovt'n reputation. Her 
naval power too was in a flourishing condi- 
tion : an expedition was preparing in Corfu 
which was to make a descent on the Neapoli- 
tan coast at Brindisi. 

The Duke of Milan, in spite of long and 
ruinous wars, still held possession of the 
greater part of his country, and (besides some 
less considerable) was master of the strongest 
places at that time in Italy — Cremona, Lodi 
and Alessandria. 

It was hardly to be supposed that the Duke 
of Ferrara, who had defended a territory for- 
tified by nature and art, against innumerable 
attacks, would not now be able to repel his 
enemies. 

Florence was governed by a party resolved 
to maintain their liberties even by a struggle 
for life and death; Michel Angelo Buonarotti, 
himself a member of it, fortified the city with 
a fertility of invention and a skill in the exe- 
cution, which, a century and a half later, 
excited the admiration of a Vauban ;* a sort 
of levy en masse was organised throughout the 
territory. The Florentines were already in 
alliance with Perugia, which they hoped to 
get completely into their hands. They were 
also on tolerably good terms with Siena, which 
was, like Florence,! oppressed by the pope. 

The States of the Church and Naples were 
4 Still in a state of universal disquiet and 
ferment. 

How often had Italy offered successful re- 
sistance to warlike emperors, who crossed the 

* Vasari Vita di Buonarotti. (Vite d. Pitt. X., 110.) 
■j Relatio n.v. Antonii Surianide legTltione Florentina, 
•I5'i9. Et perö cum questo fondamento de inimicitia con 
il papa, queste republiche hanno trattato insierae qualche 
intelligentia. 



Alps with far more powerful armies than that 
at the disposal of Charles, even though they 
were supported by a party in the country! 
Even when an emperor had gained a firm 
footing there, this had only served to unite 
all parties in Italy in a common effort to drive 
him back. Neither valour nor talent, neither 
Frederick I. nor Frederick TL, had been able 
to give stability and permanence to their 
domination. 

And now came this youthful emperor, whose 
pale face and feeble voice — whose frame, 
graceful and healthy, but far from robust', 
gave him rather the air of a courtier than a 
warrior — who had never seen a serious bat- 
tle — and were they to submit to him 1 

The chief circumstance in his favour was, 
that he was closely united with the pope, in 
consequence of the affairs of Florence. On 
his arrival at Venice, the Florentines sent an 
embassy to him, but of course with limited 
powers: since they were determined at all 
events to maintain their actual constitution. 
The emperor answered, that they must, in 
the first place, recall the Medici, and restore 
them to the rank they held before their last 
expulsion.! The young Alessandro, whom he 
destined to be his son-in-law and ruler of 
Florence, was already in his train. § More- 
over, he could not endure a government which 
had always leaned to the Guelph and French 
party. Until, however, this affair was settled, 
the emperor was completely sure of the pope, 
who entei-tained a passionate hatred of the 
enemies of his house in Florence. 

It might possibly occur to Charles V. that 
he might take arms again, and compel his 
divided antagonists to accept his conditions. 
This the intimate friends whom he had con- 
sulted at his departure from Germany, proba- 
bly expected ; for his presence, they averred, 
would be equivalent to an army of ten thou- 
sand men ; the world must be shown that 
nobody could resist where the emperor ap- 
peared in person. Some old captains of the 
Italian wars were also in favour of this course. 
Charles afterwards regretted that he did not 
pursue it, and especially that he did not im- 
mediately enter the Venetian territory; the 
issue of the attempt of the Turks on Vienna 
being what it was, he might then have dic- 
tated a peace. II 

This issue, however, it had been impossible 
to foresee ; and the first effect of the advance 
of the grand sultan was rather to awaken in 



J According to Jacopo Pitti, Apologia de capucci, a MS. 
full of excellent information, the ambassadors had the 
" segreta commissione, di non pregiudicare ne alia liberta 
ne al dominio: il che notificato con piu segretezza a 
Cesare, hebbono per ultima risposta, che se volevano le- 
varsi da dosso la guerra, rimettessero i Medici nello stato 
che erano avanti si partissero dalla citta: onde li oratori 
se ne partirono subito." See Varchi, ix. 234. 

§ Carlo V. a Clemente VII. 29 d'Agosto. Similmente 
dico, ch'io sto molto contento della persona del Duca Ales- 
sandro. Leltere di principi ii., f. 185. 

II Charles to Ferdinand, ]0 January, 1530. Me trouvois 
plus loing de vous que n'eusse fait si dez le commence- 
ment je me fusse party au pays des Veniciens, et eusse 
et6 plus pres pour mieux vous pouvoir succourir et eulx 
plus voluntaires pour venir a ung meilleur appointemeni 
faillant votre uecessitö comme eile a fait. Brussels Ar- 
chives, 



Chap. VIII. 



NEGOTIATIONS IN ITALY. 



349 



the Italian powers a hope that they might find 
that support in the Turks, which France no 
longer afforded them. Milan and Venice, 
therefore, drew closer the bonds of their alli- 
ance ] they determined on mutual succours, 
and each promised not to conclude a separate 
peace. War broke out again in Lombardy; 
Leiva took Pavia, and a few thousand lands- 
knechts under Count Felix von Werdenberg, 
invaded the Venetian territory along the Lago 
di Garda, and plundered the Brescian coun- 
try.* These slight successes, however, de- 
cided nothing; and the two states presented 
a front fully armed and prepared for self- 
defence. 

Suleiman's retreat altered the face of things : 
the Italians, abandoned on all sides, lost cour- 
age :t but the emperor had in the interval con- 
stantly evinced such pacific dispositions, that 
he could not revert to any warlike schemes, 
without breaking his word and losing for ever 
the public confidence. -t 

It was not agreeable to him indeed to re- 
store jlhe^ Milanese, which he would gladly 
have disposed of otherwise, to Francesco 
Sforza; nor to leave the towns of the Terra 
firma, which he claimed as emperor, in the 
hands of the Venetians; but, all circumstances 
considered, it was not to be avoided. § 

It was most important lo him to make peace 
with the Venetians, who still possessed some 
strong places and good harbours in the Nea- 
politan territory. By the acquisition of these, 
Naples would be tranquiUized; it would then 
be able to conduct its own administration, and 
to contribute' to the general expenses of the 
empire. 

In order to retain possession of the Milanese, 
he must first wrest from Francesco Sforza the 
fortresses, which were in an excellent state 
of defence ; this could not be done without a 
serious w^ar. and would unsettle the treaty of 
peace concluded with France, and even with 
the pope. 

Pope Clement earnestly wished for peace. 
His former schemes of restoring the indepen- 
dence of Italy, had been merged in his desire 
to reduce Florence to obedience. Now it was 
manifest that a renewal of the war, let it 
terminate how it might, would open to that 
city a possibility of resistance, while it w^ould 
greatly diminish his means of attack, by fur- 
nishing other occupation to the imperial army. 
He thought, therefore, he did enough for Milan 
and for Italy if he procured them a tolerable 
peace.il 

Every thing that had happened had served 
to confirm the emperor in the opinion, that he 



* Leoni, Vita di Francesco Maria, 413. 

t Jacopo Pitti : Tutti calarono le Itracche per la fuga 
Tmchoscha, altrimente riniperatore haberebbe liavuto 
che fare raolto piu che non si pensasse. 

t'Pour ceste occasion du Turcq j'avois tant parl6 de 
ceste paix qu'il ne m'eust semble honneste Ja laisser de 
faire. (Lettre ä Ferdinand, 10 Janv.) 

§ Si j'eusse veu moyen d'en faire autrement, n'en eusse 
use ainsi. Tb. 

I! Recollections in a Iptter from Rome, doubtless from 
Sanara to the Bishop of Vasona, papal nuncio at the em- 
peror's court. Lettere di principi, ii. 181—185. 
2b 



could not maintain his power in Italy without 
the friendship of the pope. 

Towards the end of the year 1529, they 
held a conference in Bologna, the object of 
w^hich was, from the beginning, the complete 
pacification of Italy ; negotiations to that efi'ect 
having already made some progress under the 
mediation of the pope. On the 5th of Novem- 
ber the emperor arrived, and found Clement 
awaiting him. 

The pope and the emperor, like the two 
royal ladies in Cambra'y, inhabited adjoining 
houses, connected by a door of which each 
had a key. IF 

The emperor took care to prepare himself 
beforehand for every conversation with the 
veteran politician. He had a paper in his 
hand, on which he had noted all the topics to 
be discussed at that interview. 

The first point on which he hstened to the 
pope's advice was, to cite his rebelUous vas- 
sal, Francesco Sforza, against w^hom he had 
proclaimed sentence of forfeiture of his duchy, 
to appear before him. 

Sforza was seriously ill. He was obliged 
to support himself on a staff when he spoke 
with the emperor, and the pope would not 
allow him to kiss his foot. But his cause did 
not suffer; he showed prudence, ability, and 
good dispositions ; he spoke extremely Vv-ell, 
and understood how to conciliate his own in- 
terest v.^ith entire devotion to his suzerain.** 
With the great men about the court he em- 
ployed other means of persuasion. Gradu- 
ally, the old resentment against him was 
allowed to subside. 

The Venetian ambassador also endeavoured 
to remove the displeasure which the emperor 
might have conceived against the republic. 
He obtained an audience of two hours, and 
had the satisfaction of finding that the em- 
peror understood the situation of the republic, 
and admitted the justification he had to ofi'er. 

The bases of a treaty were therefore soon 
agreed upon ; the Venetians were to give up 
whatever they possessed belonging to the 
states of the church or to Naples, and on that 
condition, were not to be attacked. Fran- 
cesco Sforza w^as to receive the fief of the 
duchy of Milan. 

The only difficulty lay in the demands for 
money both on Venice and Milan. In order 
to make sure of payment from the latter, the 
emperor w^ished to garrison the citadels of 
Milan and Como with his troops. On the 12ch 
of December, a courier arrived, bringing the 
assent of the Venetian senate to the pecuniary. 



U Romischer keyserlicher Majestät eynreyten gen Bo- 
Ionia, auch Avie sich bebstliche Heyligkeit gegen seyne 
keyserliche Majestät gehalten habe, 1529. His Roman 
imperial majesty's journey to Bologna, alsohoAV his papal 
holiness demeaned himself towards his imperial majesty, 
1.529. At the conclusion: "Und liegen der Keyser und 
der Babst also nah bei einander, das nit mer dan ein kleyn 
wand zwyschen inen ist, und haben ein Thür zusam- 
mengehn und jeder ein Schlüssel darzu." — "And tlie em- 
peror and the i)ope lie near each other, so that not more 
than a little wall is between them, and they have a door 
through which to meet, and each has a key thereof" 

** Confidarsi in lei (S. M.), ponersi in man sua, Conta- 
rini Relatione di Bologna, 1530. 



350 



CORONATION OF CHARLES V. 



Book V. 



terms imposed on the republicj as well as to 
those regarding Milan.* 

Hereupon, on the 23d of December, a treaty 
of peace was concluded, which was at the 
same time one of alliance. The Venetians 
engaged to pay off the arrears of subsidies 
which they owed in virtue of the treaty of 
1523, by instalments, during the next eight 
years; paid, besides, 100.000 sc. in the next 
year.t Francesco Sforza was much more 
severely dealt with; a sum of 900,000 scudi, 
to be discharged at fixed periods, was de- 
manded of him, 400,000 of which he was to 
pay wiihin the next year. This was, as we 
perceive, the emperor's system ] he treated 
Milan and Venice in the same manner as he 
had treated Portugal and France; he waived 
claims which he might have asserted, in con- 
sideration of money. The emperor promised 
to defend Milan and V^enice ; and the Vene- 
tians, on their part, Naples and Milan, in case 
of an attack. 

The Duke of Ferrara was still not included 
in the peace. As he was also at enmity with 
the pope, he had neglected no means of ob- 
taining access to Charles himself. It is said 
that Andrea Doria wrote to him, that his only 
way of gaining the favour of the emperor, was 
to show confidence in him. J When, there- 
fore, Charles entered Modena, the duke went 
out to meet him, carrying the keys of the 
city; and from that moment it is certain that 
the emperor showed himself favourably dis- 
posed towards him. The pope was far less 
placable. It was with the utmost difficulty 
that he was induced to submit his disputes 
with Ferrara to a fresh investigation by the 
emperor himself, in whose hands the duke 
had consented to place Modena as a deposit. 

In the Florentine' affairs, Clement was per- 
fectly immovable. Envoys from that republic 
presented themselves before him again at Bo- 
logna; but they were only met by violent ex- 
plosions of temper on the part of the pope, 
and bitter reproaches for all the personal af- 
fronts that had been offered to himself, and 
to the friends by whom he was surrounded in 
Rome. The emperor repeated what he had 
always said, that he was not come to Italy to 
injure anybod}-^, but to make peace ; but that 
he had now pledged his word to the pope, 
and must abide by it.§ The affair had often 
been discussed in his privy-council. It had 
been decided that, in the first place, Florence 
had forfeited her privileges by rebellion, and 
that the emperor had an indisputable right to 
punish her ; and secondly, that the pope was, 
independently of this, fully justified in his de- 



* Gre^rorio Casale, 13th Dec. Molini, ii. p. 2G3. 

t Tractatus pacis ligte et perpetuee confoederationis, Du 
Mont, iv., ii. p. 53. 

X Galeacius Capella, lib. viii. p. 238. 

§ Jacopo Pitti : Rispose loro Cesare gratamente, dolerli 
del male pativa la Cittä, perclie egli non era venuto in 
Italia per nuocere ad alcuno, ma per metterci pace, non 
poter gia in questo caso niancare al papa— ne credere che 
voglia il papa cose inconvenienti : replicaronli Ii oratori, 
che la cittä desiderava solamente mantenere il suo go- 

verrio: Cesare disse, che forse il governo parerebbe 

loro ragionevole, nondimeno haberebbe bisogno di qualche 
correctione. 



mands ; since the viear of Christ would cer- 
tainly commit no injustice.il Perugia, Arezzo, 
and Cortona were already in the hands^of the 
imperiahsts; the Prince of Orange, though not 
as fully persuaded of the justice of the pope's 
claims as his master, obeyed orders, and in 
the month of February encamped with his 
army in the neighbourhood of Florence. Dur- 
ing the carnival, there were daily skirmishes 
at the gates. 

The emperor wished to settle all the affairs 
of Italy now definitively, that he might be at 
liberty to go for a few months to Naples, 
where his presence was very desirable. He 
would then have taken Rome in his way; 
and, as ancient usage demanded, have re- 
ceived the crown there with all the customary 
solemnities; There were persons about him 
who told him that he had accomplished no- 
thing, if he had not been crowned in Rome 
itself. Others, however, doubted whether the 
place was of so much importance; and Charles 
thought it expedient first to ask his brother, 
whether the affairs of Germany would allow 
of his absenting himself for the time required 
for this journey. IT Ferdinand replied, the 
sooner he returned the better; if he went to 
Naples, his enemies would imagine he would 
never con-je back. It was therefore decided 
that the coronation should take place at Bo- 
logna; the emperor determined to commemo- 
rate his birthday and the anniversary of the 
battle of Pavia, by this solemn act. 

Solemnities of this kind have a twofold sig- 
nificancy ; they connect the present imme- 
diately with the remote past ; while, at the 
same time, they have a character determined 
by the circumstances of the moment. 

The coronation of Charles was distinguished 
by many peculiarities. It did not take place 
at Rome, as had been the invariable custom, 
but at Bologna; the church of San Petronio 
was the substitute for St. Peter's ; the chapels 
which were used for the various functions 
were named after the chapels of St. Peter's, 
and there was a place marked in the church 
which represented the confessional of St. 
Peter's.** 

Nor did the emperor appear with the same 
state as his predecessors. He had neglected 
to summon the electors ; a single German 
prince was present — Philip of the Palatinate, 
who had arrived by chance the day before 
the coronation — the same who had just ac- 
quired a certain celebrity at the siege of 
Vienna; but he held no official rank or charge 
at the ceremony. An escort of German knights, 
such as had heretofore accompanied their em- 
peror to the bridge of the Tiber, was out of the 
question; instead of them, three thousand Ger- 



|( Declaration of the emperor's confessor. Varchi,p. 333. 

IT The immediate purpose of the letter of the JOth of 
January, so often referred to, which I discovered during 
my second visit to Brussels, and will insert in the Appen- 
dix, was this inquiry. Ferdinand received it on the ISth, 
and answered on the SSth from Budweis. The answer is 
printed in Gevay, 1530. App. No. 1. 

** Consurgens electus venit ad confessionem B. Petri 

et in loco humili et depresso ad instar loci ante in- 

gressum capellee S. Petri de urbe procubuit. Rainaldus, 
XX. 568. 



Chap. VIII. 



CORONATION OF CHARLES V. 



351 



man landsknechts were drawn out on the 
piazza, gallant and warlike soldiers, but'under 
the command of a Spaniard, Antonio de Leiva, 
who had made his entrance into the city at 
their head, carried on a litter of dark brown 
velvet. VVhatever brilliancy surrounded the 
emperor, had attended him from Spain, or 
had come to meet him in Italy. The proces- 
sion, with which he repaired to the church, to 
be invested with the imperial crown, on the 
24th of February, 1530 (having two days pre- 
viously received the iron crown with some- 
what modified solemnities), w^as opened by 
Spanish pages of noble birth; then followed 
the Spanish lords we have already enume- 
rated, vying with each other in pomp and 
splendour; after them, the heralds — not Ger- 
man, but principally those of the several Spa- 
nish provinces : the sceptre was borne by the 
Marquis of Monferrat; the sword, by the Dake 
of Urbino; the globe, by Count Palatine Philip; 
and, lastly, the crown, by the Duke of Savoy. 
The electors learned with wonder that their 
hereditary charges had been committed to 
others, without even asking their consent. 
After these undelegated performers of their 
functions, walked the emperor, between two 
cardinals, and followed by the members of 
his privy-council. A wooden gallery had been 
erected to connect the palace with the church 
of St. Petronio; hardly had the emperor passed 
through it. when it broke down. jMany re- 
garded this as an omen that he would be the 
last emperor who would be crowned in Itaiy 
— a prediction which the event fallilled. He 
himself saw in the incideiU only a fresh proof 
of his good fortune, which prutected him in 
the moment of danger.* 

He was now invested with the sandals, and 
the mantle, ponderous and stiff with jewels, 
which had been brought from the court of By- 
zantium. He was anointed with the exorcised 
oil, according to a formula almost exactly the 
same as that used by Hinkmar of Eheims;t 
the crown of Charlemagne was placed upon 
his head; he was adorned with all the insig- 
nia of the,most ancient and sacred dignity of 
Chief of Christendom. But while receiving j 
its honours, he also accepted its obligations ; j 
he took the oath which, m the triumphant days j 
of the hierarchy, the popes had imposed upon 
the emperors — to defend the pope, the PiOman 
church, and all their possessions, dignities, 
and rights; and as- he Vas a conscientious 
man. we cannot doubt that he pronounced 
this oath with the most earnest sincerity. 
The union of the spiritual and temporal hie- 
rarchy required to complete the idea of Latin 
Christendom, was once more consummated. 

During the ceremony, the French ambas- 

* Jovius, 2Tth Book. De duplici coioiiatione Caroli V. 
Ctesarisap. Bononiain Ijistoiiola, autore H. C. Agrippa. 
Sciiari'.iuä, iii. 266. 

t The words of the unction in the ritual, "Ipse — super 
caput tuuni infundat benedictionem, eandem usque ad in- 
teriora cordis tui penetrarefaciat" (Rainaldus, p. .569, No. 
23), strongly remind us of Hiukmars formula of 877; 
'•Cujus sacratissima unctio super caput ejus defluat atque 
ad interiora ejus descendat et intima cordis illius pene- 
tret." But the earlier form is in all respects more beau- 
tiful. 



sador, the Bishop of Tarbes, stood between 
the throne of the emperor and that of the 
pope, with the Count o{ Nassau. They spoke 
much of the friendship now existing between 
their sovereigns, which left nothing to desire, 
excfpt that it should be permanent. But it is 
only necessary to read the report of the cere- 
mony sent by the bishop ro his owm court, to 
see that he. at least, meant the very reverse 
of W'hat he said. He pretends to have per- 
ceived that the pope sighed whenever he 
thought himself unobserved. He declares in 
the same letter that the protracted meeting 
of the two sovereigns had rather tended to 
generate aversion than friendship; that the 
pope had said to him, that he saw he was 
cheated, but that he must act as if he did not 
see it. In short, he declared it certain that 
time would bring about proceedings on the 
pope's part, with which the King of France 
might be well satisfied.? 

From the correspondence of the emperor 
w^ith his brother, w-e also see that he felt by 
no means secure of the pope. 

It were a mistake to imagine that it would 
then have been safe or possible for him to 
act as if he were sovereign lord of Italy ; but 
he knew how to profit by the moment when 
his enemies were exhausted and deprived of 
political support, in order to strengthen that 
ascendency which he had acquired by arms, 
and thus to lay the basis of future domina- 
tion. 

The pope might vent his anger as he 
pleased m moments of irritation, but he could 
no longer emancipate himself from the em- 
peror. Florence being reduced to subjection 
after a brave resistance, the emperor conferred 
upon the house of Medici a more firmly based 
legitimate power than it had ever possessed ; 
a family alliance was concluded, which ren- 
dered impossible in future any of those vio- 
lent divisions wdiich had hitherto rent the 

City- , 

The emperor was also secure of Milan. 
Sfoiza well knew that Francis I. had not 
wholly renounced his pretensions to Lom- 
bardy; as was evident from the eagerness 
with which some Milanese of rank sought to 
renew their connexion with France. Sforza 
was therefore compelled to attach himself 
unconditionally to the emperor, to whom alone 
he could look for protection. Shortly after, 
he too became allied by marriage with the 
house of Austria. An imperial general con- 
tinued to command the army in Lombardy. 

Venice retained a far greater share of inde- 
pendence. But here, too, the peace had been 
brought about by a party in opposition to the 
doge, and relying on its friendly relations with 
Austria and Spain for its own support. More- 
over, the republic, menaced by the Ottomans, 
was compelled to seek assistance in Europe, 
which no other power but Spain was in a 
condition to afford. It had gradually come to 
a conviction that the time for conquest and 

X Lettre de M. de Gramont, Ev. de Tarbes ä M. I'Ad- 
miral, Boulogne, 25 Fevrier, in La Grande Histoire du 
Divorce, tom. iii. p. 386. 



352 



RELATION OF CHARLES V. TO GERMANY. 



Book V. 



extension of territory was for ever past for 
Venice; that she was entering on a new era, 
the character of which would be determined 
by her relations with Spain. 

Nor had the emperor been less anxious to 
attach to himself the lesser princes and re- 
publics. 

The Markgrave of Mantua was raised to 
ihe dignity of duke ; Carpi was granted to the 
Duke of Ferrara, by the emperor; to his 
brother-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, he gave 
Asti, which Francis L had surrendered, — to 
his no small disgust^, to the Duke of Urbino — 
at that time the most renowned warrior of 
Italy — Charles had offered service, and dis- 
tinguished him with many personal favours in 
Bologna. 

The old Ghibelhne spirit revived in Siena 
and Lucca, and was fostered in every possible 
way by the emperor. Whatever might be 
said of the restored liberties of Genoa, the 
real effect of the changes that had taken place 
there was to render Andrea Doria absolute.* 
The name given to him — II Figone (the fig- 
gardener) — from his birth-place, the Riviera, 
soon gave way to another — the Monarch. 
And this monarch of Genoa was admiral to 
the emperor. 

Charles bound the great capitalists to his 
interests by a different, but not less powerful 
tie ; he borrowed money of them. 

There is no doubt that all these powers 
might imagine themselves independent ; they 
might certainly have embraced a different 
line of polic)^, and, indeed, they occasionally 
meditated doing so. But either their internal 
or external affairs afforded motives which 
bound them to the emperor, and these motives 
were now partly enhanced by design, partly 
developed by the nature of things ; while 
Charles's power was so vast and dazzling, 
that a connexion with him was no less flatter- 
ing to the ambition, than profitable to the in- 
terests, of lesser sovereigns. 

The world thus once more beheld an em- 
peror in the plenitude of power; but the 
bases on which this power rested were new ; 
,the old imperial office and dignity were gone. 

Least of all could the German nation boast 
that the Germanic empire had recovered its 
ancient character and powers. 

The electors complained that they were 
neither summoned to the coronation, nor in- 
vited to take a share in the treaties which 
the emperor had concluded with the Italian 
pov/ers. They entered a formal protest, that 
if any thing should have been agreed to in 
these treaties which might now or hereafter 
prove detrimental to the holy Roman empire, 
they had in no wise assented or consented to it.t 

The emperor had already been reminded 
that the conquered provinces of Italy did not 
belong to him, but to the empire ; and had 
been required to restore to the empire its 

* Basadonna Relatione di Milano, 1.533. Esso Doria fa 
il privato e guberna absolulamenle Genoa. Del die si 
doleno Genoesi. 

t Protest of the 30th July, 1530, in the Coblentz Archives. 



finance chambers (Kammern), especially those 
of Milan and Genoa ; upon M^hich the impe- 
rial government would appoint a gubernator, 
and would appropriate the surplus revenues 
to the maintenance of tranquillity and law. 
Such, however, w^ere not the notions of the 
emperor, or of his Spanish captains. The 
Duke of Brunswick affirmed that obstacles 
had been intentionally thrown in his v/ay, 
during his Italian campaign in the year 1528, 
by Antonio Leiva; the Spaniard, he said, 
would endure no German prince in the Milan- 
ese. And this same Leiva had now received 
Pavia in fief, and held the supreme command 
over an army in the field. German influence 
was destroyed. 

Under these circumstances the emperor, 
no longer the perfect representative of the 
national power, took his way over the Triden- 
tine Alps to Germany (May, 1530).$ 

If we inquire what were his own views as 
to Germany, we shall discover that none but 
the most proximate presented themselves with 
any 'distinctness to his mind. 

He had promised his brother, whose fidelity 
to him through all the complications of his 
Italian affairs had been unshaken, — who, 
feeble as were his resources, was ever ready 
to come to his aid, and who had been his 
most useful ally, — to confer upon him the dig- 
nity of King of the Romans. The attejupts 
to transfer this dignity to another house — 
attempts continually renewed and not without 
danger — must, he said, be put an end to. The 
fitting moment vras now arrived ; they must 
take advantage of this full tide of power and 
victory. 

It had likewise become absolutely necessary 
to take effectual measures against the Turks. 
Recent events had shown the Germans that 
not Hungary alone, but their own fatherland 
was at stake ; the imminence of the danger 
would render them more complying. This 
was an indispensable condition to the stability 
of the house of Austria. 

Yet he distinctly felt that this state of things 
would not be permanent. 

During his stay in Italy, a pacific demeanour 
— not indeed at variance with his disposition, 
which rather inclined that way, but contrary 
to his original intentions — had been imposed 
upon him by the state of things. But the 
warlike schemes of his youth, though sus- 
pended, were not abandoned. When he 
turned his eyes on Germany (as he tells his 
brother in a letter), he wished to confer with 
him about many things, and especially -about 
their future conduct towards that nation; — 
whether they should remain at peace, or en- 
gage in any warlike expedition ; whether they 
should immediately join in a common effort 
against the Turks, or wait for some great occa- 
sion which might justify their enterprise. 

Every thing depended on the course of reh- 
gious affairs, and these had already occupied 
his deliberate attention. 



J Bucholtz, iii. 92. Note, 



Chap. IX. 



- DIET OF AUGSBURG. 



353 



CHAPTER IX. 



DIET OF AUGSBURGj 1530. 

Bt the treaty of Barcelona the emperor 
had bound himself to endeavour, in the first 
place, to bring back the dissidents to the 
faith; and if that attempt should fail, then to 
apply all his power '-'to avenge the insult 
offered to Christ."* 

I do not doubt that this engagement was 
entirely in accordance with his intentions. 

Revolting and arbitrary as the opinion deli- 
vered to him by his .companion, the papal 
legate Campeggi, appears to us, it is in fact 
founded on the same ideas. Campeggi begins 
by suggesting the means by which the Protest- 
ants inight be reclaimed: — ^^promises, threats, 
alliances with the stales which remained true 
to Catholicism; in case, however, all these 
shoald be unavailing, he insists most strongly 
on the necessity of resorting to force, — to fire 
and sword, as he expresses it; he declares 
that their property should be confiscated, and 
Germany be subjected to the vigilance of an 
inquisition similar to that established in Spain. t 

All that has come down to us of the corre- 
spondence of the emperor with his brother, 
breathes the same spirit and the same pur- 
poses. 

Ferdinand bad, as we know, entered hito 
negotiations with Elector John of Saxony; but 
he assures the emperor that he does this only 
to gain time. "You may think," adds he, 
•■that I concede too much; and you may thus 
be hindered from proceeding to the work of 
punishment. Monseigneur, I wäll negotiate 
as long as possible, and will conclude nothing ; 
but, even should I have concluded, there will 
be many other pretexts for chastising them, — 
reasons of state, without your needing to men- 
tion religion ; they have played so many bad 
tricks besides, that you will find people who 
will willingly help you in this matter.''! 

This, therefore, was the design ; to try first 
whether the Protestants could not be brought 
back by fair means to the unity of Latin 
Christendom, which was now restored to 
peace, and lo the imposing aspect of a great 
system ; but in case this did not succeed, the 
application of force was distinctly contem- 
plated, and the right to apply it carefully re- 
served. 

It would not have been prudent, however, 
to irritate the antipathies of offended self-love 
by threats. Clemency ceases to be clem.ency, 
if future severity is seen lurking in the back- 
ground. It was therefore determined at pre- 
sent to turn only the fair side to view. 

The emperor's convocation of the diet 



^* Vim potestatis distringent (Charles and Ferdinand). 

t Instructio data Cssari dal revmo. Campeggio : "con 
Offerte prima, poi con minaccie ridurli nella vi~asua, cioe 
del Dio omnipotente." The opinion is attached to the 
deliberation at Bologna, with which Eck was acquainted. 
See Luther's Warnung an seine lieben Deutschen (Warn- 
ing to his dear Germans). Altenb. v. 534. 

t Letter from Ferdinand to the emperor; Budweis, 28th 
Jan., in Gevay's original documents of 1530, p. 67. See 
the Excerpt from the Chancellor's letter in Bucholtz, iii. 
427- 

45 2e* 



breathed nothing but peace. He announced 
his desire "to allay divisions; to leave all past 
errors to the judgment of our Saviour, and, 
further, to give a charitable hearing to every 
man's opinions, thoughts, and notions; to 
weigh them carefully ; to bring men to Chris- 
tian truth; and to dispose of every thing that- 
has not been rightly explained on both sides."' 
This proclamation was dated from the palace 
in which the emperor was living with the 
pope. The pope left the emperor's hands 
free ; and, indeed, he too would have been 
rejoiced if these lenient measures had been 
successful. 

But whatever moderation might appear in 
the emperor's language, the orthodox princes 
were sufficiently well informed of the temper 
of the imperial court, and of its connexion 
with that of Rome, not to conceive the live- 
liest hopes on its arrival. They hastened to 
draw up a statement of all their grievances, 
and to revise all the old judgments and orders 
in council for the suppression of the Lutheran 
agitation. "It pleases us much," says the 
Administrator of Regensburg, in the instruc- 
tions to his envoys to the diet, "'that the in- 
novations against the excellent and long-estab- 
lished usages of the church should be rooted 
out and abolished. "§ The emperor at first 
held his court at Innsbruck, in order, by the 
aid of his brother's advice, to secure a favour- 
able result of the proceedings of the diet. 
Of what nature these were, may be mferrecl 
from one fact; — that the A'enetian ambassador 
saw an account from which it appeared that, 
between the time of its departure from Bo- 
logna, to the 12th of July, 1530, the imperial 
court had expended 270,000 gulden in pre- 
sents. Prosperity and power, in themselves 
sufficiently imposing and attractive, were now, 
as for centuries in Germany, aided by all the 
influence of largesses and favours. All who 
had any thing to expect from the court now 
flocked thither, and it was almost forgotten 
that the diet ought long ago to have been 
opened ; every man was intent on getting his 
own business settled without delay. II 

It soon appeared from one example, how 
great an influence the emperor's presence 
would exercise on religious affairs. His bro- 
ther-in-law, the exiled King Christiern of Den- 
mark, who had hitherto adhered to Luther, 
constantly corresponded with him, and openly 
declared himself a convert to his doctrines, 
was induced in Innsbruck to return to the old 
faith. The pope was overjoyed when he 
heard it. "I cannot express," he whites to 
the emperor, "' with what emotion this news 
has filled me. The splendour of your ma- 
jesty's virtues begins to scare away the night; 
this example will work upon numberless 
others. "IF He granted Christiern absolution, 
and imposed upon him a penance which he 
was to perform after his restoration to his 



§ Förstemann Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte des Reich- 
stags von Augsburg, bd. i. p. 209. 

II Relatio viri nobilis Nie. Theupulo doctoris, 1533: ne 
in esso vi erano spese se non di doni fatti a diversi sig- 
nori (among whom were Italians). 

•tT Koma, 3 Giugno, 1530. Lettere de' Principi, it. 194. 



854 



DIET OF AUGSBURG. 



Book V. 



kingxlom. The emperor himself hoped that, 
as he had succeeded, contrary to his expecta- 
tions, in purifying Italy from heresy, he should 
not fail in Germany. In Rome every thing 
was expected from the lucky star which 
seemed to preside over all his proceedings. 

Circumstances did indeed appear extremely 
propitious to his designs. 

The emperor's convocation had been favour- 
ably received by the Protestants. The prince 
whose dispositions and conduct were the most 
important — the Elector of Saxony — was the 
first who arrived at Augsburg. He went with- 
out delay to offer his congratulations to the 
emperor (who had crossed the Alps just at 
the same time) on his arrival in the empire, 
which he had learned ''with loyal joy:" he 
would wait the pleasure of his majesty, his 
own chief and lord, in Augsburg.* He had 
invited his allies to follow him ) for the diet 
of Augsburg seemed to be the national coun- 
cil which had been so long expected, so often 
and so vainly demanded, and which now 
afforded a hope of the reconciliation of reli- 
gious differences. t 

The negotiations of the elector with King 
Ferdinand had, as may be presumed from 
what we have just stated, led to no conclu- 
sion; but they were by no means broken off. 
Elector John had also various other affairs to 
discuss with the imperial court, to arrange 
Avhich he had sent an ambassador to Inns- 
bruck. The question, whether it might not 
be possible to win him over, presented itself, 
and an attempt was made to prevail on him 
to come himself to Innsbruck. The emperor 
sent him word that he might rely on all pos- 
sible friendship from him, and invited him to 
come to his court, as many other princes had 
done. "He intended to unite with him in the 
settlement of affairs, which might be arranged 
by themselves in person." 

But here, too, Charles had a proof of the 
kind of resistance which he would have to 
encounter in Germany. The elector was of- 
fended that the emperor had urged him, 
through the ambassador of another power, 
"to impose silence on the preachers he had 
brought with him. This demaud appeared to 
him an unauthorised attempt to prejudge the 
very question to be inquired into : and he was 
persuaded that the compliance which he re- 
fusecf in Augsburg would be extorted from 
hira in Innsbruck, in case he appeared there. 
He saw, too, that the court was already filled 
with his personal adversaries. Nor did he 



* To Xassau and Waldkirch, 14Mav; Förstemann, i. 
162, 164. 

t 13th March, ibid. p. 24. See the opinion in Brück, p. 
11. In einer Ermanung re.vmenweiss von Hans Mars- 
chalk, 1530, wird Gott gebeten offenbar zu machen sein 
Wort, "damit es komme an ein Ort in diesem Reichstag 
undConciüo." In "an admonition rh.vme-wise," by John 
Marschalk, 1,530. God is prayed to proclaim his work, 
•'whereby a place may be appointed for this diet and 
council." Here the hopes of former years re-appear. The 
emperor is admonished to embrace tiie divine word, " da- 
mit nicht weyter werd geplent das arm volk der Christen- 
heit, welches lang auf sclnnaler weyd des Glaubens halb 
irr gangen ist," — "that so the poor people be no longer 
deprived of Christianity, who, on account of their scanty 
nourishment of faith, have long gone half astray." 



think it expedient to enter upon the business 
of the diet at any other place than the one 
appointed. In short, he adhered to his de- 
claration, tliat he would wait the emperor's 
coming in Augsburg. 

. The imperial court was generally unpre- 
pared for the bearing exhibhed by die Pro- 
testants assembled in Augsburg; for the ap- 
probation the preachers olDtained in that city, 
and the popularity they enjoyed throughout 
Germany. In Italy it had been thought that 
at the first mutterings of the tempest, the 
Protestants would disperse, like a flock of 
doves when the hawk pounces down in the 
midst of them. i Chancellor Gattinara first 
remarked that the court would find more dif- 
ficulties than he had himself anticipated. § 
Gattinara. an old antagonist of the papal 
policy, and without question the most adroit 
politician the emperor possessed, would per- 
haps have been the man to modify the views 
of the court so as to render them attainable; 
even the Protestants rehed upon him. But 
exactly at this moment he died at Innsbruck. 
The stale of things excited no such serious 
misgivings in the others: what did not succeed 
I in Innsbruck, they hoped to accomplish, by 
I some means or other, in Augsburg. 
I On the 6th of June, the emperor set out for 
I that city. He took IMunich in his w^ay, where 
he was magnificently received. Accompanied 
by the temporal and spiritual princes of Aus- 
tria and Bavaria — the same who formerly con- 
cluded the Regensburg league — he reached 
the bridge over the Lech, before Augsburg, 
on the evening of the 15th. 
I The most brilliant assemblage of princes of 
the empire that had been witnessed for a long; 
I time, had already been waiting for some hours 
I to receive him; sovereigns, spiritual and tem- 
poral, from Upper and Lower Germany, and 
a very numerous body of young princes, who 
had not yet attained to sovereignty. As soon 
as the emperor approached, they alighted 
from their horses and advanced to meet him. 
I The emperor too alighted, and put out his hand 
i to each of them in a courteous and friendly 
I manner. The Elector of Mainz greeted him 
! in the name of all these '-assembled members 
of the holy Roman empire." Hereupon they 
all prepared to make their solemn entry into 
the imperial city. As we have just contem- 
plated the imperial coronation, in which Ger- 
many had hardly any share, we must pause a 
monient over this still essentially German 
ceremony of the solemn entry. II 

J Leodius, lib. vii. p. 130. See how Erasmus speaks of 
Sadolet : — Duffi res nonnullam prajbent spem : una est 
genius Ctesaris mire felix, altera quod isti in dogmatibus 
mire inter se dissentiunt. End of 1529, or beginning of 
1530. Epp. ii. 1258. 

Raince, Rome 1 Join. Le s. pere est adverti, que le 
chancelier se tronvoit aucunement (in some degree — the 
sense in which Raince often uses it) decu de Toppinion 
facille, en ouoy il en avoit et6, et qu'il commencoj^t ä 
confesser qu'il s'appercevoit les clioses en tout cas y etre 
plus laides qu'ils ne pensoient. MS. Bethune, 8534. 

!| We have several accounts of this ceremony. 1st. In 
the Altenburg collection of Luther's works. 2d. In Cy- 
prian's Historv of the Aujsburs Confession, and two 
pamphletscalle'd, 3d. Kaiserl. Maj. Einreitunofzu München, 
and, 4th, Kais. Maj. Einreiten zum Reichstag gen Augs- 



Chap. IX. 



ENTRY" OF CHARLES V. 



355 



Foremost marched two companies of lands- 
knechts, to whom the emperor entrusted the 
guard of the imperial city, as whose newly- 
arrived lord he wished to be regarded. They 
were just recruited, and had not that military 
air which is required in Germany: but there 
were many among ihem who had served in 
the Italian wars, and some who had become 
rich there. The most prominent figure was 
Simon Seitz, an Augsburg citizen, who served 
the emperor as m.iiilary secretary, and who 
now, magnificently clad in gold, and mounted 
on a brown jennet with embroidered housings, 
returned to his native town with an air of 
splendid arrogance. 

Next followed the mounted guard of the six 
electors. The Saxons, accordmg to ancient 
usage, headed the procession; about a hun- 
dred and sixty horsemen, all habited in liver 
colour, with matchlocks in their hands. They j 
consisted partly of the people about the court; j 
princes and counts having one, two, or four i 
horses, according to their dignity; partly of 
the councillors and nobles summoned Irom 
the country. People remarked the electoral 
prince, who had negotiated the first alliance 
with Hessen. Then followed the horsemen of 
the Palatinate, Brandenburg, Cologne, Mainz, 
and Treves, all in their proper colours and 
arras. According to the hierarchy of the em- 
pire, the Bavarians had no place here ; but be- 
fore they could be prevented, they had taken 
their place, and they at least filled it magnifi- 
cently. They were all in light armour, with 
red surcoats ; they rode by fives, and were 
distinguishable, even from a distance, by their 
waving plumes. There might be four hun- 
dred and fifty horses in all. 

People were struck with the difference, 
when, after this 'most warlike pomp, the courts 
of the emperor and the king made their ap- 
pearance : foremost, the pages, dressed in red 
or yellow velvet; then the Spanish, Bohemian, 
and German lords, in garments of silk and 
velvet, with large gold chains, but almost all 
unarmed. They were mounted on the most 
beautiful horses, Turkish, Spanish, and Polish, 
and the Bohemians did not forget to display 
their gallant horsemanship. 

This escort was followed by the two sove- 
reigns in person. 

Their coming was announced by two rows 
of trumpeters, partly in the king's colours, 
partly in the emperor's, accompanied by their 
drums, pursuivants, and heralds. 

Here, then, were all the high and mighty 
lords who ruled almost without control in their 
wide domains; whose border quarrels were 
wont to fill Germcvny with tumult and war. 
Ernest of Lüneburg and Henry of Brunswick, 
who were still in a state of unappeased strife 
concerning the Hildesheim quarrel ; George 
of Saxony, and his son-in-law. Philip of Hes- 
sen, who had lately come into such rude colli- 
sion, in consequence of Pack's plot ; the Dukes 
of Bavaria, and their cousins, the counts pala- 
tine, whose short reconciliation now began to 



burir. The two former are reprinted in Walch ; the two 
latter in Förstemann. Some particulars I extracted from 
Fürstenberj?'s letters. 



give M-ay to fresh misunderstandings ; near 
the princes of the house of Brandenburg, the 
Dukes of Pomerania, who, in despite of Them, 
hoped to receive, at the coming diet, infeuda- 
tion as immediate lords. All these now ac- 
knowledged the presence of one above them 
all, to whom they paid common homage and 
deference. The princes fvere followed by the 
electors, temporal and spiritual. Side by side 
rode John of Saxony and Joachim of Branden- 
burg, between whom there was no slight 
grudge, sufficiently accounted for by the trou- 
bles caused by the flight of the wife of the 
markgrave. Elector John once more bore the 
drawn sword before his emperor. Imme- 
diately after the electors, came their chosen 
and now crowned chief, mounted on a white 
Polish charger, under a magnificent three- 
coloured baldachin, borne by six councillors 
of Augsburg. It was remarked that he who 
formed the centre of this imposing group, was 
the only one who looked a stranger to it ; he 
was dressed from head .to foot in the Spanish 
fashion. He had expressed a wish to have 
his brother on the one side of him, and on the 
other, the legate, to whom he wished to pay 
the highest honour; he even wanted the eccle- 
siastical electors to yield precedence to him, 
but on this point they were inflexible. They 
thought they did Campeggi honour enough 
when the most learned of their college, Elector 
Joachim, who spoke Latin with considerable 
fluency (better at least than any of its spiritual 
members), offered him their congratulations. 
King Ferdinand and the legate accordingly 
rode together, outside the baldachin; they 
were followed by the German cardinals and 
bishops, the foreign ambassadors and prelates. 
Conspicuous among them was the emperor's 
haughty confessor, the Bishop of Osma.^ 

The procession of princes and lords was 
again succeeded by mounted guards; those 
of the emperor clad in yellow, those of the 
king in red ; Vv-ith them, vying in gallant equip- 
ments, the horsemen of the lords, spiritual 
and temporal, each troop in its proper colours ; 
all armed either with breast-plate and lance, 
or with fire-arms. 

The militia of Augsburg, which had marched 
out in the morning to receive the emperor, foot 
and horse, paid troops and citizens, closed the 
procession. 

This was in accordance with the whole im- 
port of the ceremony, viz., that the empire 
fetched home its emperor. Near St. Leonard's 
church he was met by the clergy of the city, 
singing ''Advenisti desiderabilis;" the princes 
accompanied him to the cathedral, where " Te 
Deum" was sung, and the benediction pro- 
nounced over him ; nor did they leave him 
till they reached the door of his apartment in 
the palace. 

But even 'here, at their very first meeting — 
in the church too — the great and all-dividing 
question which was to occupy this august as- 
sembly, presented itself in all its abrupt- 
ness. 

The Protestants had joined in the religious, 

* Contarini ; " di spirito molto alto." 



356 



DIET OF AUGSBURG. 



Book V. 



as well as the civil ceremonies ; and the em- 
peror was perhaps encouraged by this to take 
advantage of the first moment of his presence, 
the first impression made by his arrival, to 
prevail upon them to make some material 
concessions. 

Allowing the remaining princes to depart, 
the emperor invited the Elector of Saxony, 
the Markgrave George of Brandenburg, Duke 
Francis of Lüneburg, and Landgrave Philip, 
to attend him in a private room, and there, 
through the mouth of his brother, requested 
them to put an end to the preachings. The 
elder princes, startled and alarmed, said no- 
thing; the impetuous landgrave broke silence, 
and sought to justify his refusal on the ground 
that nothing was preached but the pure Word 
of God, just as St. Augustine had enjoined; — 
arguments consummately distasteful to the 
emperor. The blood rushed into his pallid 
cheeks, and he repeated his demand in a 
more imperious tone. But he had here to en- 
counter a resistance of a very diff'erent nature 
from that he had experienced from the Italian 
powers, who contended only for the interests 
of a disputed possession. "Sire," said the old 
Markgrave George, now breaking silence, 
"rather than renounce God's word, I will 
kneel down on this spot to have my head cut 
off".'' The emperor, who wished to utter none 
but words of mildness, and was naturally be- 
nevolent, was himself alarmed at the possi- 
bility thus presented to his mind by the lips 
of another. "' Dear prince," replied he to the 
markgrave, in his broken low German, " not 
heads off" (nicht Köpfe ab).* 

The next difficulty was that the Protestants 
declined taking part in the procession of Cor- 
pus Christi, on the following day. Had the 
emperor required their attendance as a court 
.«ervice, they would probably have given it, 
"fike Naaman, in the Scripture, to his king," 
as they said ; but he demanded it "' in honour 
of Almighty God." To attend on such a 
ground appeared to them a violation of con- 
science. Theyrephed that God had not in- 
vstituted the sacrament that man should wor- 
ship it. The procession, which had no longer 
in any respect its ancient splendour, took place 
without them. 

In regard to the preaching, they did indeed 
at length yield ; but not till the emperor had 
promised to silence the other party also. _He 
himself appointed certain preachers, but they 
were only to read the text of Scripture, with- 
out any exposition. Nor would it have been 
possible to bring the Protestants to yield even 
this point, had they not been reminded that 
the recess of 1528, to which they had always 
appealed, and which they would not sufl'er to 
be revoked, authorised it. The emperor, at 
least so long as he was there in person, was 
always regarded as the legitimate supreme 
authority of every imperial city.t 



It is evident, therefore, that the Protestants 
did not allow themselves to be driven back 
one step from their convictions or from their 
rights. The requests of the emperor when 
present made no more impression upon them 
than his demands when absent had done. If 
the emperor had calculated on compliance, 
these were no flattering omens of future 
success. 

At length, on the 20th of June, the business 
of the diet was opened. In the proposition, 
which was read on that day, the emperor in- 
sisted, as was reasonable, most urgently on an 
adequate armament against the Turks : at the 
same time he declared his intention of putting 
an end to the religious dissensions by gentle 
and fair means,t and reiterated the request 
contained in the convocation, that every one 
would give him, to that end, his "'thoughts, 
judgment, and opinion," in writing. 

As the council of the empire resolved to 
proceed first to the consideration of religious 
affairs, the grand struggle immediately com- 
menced. 

CONFESSION or AUGSBURG. 

The Protestants hastened immediately to 
draw up a written statement of their religious 
opinions, to be laid before the States of the 
empire. 

This statement is the Augsburg Confession, 
and its origin is as follows : 

Immediately after the receipt of the empe- 
ror's proclamation, the Saxon reformers had 
deemed it expedient to set forth in writing, 
and in a regular form, the belief "in which 
they had hitherto stood, and in which they 
persisted. "§ 

Similar preparations had been made in va- 
rious parts, in anticipation of the national as- 
sembly which was to be held in the year 1524 ; 
and something of the same kind was, at this 
moment, taking place on the other side; e. g. 
in Ingolstadt.il 

The Wittenberg reformers took, as basis of 
their creed, the Schwabach articles, in which, 
as we may remember, the points of difTerence 
between the Lutheran theologians and those 
of the Oberland were defined. It is very re- 
markable that, in framing this confession, the 



* There is a very authentic account of this in the let- 
ters of the Nürnberg delegate, who that same night caused 
the landgrave to be Vv^aked, and told him what was groins; 
forward. 16th June; Bretschneider C. Ref. iii. 106. With 
slight variations, Heller, in Förstemann. 

t Letter from Augsburg. Altenb. v. Walch, 16, 873. (In 



Walch under Spalatin's name but not complete.) Brenz 
to Isenmann, 19 Juni, Corp. Ref. ii. 117. 

J I. Mt hat " aus angeporner Güte und MiUigkeit diesen 
Weg (der Güte) nach vermöge des Ausschreibens furge- 
nommen, der entlichen Hofnung, der soll bei allen ver- 
stendigen ein billiges ansehii haben und menniglich dahin 
bewegen und leitten, dass alle Sachen wieder zum Besten 
gekehrt und gev.'endet werden, damit I. Mt inn ireni 
gnedigen Fürhaben verharren und pleiben." "Your 
niajesty has, from your natural goodness and mildness, 
chosen this way (of gentleness) according to tJie tenor 
of the convocation, with the hope it might obtain just 
consideration with all reasonable men, and move and lead 
many in such wise, that all things may be again turned 
and converted for the best, so that your majesty may per- 
sist and remain in your gracious purpose." From Förste- 
mann, i. 308, we see how many variations the copies ex- 
Iiibit. That of Frankfurt has still more : e. g. " aus ein- 
geborner Gunstigkeit, der möglichen Hofnung," u. s. vv. 
But the meaning is the same. 

§ It was thus that Chancellor Brück first conceived the 
thought, as his " Zeddel" shows ; Förstemann, i. 39. 

11 19th Feb. 1530. Extract in Winter, i. 270. 



Ch4p. IX. 



CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 



357 



feeling of the differences which separated 
them from a party so nearly akin, was, to say 
the least, not less strong than that of the ori- 
ginal dissent which had caused the first great 
movement. The separation now appeared the 
wider, since Zwingli and his followers had, in 
the meanwhile, recanted some admissions 
which they had made in Marburg, and which 
had found their way from the Marburg con- 
vention into the Schwabach articles. 
%|^These articles were now revised and drawn 
up afresh by Melanchthon, in that sound and 
methodical spirit peculiar to him, and in the 
undeniable intention of approximating as 
closely as possible to the Catholic doctrines. 
The expositions of the doctrine of free will 
and of justification by faith which he added, 
were extremely moderated ; he defined at 
greater length what were the heretical errors 
(errors rejected also by the Church of Rome) 
condemned by the articles ; he sought to 
establish these articles, not only on the author- 
ity of Scripture, but on that of the fathers, 
and especially of St. Augustine ; he did not 
entirely, forbid the honours paid to the me- 
mory of the saints, but only endeavoured to 
define their extent more accurately; he in- 
sisted strongly on the dignity of the temporal 
power, and concluded with the assertion, that 
these doctrines were not only clearly estab- 
lished in Scripture, but also that they were not 
in contradiction with the church of Rome, as 
understood from the writings of the* fathers, 
from whom it was impossible to dissent, and 
who could hardly be accused of heresy^ 

And indeed it cannot, I think, be denied 
that the system of faith here set forth is a 
product of the vital spirit of the Latin church : 
that it keeps within the boundaries prescribed 
by that church, and is, perhaps, of all its off- 
spring, the most remarkable, the most pro- 
foundly significant. It bears, as was inevita- 
ble, the traces of its origin ; that is. the fun- 
damental idea from which Luther had pro- 
ceeded in the article on justification, gives it 
somewhat of an individual stamp : this, how- 
ever, is inherent in all human things. The 
same fundamental idea had more than once 
arisen in the bosom of the Latin church, and 
had produced the most important effects ; the 
only difference was, that Luther had seized 
upon it with all the energy of religious aspi- 
ration; and in his struggle with opposite 
opinions, as well as in his expositions to the 
people, had estabhshed it as an article of faith 
of universal application; no human being 
could say that, so explained and understood, 
this idea had any thing sectarian in it. Hence 
the Lutherans steadily opposed the more acci- 
dental dogmas which have sprung up in later 
ages; though not disposed to ascribe to the 
expressions of a father of the church, absolute 
and demonstrative authority, the reformers 
were conscious that they had not departed 
widely from his conception of Christianity. 
There is a tacit tradition, not expressed in for- 
mula, but contained in the original nature of 
the conception, which exercises an immense 
influence over all the operations of the mind. 



The reformers distinctly felt that they stood 
on the old ground which Augustine had 
marked out. They had endeavoured to break 
through the minute observances by which the 
Latin church had allowed itself to be fettered 
in the preceding centuries, and to cast away 
those bonds altogether; they had recurred to 
the Scripture, to the letter of which they ad- 
hered. But they did not forget th*at it was 
this same Scripture which had been so long 
and so earnestly studied in the Latin church, 
and had been regarded as the standard of her 
faith; nor that much of what that church re- 
ceived was really founded on Scripture. To 
that they adhered ; the rest they disregarded. 

I do not venture to assert that the Augsburg 
Confession dogmatically determines the con- 
tents and import of Scripture ; it does no more 
than bring back the system which had grown 
up in the Latin church to a unison with Scrip- 
ture ; or interpret Scripture in the original 
spirit of the Latin church. That spirit had, 
however, wrought too imperceptibly to pro- 
duce any open manifestation which could have 
served as a bond of faith. The confession of 
the German Lutheran church is itself its 
purest manifestation, and the one the most 
immediately derived from its source. 

It is hardly necessary to add that its authors 
had no intention of imposing this as a perma- 
nent and immutable standard of faith. It is 
simply the assertion of the fact. '-Our churches 
teaclv' — ''it is taught'' — "it is unanimously 
taught" — "such and such opinions are falsely 
imputed to us." Such are the expressions 
Melanchthon uses ; his intention is simply to 
state the behef which already exists. 

And in the same spirit he wrote the second 
part, in which he enumerates and explains the 
abuses that had been removed. 

How wide a field was here opened for viru- 
lent polemical attack ! What might not have 
been said concerning the encroachments of the 
papal power — especially during the sitting of 
the diet, whose antipathies might thus have 
been appealed to ; — or concerning the dege- 
neracies of a corrupt form of worship ! — and, 
indeed, we find a long register of them among 
the rough drafts of the work; but it was 
thought better to omit them. Melanchthon 
confined himself strictly to a justification of 
the ecclesiastical organisation to whicji the re- 
formers had gradually attained. He explained 
the grounds on which the sacrament in both 
kinds and the marriage of the clergy had been 
permitted, vows and private masses rejected, 
and fasts and confession left to the will and 
conscience of each individual ; he sought to 
show generally, how new and dangerous were 
the contrary practices, how at variance even 
with the old canonical rules. With wise dis- 
cretion he was silent concerning the divine 
right of the pope, the character indelibilis, or 
even the number of the sacraments: his ob- 
ject was not to convert, but simply to defend. 
It was suflicient that he insisted on the dis- 
tinction between the spiritual calling of the 
bishops and their temporal power ; while de- 
fining the former in accordance with the tenor 



358 



CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 



Boo» V. 



of Scripture, he wholly abstained from attack- 
ing the latter. He maintained that, on this 
pomt also, the evangelical party had not de- 
viated from the genuine principles of the 
Catholic church, and that consequently the 
emperor might well consent to tolerate the 
new organisation-of the church.* 

It may be questioned whether the Protest- 
ants vvouia not have done better if, instead of 
restricting themselves so entirely to defence, 
they had once more acted on the oflensive, 
and appealed to all the strong reforming sym- 
pathies then afloat. 

We must, however, acknowledge that from 
the moment they had decided to refuse to 
admit the adherents of Zvvingh into their com- 
munity, this was impossible. They found 
themselves almost eclipsed by the popularity 
of the doctrines taught byZwingh; the ma- 
jority of the inhabitants of Augsburg espoused 
£he latter : and nothing less was talked of than 
;i union of Upper Germany and Switzerland, 
in order to overthrow the entire hierarchy of 
the empire. Even one of the most eminent 
of the reforming princes. Landgrave Philip 
of Hessen, seemed from his conversation to 
lean to the side of Zwingli.t A special ad- 
monition from Luther was required, to induce 
him to subscribe the confession. 

Nor could the Lutherans entertain the least 
hope of gaining over the majority of the States 
of the empire, who had already taken too de- 
cided a part with their adversaries. 

They wished for nothing but peace and 
toleration; they thought they had proved that 
their doctrines had been unjustly condemned, 
and denounced as heretical. Luther brought 
himself to entreat his old antagonist, the Arch- 



* It is well known that neither of the originals of the 
Augsburg Confession, signed by the princes, has ever con)e 
to light. It was for a long time thought that the German 
copy had been discovered in Mainz; but Weber in his 
"Kritische Geschichte der Augsburger Confession" has 
shown with scrupulous industry, that this, like many 
others, is a transcript without any authentic value. 
These transcripts present a number of deviations both 
from each other and from the first edition, which Melanch- 
thon superintended in the year 2530. Fortunately the de- 
viations, though numerous, are not important. The 
scribes of that time allowed themselves slight freedoms, 
especially in the law language, which was so little fixed; 
but, for the meaning and tenor, these seldom are of any 
moment. Försteniann's second volume contains a very 
careful collation of some manuscripts. We meet with 
the original, from the Mainz Chancery, again at the 
Conference of Worms, 1540. "Dr. Eck," says the Bran- 
denburg Protocol of the 4th Dec, "hat die newe confes- 
sion und apologia angefochten, des syn seint dem augs- 
burgischen Reichstag etlich blettergemehret, viel verän- 
dert und das har in die wolle, vie er sagt, geschlagen und 

ein new schmalz darein gethon wer, derhalben er 

das Original Keys. Mt zu Augsburg übergeben aus der 
maintzischen canzlei begerete, welches denn unversaget 
und ihme zu übergeben bewilliget." — " Dr. Eck has at- 
tacked the new Confession and Apology, to which since 
the diet of Augsburg some leaves have been added, much 
altered, and the hair beaten into the wool (felted), as he 
says, and a new glaze given to it, wherefore he desired to 
have the original, which had been presented to his impe- 
rial majesty at Augsburg, out of the Mainz Chancery, 
which, accordingly, did not refuse, and permitted the same 
to be given to him." I do not find, however, that Eck 
produced the collation he promised. 

t Letter from Urbanus Rhegius to Luther, 21st May, 
1530: Landgrave Philip adduces "innumera Sacramenta- 
riorum argumenta, ""sentit cum Zwinglio, «it ipsi mihi 
est fassus." But it was neither this, nor a letter of Me- 
lanchthon that moved Luther to apply to the landgrave. 
This he did as early as the 20th May. (De W. iv. p. 23.) 



bishop of Mainz, who now seemed more 
peaceably disposed, to lay this to heart. Me- 
lanchthon addressed himself in the name of 
the princes to the legate Campeggi, and con- 
jured him not to depart from the moderation 
which he thought he perceived in him, for 
that every fresh agitation rnight occasion an 
immeasurable confusion in the church. t 

In this spirit of conciliation, in the feeling 
of still unbroken ties, in the wish to give force 
to that similarity which not only lay at the 
bottom of both religions, but was obvious in 
many particulars, was this confession con- 
ceived and drawn up. 

On the afternoon of the 25th June, 1530, it 
was read aloud in the assembly of the empire. 
The princes prayed the emperor to allow this 
to be done in the larger hall, to which stran- 
gers were admitted, — in short, in a public 
sitting: the emperor, however, chose the 
smaller, the chapter-room of the bishop's pa- 
lace, which he inhabited ; to this only the 
members of the assembly of the empire had 
access. For a similar reason he wished the 
Latin version of the document to be read, but 
the princes reminded him that on German 
ground his majesty would be pleased to per- 
mit the use of the German language. There- 
upon the young Chancellor of Saxony, Dr. 
Christian Baier, read the confession in Ger- 
man, with a distinctness of voice and utter- 
ance which well accorded with the clearness 
and firmness of the belief it expressed. § The 
number of the spiritual princes present was 
not great : they thought they should be com- 
pelled to listen to many inconvenient re- 
proaches. Those in favour of it rejoiced at '' 
having made this progress, and were de- 
lighted both with the matter of the confes- 
sion and the manner in which it was recited. 
Some took advantage of the opportunity to 
note down the main points. As soon as it 
was finished, the two copies were handed to 
the emperor; the German he gave to the 
chancellor of the empire, the Latin he kept 
in his own hands. Both of them were signed 
by the Elector and the Electoral Prince of 
Saxony, Markgrave George of Brandenburg, 
the Dukes Francis and Ernest of Lüneburg, 



X Philip Fürstenberg reports to the city of Frankfurt, 
27th June, that there were formal negotiations concern- 
ing this. The elector and his kinsmen prayed : " Ih : Mt 
wolt morgen wieder an dem Ort (im Pallast) erscheinen 
und den Umbstand (die Umstehenden) ire Berantwortung 
vernehmen zu lassen gestalten, denn sie weren von irea 
Widderwertigen nit aleyn bei L Mt sondern auch bei 
menniglich verunglimpft; aber endlich ist es bei dem 
Besehend blieben."—" That your majesty would again ap- 
pear at the same place (the palace), and be pleased to let 
those present hear your answer, for they have been re- 
proached not only by your majesty, but by many others, 
with their untractableness. Nevertheless, the message 
remained unanswered." 

§ Fürstenberg : "Hell und klar, dass menniglich, so 
dabei was, der anders deutsch verstünde, alle Wort eigent- 
lich, was doch in solcher Versammlung selten geschieht, 
verstehen mocht."— " Distinct and clear, that as many as 
were there present that understood German, could hear 
every word, which in such assemblies seldom happens." 
The Catholics thought the permission to read the Confes- 
sion aloud, a great and unmerited honour. Even two 
years afterwards, Eck grumbles at it. " Lutheranismu.s 
in arcem dignitatum evectus ita invaluit, ut assenores 
erroris non vererentiir in publicis comitiis Augustre ofTerre 
Csesari novi dogmatis confessionem." Preefatio in homi- 
lia's V. contra Turcam. A. iii. 



Chap. IX. 



CONFUTATION. 



359 



Landgrave Philip', Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, 
and the delegates of the cities of Nürnberg 
and Reutlingen. 

CONFUTATION. — THREATS. 

The evangelical princes expected that their 
adversaries vvoulil come forward with a simi- 
lar declaration of faith, and that the emperor 
would then endeavour to mediate between 
them. This expectation w^as held out by the 
Proposition, and, in still more distinct terms, 
by the convocation in virtue of which they 
were now assembled. 

It is highly probable that this was actually 
the emperor's intention : he had indeed wished 
that the Catholic party had brought forward a 
distinct charge against the reformers, in which 
case he would have undertaken the part of an 
umpire between them. At the meeting of the 
States, Ferdinand had once made a proposal 
to that effect. 

But the two brothers w^ere not sufficiently 
masters of the assembly to accomplish this. 

The majority which had been formed in 
Spires, and acquired greater compactness in 
Augsburg, regarded itself as the legitimate 
possessor of the authority of the empire. 
Though the Catholic zeal of the two brothers 
w^as most agreeable to its wishes, it found 
many things to object to them. Ferdinand 
had obtained papal concessions of ecclesiasti- 
cal revenues. — a thing which, though per- 
mitted in Spain, was unheard of m Germany. 
This excited universal disgust and resistance 
among the clergy. The majority declined 
constituting themselves as a party, and ac- 
knowledging the emperor as judge between 
them and the Protestants. They declared 
that they had nothing new to propose; they 
had simply adhered to the imperial edict; if 
the emperor was in want of a charge to bring 
against the reformers, let him resort to that 
of contravention of his edict. Nay, more; as 
it was the immemorial custom that the em- 
peror should accede to the sentiments of the 
assembly of the empire, they were of opinion 
that he should now adopt their cause as his 
ow^n. This was, in fact, requesting him to 
use his imperial power in this affair, wnth the 
advice of the electors, princes, and estates of 
the empire. It was a matter of perfect indif- 
ference to them, that this was at variance 
with the express words of the convocation, 
since they were not the authors of it. The 
emperor w^as, in fact, compelled to relinquish 
his idea of a judicial mediation. 

It has been usually asserted that traces are 
to be found of personal and independent nego- 
tiations between the emperor and the Protest- 
ants at this diet. The fact however is, that 
from this moment, the whole business was 
conducted by the majority of the States. Con- 
cerning the minutest point — e. g., the commu- 
nication of a document — the emperor was 
compelled to hold a consultation" with them ; 
he acted at last only as they deemed ex- 
pedient. 

It is much to be regretted that we have no 



protocols of the sittings of the Catholic ma- 
jority; we do not even know whether any 
were drawn up. Neither have any full and 
accurate reports come to light; and they are 
hardly to be expected, since the most con- 
siderable princes were present, and the dele- 
gates from the cities did nof take part in the 
sittings. 

All that we know is, that there was a divi- 
sion of opinion in the majority itself. The one 
party thought that the emperor ought at once 
to take up arms, and enforce the execution 
of his former edict. The Archbishop of Salz- 
burg said, '• Either we inust put an end to 
them, or they wdll put an end to us; which 
of the two suits us best?" An' equally vio- 
lent member of the assembly was heard to 
remark, jesting, that, the confession was writ- 
ten with black ink. '-Were we emperor," 
said he, '■'• we would put red rubrics to it." 
■'Sir." rejoined another, '-only take care that 
the red does not spirt up in your faces." All, 
as this answer shows, were not equally hos- 
tile. The Archbishop of I\Iainz, in particular^ 
pointed out the danger which would arise 
from an invasion of the Turks, in case of an 
open breach with the Protestants. It was at 
length determined to advise the emperor 
above all things to authorise a confutation of 
the confession : meanwhile, an attempt might 
be made to arrange the differences between 
the temporal and spiritual estates. The em- 
peror acted on this advice. He gavediimself 
up to the hope that the settlement of these 
differences and the confutation of the confes- 
sion would, united, produce such an effect on 
the Protestants as to induce them to yield.* 

The situation of the Protestants was thus 
changed greatly for the worse. 

Till now they had expected from the em- 
peror's exalted position a fair appreciation of 
their conduct, and mediation between them 
and their adversaries ; but they very soon per- 
ceived that he did not give, but received the 
impulse; the old and bitter enemies with 
whom they had so long striven, constituting a 
majority, now directed all the measures of the 
imperial authority. 

The confutation was set about with the ut- 
most zeal. There was no want of labourers. 
Not only the reforming theologians, but their 
opponents, had repaired to the diet wdth their 
respective princes; Faber, from Vienna; w-ho 
was now become prebendary of Ofen; Eck, 
from Ingolstadt ; Cochläus, from Dresden ; 
Wimpina, from Frankfurt on the Oder. With 
the prince bishops came their vicars, or learned 
officiating bishops ; there were some eminent 
monks — Capuchins, Carmelites, and especially 
Dominicans ; Paul Haug, the provincial ; John 



* Tlie extracts in Bucholtz, iii. throw peculiar light on. 
tliese negotiations. A remarkable document belonging 
to them is to be found entire in Förstemann, vol. ii. p. 9. 
It is without a date, but it must be of the 9th or lOth of 
July, since the emperor mentions a question he had asked 
the Protestants on the 9th, — i. e., whether they intended 
to bring forward more articles; to which he had as yet 
received no answer. The answer was given on tlie 10th; 
but, perhaps, was not delivered till the day following. 
See the reports in Schmidt, viii, 244. Melanchthon to 
Luther, 8th July. C. R. ii. 175. 



360 



CONFUTATION. 



Book V. 



Barkhardj the vicar; and the prior, Conrad 
Colli, who had written against Luther's mar- 



riage. 



It 



not surprising that a man like 



Erasmus (who was also invited) felt no incli- 
nation to have his name associated with such 
as these. The nien who were here to conduct 
the discussion were the representatives of the 
Aristotehc Dominican system, which so long 
ruled the schools of Europe, and which he had 
himself combated. With the literary weapons 
which they had hitherto wielded, they had 
accomplished little. Their whole strength lay 
in their cormexion with power. They were 
now no longer private men : they were to 
speak and to write in the name of the empire. 

They were not, it is true, left at absolute 
liberty. People dreaded their violence and 
their difFuseness, for each of them brought his 
old animosities and his old refutations of Lu- 
theran opinions, which were not now in dis- 
pute.! Their first draft was peremptorily re- 
turned to them by the assembly of the empire, 
admonishing them to confine themselves en- 
tirely to the article of the confession. A 
second, shorter, which was next presented, 
was submitted, article by article, to minute 
discussion by the assembly. It was the third 
of August before the confutation was prepared 
and could be read aloud in the fore-mentioned 
hall of the bishop's palace. 

It consists, like the confession, of two parts; 
the one treating of belief, the other of prac- 
tice. 

In the former, the contested question already 
approached the point at which it has since re- 
mained stationary. It was no longer main- 
tained that the sacrament, the mere perform- 
ance of the act, the opus operalum, merited, 
grace. It was no longer taught that a good 
work done without grace was of the same 
nature as one done with grace ; that the differ- 
ence between them was only one of degree. 
Those were the doctrines against which Luther 
had contended. A nearer approach was made 



* Eck brought, among other things, a book already 
printed at Ingolstadt under the following title : Sub do- 
mini Jhesu et Marim patrocinio Articulos 404 partim ad 
disputationes Lipsicam Baden, et Bernen. attinentes par- 
tim vero ex scriptis pacem ecclesiK perturbantium ex- 
tractos coram divo Cajsare Carolo V. Ro. Imp. semper 
Augu. ac proceribus Imperii Joan. Eckius minimus eccle- 
site "minister offert se disputaturum ut in scheda latius ex- 
plicatur Augustas Vindelicorum die et hora consensu 
Cffisaris posterius publicandis. He mentions first the 41 
articles condemned by the pope; "Assero, qui bulla; con- 
tradixerint, schismaticos esse ac fidei hostes, quos catho- 
licus habet proethnicis et publicanis." He then cites the 
articles which he had defended at Leipzig and Baden, as 
well as those which he had opposed to the resolutions of 
Berne; lastly, " errores novi et veteres jam ventilati," 
under certain rubrics. He collects 404, " ex i nfinitis eorum 
crroribus hos paucos subitarie excerpsi." In his hurry, he 
has also mixed up with them some of Erasmus's maxims. 
The other side threw the Propositiones de vino, venere, 
et balneo, in his teeth, which we still see circulate among 
the Catholic societies, and which made him an object of 
public ridicule. 

t CoChlüus printed some articles of this confutation in 
his book, Philippiceequatuorinapologiam Melanchthonis, 
Lipsiffi, 1534. At the third article, sheet D, it is said 
therein; damnent diras blasphemias — Lutheri errorem— 
Fuum Pugenhagium — Melanchthonem suum— Antonium 
Zimerman, hominem insigniter Lutheranum — studiosum 
Lutheri discipulum Burguerum. The passages worthy of 
condemnation from each are quoted. Hence it happened, 
as Cochlaus said, "quorundam consilium qui judicabant 
ejusmodi responsionem fore nimis acrem et prolixam." 



to the more profound conception of justifica- 
tion through Christ which has since been 
almost universally adopted. If the Catholics 
strove to retain the doctrine of the necessity 
of good works, it was in a different sense from 
that heretofore affixed to it.t 

This was, however, the only modification to 
which they consented. 

On the other points they remained steadfast 
to the established system. They demanded 
the admission of the doctrine of transubstan- 
tiation, of the seven sacraments, and the invo- 
cation of saints; they persisted in the denial 
of the cup, and the injunction of celibacy; 
they even made an attempt (which, indeed, 
was certain to fail) to deduce these doctrines 
from passages of Scripture, or from the usage 
of the earliest ages of the church, and in this 
attempt they stumbled again on the false de- 
cretals; they would not give up the sacrifice 
of the mass: and above all, they firmly ad- 
hered to the idea of the Latin, as the universal 
church. They defended the use of the Latin 
ritual in the mass, on the ground that the offi- 
ciating priest belonged far more to the whole 
church, than to the particular congregation by 
which he happened to be surrounded. 

In short, if, on the one side, the Protestants 
were driven by the misinterpretation of doc- 
trines, and by abusive practices, to recur 
directly to Scripture (understanding it in a 
sense corresponding with the fundamental 
notions of the primitive Latin church, but irre- 
concilable with the ideas and fictions of recent 
hierarchical times), on the other, their antago- 
nists now consented to relinquish some of the 
most flagrant excrescences in doctrine, and to 
take into consideration the removal of the 
abuses which had already caused so many 
disputes between spiritual and temporal 
princes ; they still, however, persisted in af- 
firming that the whole hierarchical system 
was of immediate divine origin. We see 
them in search of a method — for they had as 
yet found none — by which to prove the con- 
formity of their system with Scripture. 

This would not have been of so much im- 
portance, had they aimed only at self-defence. 
But that was by no means the case. The 
majority not only declared that they deemed 
this opinion just and Catholic, conformable 
with the Gospel, but they also demanded that 
the Protestant minority should erase the re- 
futed articles from their confession, and return 
to a unity of faith with the universal orthodox 
church. No attention was paid to their agree- 
ment in what was essential, ancient, and ori- 
ginal, so long as the slightest difference, 
though only in accidental and unessential par- 
ticulars, was discernible. Whatever had been 
altered, M'hether by the inevitable pressure of 
circumstances, or in consequence of the legal 



t See, besides the confutation, De principum protestan- 
tium confessione Joannis Eccii censura archiepiscopo 
Moguntino et Georgio D. S. Augusts exhibita, in Ceeles- 
tin, iii. 3'5. As this work, addressed to certain Catholic 
princes, contains the essentials of the concessions made 
by some modern Catholics, it puts an end to the imputa- 
tion of hypocrisy which has been brought forward against 
them. 



Chap. IX. 



ELECTOR JOHN OF SAXONY. 



361 



enactments of a former diet, was to be re- 
stored to its original state. The emperor de- 
clared himself entirely of this rriind. At the 
end of the confutation, which was pubhshed 
in his name, he admonished the evangelical 
party immediately to return to their obedience 
to the Roman and Catholic chnrch. If not, 
he must proceed against them as became a 
Roman emperor, the protector and steward of 
the church. 

The time for mildness w^as over ; the time 
for severity seemed to have arrived. 

Already had the pope spoken. 

At the very commencement of the meeting, 
the emperor had demanded a short statement 
of the most important demands of the Pro- 
testants, drawn up by Melanchthon, M'hich he 
communicated to the legate, who forwarded 
it to Rome. As far as we are able to ascer- 
tain, the following points were mentioned as 
indispensable : — Sacrament in both kinds ; 
marriage of priests; omission of the canon in 
the mass ; concession of the secularised church 
lands : and, lastly, discussion of the other con- 
tested questions at a council. The document 
was laid before a consistory of cardinals on 
the 6th of July. What a moment would this 
have been,, if they had but entered on the 
consideration of it in a conciliatory spirit! 
But they at once declared these articles at va- 
riance with the faith and discipline, no less 
than wuth the interests, of the church :* they 
decided to reject the petition, and simply to 
thank the emperor for his zeal. 

The assembly of the empire had itself ex- 
horted the emperor to act as became the 
steward of the church. 

Urged on either side, bound by his treaties, 
and exclusively surrounded by persons who 
either had no idea of the real character and 
views of the Protestants, or had long been 
their enemies, — Charles assumed the sternest 
deportment. Not content with his general 
declarations, he showed his sentiments by his 



ungracious behaviour to individuc 



to the 



Elector John, especially, he expressed his dis- 
pleasure that he had separated himself from 
the emperor, the defender of the faith, intro- 
duced innovations, and sought to form confe- 
derations. "His majesty also had a soul and 
a conscience, and would do nothing contrary 
to God's word." If the elector would not re- 
turn to the faith which had been held by their 
forefathers for centuries,'" his majesty, on his 
part, would not be disposed to grant him in- 
feudation, nor any of the other favours which 
he craved. 



RESISTANCE. 

The might and energy of Latin Christendom 
was once more exhibited to the world in the 
person of the emperor. By his brilliant vic- 
tories he had secured universal peace; even 



* Pallavicini, from a contemporaneous Diario, iii. iv. 
280. ArticoU opposti — alia ragion della chiesa. A sort 
of ecclesiastical reason of state. 

t In the reprint in Müller, p. 672, it is said, for twenty 
or thirty years, which is doubtless an error of the pen. 
"46 ♦ 2f 



from the Ottoman power he had nothing to 
dread during the present, or probably the 
coming year. The papal authority, as well 
as the collective power of the States of the 
empire, was on his side. On the other hand, 
the Protestants had no religious or political 
support in any quarter; nor had they even the 
internal strength which a firm bond of union 
would have given them. 

It might indeed be doubted whether Ger- 
man princes and lords, trained in the chival- 
rous life of courts, and converted to the new 
doctrines in mature age, by the arguments and 
instructions of strangers; — to whom a good 
understanding with their neighbours, and, in 
their more important affairs, the favour of the 
emperor, were indispensable, would have suf- 
ficient constancy to maintain their opinions in 
defiance of his express displeasure, and of the 
power concentrated in his person. 

The immediate decision of this question de- 
pended on the most eminent and powerful 
among them, to whom the others looked up, 
and against whom the emperor chiefly directed 
his attacks — the Elector John of Saxony. 

Elector John of Saxony, the last of the four 
excellent sons of Elector Ernest, — educated 
with the greatest care, at Grimma, to qualify 
him for either the spiritual or the temporal 
dignities of the empire — the progenitor of the 
Ernestine house, which has now such numerous 
and flourishing branchesij: — did not possess the 
political genius, nor the acute and penetrating 
mind of his brother Frederic. On the other 
hand, he w^as remarkable from his childhood 
for good nature and frankness, — " without 
guile and without bile," as Luther said, — yet 
full of that moral earnestness w^hich gives 
weight and dignity to simplicity of character. 
He is believed to have lived to his''thirty- 
second 5'ear, when he marriad, in pe/f^ct 
chastity ;§ there is at least no trace of the con- 
trary. The brilhant and tumultuous knightly 
festivals in which he sometimes took part at 
the court of Maximihan. afforded him no satis- 
faction, although he always made a distin- 
guished figure at them ; he once said, at a later 
period of his life, that not one of these days 
had passed without a sorrow. |i He was not 
born for the amusements and dissipations of 
the world; the disgust w^hich inevitably at- 
tends them made too deep an impression on 
him, and gave him more pain than their frivo- 
lous enjoyments gave him pleasure. With 
his brother, who was his co-regent, he never 
had a difference ; never did the one engage a 
person in his service without the full consent 
of the other. From the first appearance of 
Luther in the world. John embraced his doc- 
trines with the most joyful sympathy ; his 
serious and profoundly religious mind was 



t These are, the house of Weimar, and that of Gotha, 
in'its three subordinate lines, S. Meiningen Hildburg- 
hausen, S. Altenburg, and S. Coburg-Gotha. — Transl. 

§ SpaIatin,Von Herzog Hansen zu Sachsen Churfiirsten, 
in Struve's newly published Archives, iii. 16; unfortu- 
nately much less fertile in information than the same 
autho'r's Nachricht über Friedrich d. W. 

|( An expression of his in Beckmann's Anhaltischer 
Geschichte, ii. v. p. 140. 



302 



ELECTOR JOHN OF SAXONY. 



Be 



his nobles; mild and sweet tempered as he 
was, he was not to be induced to grant any- 
unjust favour, and he censured his son for 
hstening more than was prudent to those 
about him. In all these respects Luther had 
the greatest influence over him ] Luther knew 
how to set the secret springs of this pure and 
noble soul in motion at the fitting time, and to 
keep this upright conscience constantly awake. 
Thus, therefore, it was John of Saxony \^ho 
took the lead in that protest which gave its 
name and position to the whole party. For 
when justice and religion were on his side, he 
knew not hesitation ; he sometimes quoted the 
proverb, "Strait forward makes a good runner." 



He 



gradually but completely embued with them. 
His greatest enjoyment was, to have the Scrip- 
tures, which he now heard for the first time, 
read aloud to him in an evening; sometimes 
he fell asleep, — for he was already far ad- 
vanced in years, — but he awoke repeating the 
last verse that had dwelt upon his memory. 
He occasionally w^rote down Luiher's sermons, 
and there is extant a copy of the lesser cate- 
chism in his handwrituig.* Examples are 
not wanting, both before and since his time, 
of princes whose powers of action have been 
paralysed by absorption in religious contem- 
plation ; but with him this was not the case; 
notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of his 
character, he was not less conspicuous for ele- 
vation and force of will. When, during the 
peasants' war, the cause of the princes was in 
so tottering a state, he did not disguise from 
himself that a terrible convulsion might ensue ; 
he was prepared for reverses, and was heard 
to say that he could content himself with a 
horse or two, and be a man like other men ; 
but 4his sentiment did not prevent his de- 
fending his good right as bravely as any of his 
brother princes; only he used his victory with 
greater clemency. It would be difficult to 

point out a moment in the subsequent years | no doubt of being easily able to reconcile that 
of his reign, in which he could have indulged j sentiment with his religious convictions. But 
in a merely contemplative piety. We know it very soon became obvious that this would 
of no prince to whom a larger portion of the i be impossible ; and in order to avert the 
merit of the establishment of the Protestant danger from the head of their prince, some 



("Gradaus giebt einen guten Eennei 



was by nature retiring, peaceful, unpretending; 
but he was raised to such a pitch of resolution 
and energy by the greatness of his purposes, 
that he showed himself fully equal to their 
accomplishment. 

Here, in Augsburg, had Elector John to 
stand the test, whether his intentions were 
unadulterated gold, or whether they were 
mixed with any baser matter. 

He felt the reverence for the emperor natural 
to a prince of the empire, and at first he had 



church can justly be ascribed. His brother 
and predecessor had merely not suffered the 
new doctrines to be crushed: he had taken 
ihem under his protection in his own domi- 
nions, and, so far as it was possible, in the 
empire. But when John assumed the govern- 
ment, there were rocks on either side, on which 
the whole cause might have gone to wreck, 
afid which could only have been avoided by a 
policy founded on those lofty convictions that 
never for a moment failed or wavered. The 
peasants' war was followed by violent tenden- 
cies to a re-action; and urgently as the adop- 
tion of these was pressed upon him by his 
worldly-wise and experienced cousin, John 
did not allow himself to be mastered by them. 
On the contrary, the course which he took at 
the ensuing diet contributed to the passing of 
that recess on which the whole subsequent 
legal structure of Protestantism was reared. 
It soon, indeed, appeared as if the impetuosity 
of his Hessian ally would hurry the elector 
into a series of political perplexities of which 
nobody could foresee the end; but his calmer 
and better judgment saved him in time, and 
he returned to that defensive position which 
was natural to him, and which he was able to 
maintain. His sole object and endeavour was 
to give to the new doctrines an utterance and 
a recognised existence in his dominions. He 
introduced into Germany the first evangelical 
formof church government, which, in a greater 
or less degree, served as model for all others. 
He speedily put a stop to the arbitrary acts of 



* Cyprian, Geschiclite der Augsburgischen Confession, 
p. 1S4. 



of his learned men reverted to the old idea, 
that he should not espouse their cause, but 
leave it to stand or fall by itself. They were 
prepared to deliver in the confession solely in 
their own names. The elector replied, "I too 
will confess my Christ." (-^ch will meinen 
Christus auch mit bekennen.") 

From that time the emperor evinced more 
and more alienation from him." '-'We have 
prayed his imperial majesty," says the elec- 
tor, in one of his letters,! "to invest us with 
the electoral dignity according to the feudal 
forms; this has been refused to us. We stand 
at a great cost here, having just now been 
obliged to borrow 12,000 gulden; his imperial 
majesty has, as yet, given us no word of 
promise. We cannot think otherwise than 
that we have been sorely slandered to his 
imperial majesty, and that this has befallen 
us through our own kinsfolk." 

We see the state of mind to which he had 
already been brought; and now followed the 
confutation and the threatening declaration 
annexed to it. 

That he, v.-ith his narrow strip of land on 
the Elbe and his little Thuringia, — without 
any allies on whom he could rely — could 
off'er resistance to the emperor, who had just 
achieved so exalted and commanding a sta- 
tion, and was enabled to enforce the ancient 
ordinances of Latni Christendom, was too 
wild a thought to be seriously entertained for 
a moment. He was, moreover, paralysed by 
the doubt, -whether he had a right to resist. 



t To Nicolas v. Ende, Amtmann in Georgenthal, 28 
July. 



Chap. IX. 



ELECTOR JOHN OF SAXONY. 



and rather inclined to tlie opinion that it could 
in no case be justifiable. 

Care was taken to let him know clearly 
what awaited him. A prince greatly in the 
confidence of the court, told him one day that, 
if he would not submit, the emperor would 
attack him with an armed force, drive him 
from his country and his people, and execute 
the extremest rigours of the law on his per- 
son.* 

The elector doubted not that it might come 
even to this. He came home greatly moved, 
and expressed his consternation that he was 
required either to deny what he had acknow- 
ledged to be the truth, or to plunge, with all 
belonging to him, into irretrievable ruin. 

Luther affirms that, had John wavered, not 
one of his council would have stood firm. 

But his simple and straight-forward mind 
viewed the (juestion laid before him in so 
clear and direct a light, that his decision was 
inevitable. " Either deny God or the world," 
said he, — '•' who can doubt which is better ? 
God has made me an elector of the empire, a 
dignity of which I never was warthy ; let him 
do with me further according to his good 
pleasure." 

A dream which he had about this time 
affords a curious proof of what was passing in 
his mind. He was seized with that sort of 
stifling oppression in which the sleeper feels as 
if he were expiring under a crushing weight. 
He dreamed that he lay under a mountain, on 
the summit of which stood his cousin George ; 
towards morning the mountain crumbled away, 
and his hostile kinsman fell down by his side. 

Ill short, the aged prince neither quailed 
nor wavered. Great events rarely come to 
pass without those great moral efforts which 
are the necessary, though hidden germs of 
new social and pohtical institutions. Elector 
John continued to declare that the emperor 
should find him a loyal and peaceful prince 
in every respect; but that he would never be 
able to induce him to regard the eternal truth 
as not the truth, or the ünperishable word of 
God as not God's word. 

The man who had the greatest influence in 
keeping him steady to this determination, was 
unquestionably Luther, though he was not 
with him. 

Luther's sentence of ban w^aj not yet re- 
voked, and though he had remained secure in 
spite of it, the elector could not bring him to 
the diet. He left him at Coburg, on the fron- 
tier of his territory. 

It was a great advantage to Luther that he 

'was not involved in the turmoil of affairs, and 

of the incidents of the day ; he could take a 

more comprehensive view^ of what was passing. 

He was struck with surprise that the em- 
peror appeared so intimately connected with 



* Müller, Geschichte der Protestation, p. 715. One 
proof how widely diffused were anxieties of this kind, is 
a report which Zwingii received from Venice in the iDe- 
ginnin? of the year 1530, in which the emperor's schemes 
are thus described; "the emperor would bring Duke 
George of Saxony to Duke John, from whom he would 
take away iiis status (Stand), so that he be no longer an 
electing prince, and would take upon him to give it to 
Duke George." Archiv für Schweiz. Geschichte, i. p. 278. 



the pope, and so secure of the French ; and 
that the States of the empire had again 
espoused the pope's party. He treated these 
things with a sort of irony. "Monsieur Par- 
ma-ibi," as he called the King of France, 
would, he thought, never forget the disgrace 
of the battle of Pavia : Master In nomine 
Domini (the pope) would not be much de- 
lighted with the devastation of Rome ; Jheir 
amity with the emperor belonged to the chap- 
ter, Non credimus.f He could not understand 
how the princes took it so easily that the pope 
had crowned the emperor without their pre- 
sence.! He compared their assembly with 
the conclave of jackdaws before his window; 
there he witnessed the same journeying to 
and fro; the clamours and pratings of the 
whole flock; the monotonous preaching of the 
sophists. "A right useful folk to consume 
all that the earth brings forth, and to while 
away the heavy time with chattering."§ It 
struck him particularly that the state of things 
when he first rose into notice, seemed to be 
entirely forgotten; he reminded his friends 
that, at that time, the sale of indulgences, 
and the doctrine, that God might be satisfied 
by pious works, w^ere universally prevalent ; 
that new services, pilgrimages, relics, and, to 
crown all, the fable of the garment of Christ, 
were daily brought forward ; that masses were 
bargained for and sold for a few pence, more 
or less, and held to be a sacrifice well pleasing 
to God. He called to remembrance that the 
most effectual weapons for putting down the 
peasants' war (at least those of a literary 
kind), had been used by the Protestants ; as a 
requital for w^hich their enemies were now 
labouring for their destruction. For he had 
never for a moment doubted how this matter 
would end : from the time the emperor had 
prohibited the preaching, he had ceased -to 
have the slightest hope of reconciliation; he 
saw that Charles would urge all the subordi- 
nate princes to renounce their opinions. Not 
that he thought the emperor himself disposed 
to violence ; on the contrary, he never speaks 
of "the noble blood of Emperor Charles" 
without reverence ; but he knows in what 
hands their good lord is; he beholds in him 
only the mask behind which their old ene- 
mies are concealed; and these, he is per- 
suaded, meditate nothing but force, and trust 
to their superior numbers. He thinks that the 
Florentine who now^ occupies the papal chair, 
will find some opportunity to cause streams of 
German blood to flow. 

But these prospects did not affright him. 
"Let them do as they list," said he, "they 
are not at the end yet." 

He could not think of receding one step fur- 
ther. "Day and night," said he, "I live in 
these things, I search the Scriptures, I re- 
flect, I discuss; I daily feel increasing cer- 



t To Teucleben, 19th June. 

X To the Elector of Mainz, 6th July. 

§ To his Table Companions,28th April, and to Spalatin, 
9tii May. (A translation of this sportive letter may be 
found in a little volume of Fragments from German Prose 
Writers.— Transl.) 



364 



LUTHER IN COBURG. 



V. 



tainty; I will not allow more to be taken from 
me, let what God wills befall me in conse- 
quence." He laughs at the d*emands of the 
Catholics for restitution. "Let them first," 
he exclaims, " restore the blood of Leonhard 
Kaiser and of so many other innocent men 
whom they have murdered !" 

His intrepidity is solely the result of his 
persuasion that his cause is the cause of God. 
"Some are sorrowful," he says^ "as if God 
had forgotten us; but he cannot forget us, he 
must first forget himself; our cause must be 
not his cause, our doctrine not his work. 
Were Christ not with us, where then were he 
in the world? If we have not God's word, 
who then has if?" He consoles himself with 
the words, "Trust to me; I have overcome 
the world." 

"The Lord dwelleth in the mist; he hath 
his dwelling-place in the darkness. Man 
seeth not what he is; but he will be the 
Lord, and we shall see it." 

,,"And if we are not worthy, it will be 
brought to pass by others. Have our fore- 
fathers made us to be what we are? God 
alone, who will be the Creator after us, as he 
was before us, causes it to be with us even as 
it is. For he, the God that ruleth the thoughts, 
will not die with us. If the enemy put me to 
death, I shall be better avenged than L could 
desire : there will be one who will say, Where 
is thy brother AbeH" 

In this temper of mind are all his letters of 
that time written. Never was a man more 
intensely penetrated with the immediate pre- 
sence of the Divine Being. He knew the 
, eternal, all-conquering powers in whose ser- 
vice he was engaged ; he knew them, such as 
they had revealed themselves, and he called 
upon them by their names. He rested with 
dauntless courage on the promises which they 
had given to the human race, in the Psalms or 
the Gospel. 

He spoke with God as with a present Lord 
and Father. His amanuensis in Coburg once 
heard him praying to himself: — "I know that 
thou art our God," exclaimed he; "that thou 
will destroy them that persecute thy people; 
didst thou not thus, thou wouldst abandon 
thine own cause; it is not our cause, — we 
have been compelled to embrace it ; thou 
therefore must defend it." He prayed with 
the manly courage which feels its right to the 
protection of the Divine Power to whom it has 
devoted itself; his prayer plunges into the 
depths of the Godhead, without losing the 
sense of its personality; he does not desist 
till he has the feeling of being heard — the 
greatest of which the human heart, raised 
above all delusion, is in its holiest moments 
susceptible. " I have prayed for thee," he 
J writes to Melanchthon, "I have felt the amen 
in my heart." 

A genuine expression of this frame of mind 
was the hymn, " Eine feste Burg ist unser 
Gott" ("Our God is a strong tower"), the 
composition of which is justly attributed to 
this period.* It professes to be a paraphrase 



of the 16th Psalm, but is in fact merely sug- 
gested by it; it is completely the product of 
the moment in which Luther, engaged in a 
conflict with a world of foes, sought strength 
in the consciousness that he was defending a 
divine cause that could never perish. He 
seems to lay down his arms, but it was in 
fact the manliest renunciation of a momentary 
success, with the certainty of that which is 
eternal. How triumphant and animated is 
the melody ! how simple and steady, how 
devout and elevated ! It is identical with the 
words; they arose together in those stormy 
days. 

Such was his temper of mind, when he ex- 
horted not only his nearest friends, but the 
elector and his councils, to be of good courage. 

He told his prince to take comfort, that no 
other crime was imputed to him than the de- 
fence of the pure and living word of God. 
Therein indeed consisted all his honour. In 
his land he had the best preachers; childhood 
and youth grew up in the knowledge of the 
catechism and the word of God, so that it was 
a joy to see them ; this was the paradise over 
which God had set him as guardian ; he did 
not only protect the word, he maintained and 
noui'ished it. and therefore it came to his aid. 
"Oh !" exclaims he, "the young will be your 
helpers, who with their innocent tongues call 
so heartily on Heaven." 

"I have lately seen tAvo wonders," writes 
he to Chancellor Brück. " The first, — I looked 
out of the window at the stars of heaven, and 
the whole beautiful vauhed roof of God, and 
could nowhere see a pillar upon which the 
Master had placed his roof; and yet it stands 
fast. The other, — I saw thick clouds hanging 
over us, and yet no ground upon which they 
rested, no vessel in which they were con- 
tained; yet they fell not, but greeted us with 
a gloomy countenance and passed on : for 
God's thoughts are far above our thoughts; 
if we are only certain that our cause is his 
cause, so is our prayer already heard and our 
help already at hand : — if the emperor granted 
us peace, as we wish, the emperor would have 
the honour; but God himself will give us 
peace, that he alone may have the honour. "t 

A determined will has always the power of 
carrying others along with it. How resistless 
must it then^be in one so filled with the Spirit 
of God ! Luther exercised perhaps a greater 
influence over his followers from a distance, 
than his continual presence could have given 
him. 

All the other princes vied Vvüth Elector 
John in firmness. 

It was on this occasion that Duke Ernest of 
Lüneburg won the name of the Confessor. 
Instead of receding a single step, he received 
into his intimacy Urbanus Rhegius, the chief 



mentions that this hymn is to be found in a collection of 
1529. He means, however, only a collection of Lutheran 
hymns, dated ]529, in the Jen. und Altenb. Ausg. luth. 
Werke; but which, like many other of his assertions, is 
founded on error. Nowhere else is there any trace of a 



collection of 1529, and we may be permitted to doubt of 
its existence. The one published' under that title also 
contains later hymns. 
* C£Eleslin affirms this. Olearius, on the other hand, 1 \ 4th Aug., in De Wette, iv. 



Chap. IX. 



CONDUCT OF THE PROTESTANT PRINCES. 



365 



promoter of the reformation in his duchy, and 
took him home from Augsburg, as the most 
precious treasure that he could bring his 
people. 

The emperor and the king had promised 
Markgrave George of Brandenburg to favour 
his interests if he would renounce the new 
doctrine- a consideration of the more weight, 
since Brandenburg had even then claims^on 
certain possessions in Silesia ; but the mark- 
grave rejected every proposal of the kind.* 
Nor was this ail; his powerful and zealoasly 
Catholic cousin. Elector Joachim, was not less 
urgent with him to quit the evangelical party, 
and bitter altercations took place between 
them. The markgrave declared his convic- 
tion that the doctrine could not be called an 
error, so long as Christ was really Christ : it 
taught a man to turn himself to Christ alone: 
of this he had full experience. Without en- 
tering seriously on the discussion of this point, 
the elector mainly insisted on the emperor's 
determination to restore every thing to its for- 
mer state. The markgrave replied, that the 
emperor might abohsh what he chose ; that 
he himself must submit, but that he would 
not assist in the work. The elector asked 
v»'hether the markgrave recollected what he 
had at stake. He replied, " They say I am to 
be driven out of my country. I must commit 
the matter into God's hands. "t 

Wolfgang of Anhalt was by no means a 
powerful prince, nevertheless he said with the 
greatest calmness, ''Many a time have I taken 
horse in the cause of ray good masters and 
friends, and my lord Christ deserves that I 
should venture something for his sake also." 
"Master Doctor," said he to Eck, '■'• if you are 
thinking of war, you will find people ready on 
this side likewise. "ij: 

Such being the disposition of the other re- 
formers, it was not likely that the high-spirited 
landgrave would be brought to concede any 
thing. 'The Hessian chronicler, Lauze, relates 
that, after the confession had been delivered 
in, certain men had taken the landgrave to the 
top of a high mountain, and shown him all the 
good things of the world; that is, had held 
out to him hopes of favour in the affairs of 
Nassau and Wiirtenberg ; but that he had re- 
fused them all.§ One day he heard that the 
emperor intended to reprove him; instantly, 
accoutred as he w^as, he hurried to court, and 
begged the emperor to state the acts by which 
he had incurred his displeasure. The em- 
peror enumerated some, whereupon the land- 
grave gave an explanation w'hich Charles 
accepted as satisfactory. But the grand diffi- 
culty was yet to come ; the emperor required 
him to show himself a dutiful subject in the 
matter of the faith, and added, that otherwise 
.he would take the course which beseemed 
him as Roman emperor. But threats were 



* Letter to the kinsmen of the house of Brandenburg 
(Stammesvettern), 19th July; Förstemann, ii. 93. 

t Cotemporaneous notes commencing these negotia- 
tions, passim, 630. 

I Beckmann's Anhaltische Chronik, ii. v. 142. 

§ Letter of the Nürnberg envoy, C. R. ii. 167. 

2f* 



still vainer than promises. Philip was, more- 
over, daily more impatient of an assembly 
in which, conformably to the hierarchical rules 
of the empire, he held a position by no means 
corresponding with his power. He begged the 
emperor to dismiss him ; and as the latter re- 
fused, he one evening rode away without leave. II 
He wrote from a distance to ihe Elector of 
Saxony, to assure him that he would stake 
body and goods, land and' people, with him 
and with God's word. "Bid the cities," he 
writes to his council, "that they be not wo- 
men, but men ; there is no fear. — God is on 
our side." 

And in fact the cities proved themselves 
not unworthy of the princes. " Our m.ind is," 
say the Nürnberg tlelegates, " not to give way, 
for by so doing we should put the emperor's 
favour above that of God ; God, we doubt not, 
will grant us steadfastness." The biirger- 
■meister and council were of the same mind 
as their delegates. 

Others at a distance took part in these 
events in a similar spirit. " Your grace," 
write the councillors of Magdeburg to the 
Elector of Saxony, " stands carrying on a peril- 
ous struggle in the afiairs of all Christendom, 
under the banner of our Saviour: w^e pray to 
God daily to grant you patience and strength." 

Things had thus already assumed a distinct 
shape in Germany. On the one side was a 
majority, claiming all the rights and privileges 
of the empire, united with the emiperor, and 
allied with the powers of ancient Europe; on 
the other, a minority struggling for its exist- 
ence, isolated and formless, but full of religious 
fortitude and constancy. The majority, with 
the emperor at their head, meditated using 
force ;! steps were already taken for raising- 
troops in Italy.** The minority had as yet no 
plan ; they only knew that they were deter- 
mined not to yield. 

But, it might be asked, was not every vio- 
lent measure full of danger to the majority of 
the States also? They were not sure of their 
own subjects; the suggestion of the Elector 
of Mainz, as to the danger with which both 
parties w^ere threatened in case of a w^ell-timed 
invasion by the Turks, made a deep impres- 
sion. From these considerations the original 
proposal of the pacific party, incorporated in 
the resolutions of the diet, was adopted, and 
an attempt at mediation resolved on. 

ATTEMPT OF THE STATES TO MEDIATE. 

On the 16th of August a conference was 
opened, in which two princes, two doctors of 
canon law, and three theologians of each party 

II 6th August. On the 30th July he had entered into an 
alliance vi'ith Zürich, which had a great influence on his 
conduct. See Escher und Hottinger, Archiv für Schweiz. 
Gesch. und Landeskunde, i. 42Ö. 

TT Butzer feared a "laniena sanctorum qualis vix Dio- 
cletiani tempore fuit." 14 Aug. 1530, Röhrich, ii. p. 136. 

** Nice. Tiepolo Relatione. Essendo in Augusta intesi 
che si ofFersero (the two dukes of Bavaria) all' iinpera- 
tore volendo lui muover guerra a Lutheranis, e seppi che 
tentorno col duca di Mantova d'haver il modo di condur 
1000 cavalli leggieri d'ltalia in caso si facesse guerra in 
Germania. 



366 



DIET OF AUGSBURG. 



Book V. 



took part, and which soon appeared to promise 
great results. 

The dogmatical points at issue presented 
no insuperable difficulties. On the article of 
original sin, Eck gave way as soon as Melanch- 
thon proved to him that an expression objected 
to in his definition was in fact merely a popular 
explanation of an ancient scholastic one. Re- 
specting the article on justification '■' through 
faith alone," Wirapina expressly declared that 
no work was meritorious, if performed without 
grace;* he required the union of love with 
faith ; and only in so far he objected to the 
word ''alone." In this sense, however, the 
Protestants had no desire to retain itj they 
consented ro its erasure; their meaning had 
always been merely that a reconciliation with 
God must be effected by inward devotion, not 
by outward acts. On the other hand. Eck de- 
clared, that the satisfaction which the Catholic 
church required to be made by penitence, was 
nothing else than reformation; an explanation 
which certainly left nothing further to be ob- 
jected to the doctrine of the necessity of satis- 
faction.!" Even on the difficult point of the 
sacrifice of the mass, there was a great ap- 
proximation. Eck explained the sacrifice as 
merely a sacramental sign, in reraem^brance 
of that which was offered up on the cross. i 
The presence of Christ in the eucharist v;as 
not debated. The Protestants M'ere easily 
persuaded to acknowledge not oiily.a true, but 
also a real presence. This addition is actually 
inserted in the Ansbach copy of the confes- 
sion. 

It was certainly not the difference in the 
fundamental conceptions of the Christian dog- 
ma which perpetuated the contest, Luther 
had done nothing more than revive and re- 
establish the primitive doctrines of the Latin 
church, which had been buiied under the 
hierarchical systems of later times, and *an 
ever-increasing load of abuses. Such diver- 
sities as those we have just mentioned might 
be reciprocally tolerated ; and indeed different 
opinions had always co-existed. The real 
cause of rupture lay in the constitution and 
practices of the church. 

And with respect to these the Protestants 
gave way as much as possible. They were 
persuaded that the division was an obstacle to 
good discipline in church and school; and that 
the govern miCnt of the church would be both 
ill-conducted and costly in the hands of the 
temporal sovereigns. The Protestant princes 
and theologians declared themselves ready to 
restore to the bishops their jurisdiction, right 
of anathema, and control over benefices; pro- 
vided only that no attempt was made to 

* Eck too says in liis opinion, " De principum protestan- 
tiiim confessione Joliannis Eccii censura (Ccelestjn, iii. 
36): quod opera de sua natura et in se noii essent meri- 
toria, sed solum ex Deo et gratia Dei assistente. 

f Spalatin, who performed the duties of a notary at the 
first silting, in Forstemann, ii. p. 228. In like manner 'is 
Eck's singular expression to be understood (CoBlestin, p. 
3G): Nos ponimus satisfactionem tertiam partem poeni- 
tentiffi, ipsi vero fatentur, sequi debere fructus bonorum 
operuin, ubiiternm lis est verbalis, non realis. 

J Account in Ccelestin, iii. 45. Est ergo missa non re- 
vera victima, sed niysterialis et repraesentativa. 



abridge the liberty of reading and expounding 
the Gospel. § They were even disposed to 
observe fasts; not as an ordinance of God, but 
for the sake of good order; and, in regard tQ 
confession, to admonish the people to confess 
all matters whereon they felt a want of advice 
and consolation; — concessions which, in fact, 
included a restoration of the externals of the 
chufch to an extent no longer to be expected. 

Nor is there any ground for the assertion, 
that the refusal of the Protestants to restore 
the property of the suppressed convents was 
the obstacle to a reconciliation. Thoug'h the 
Protestants retorted upon their antagonists the 
charge of worse acts of spoliation — such as 
the seizure of the bishopric of Utrecht by the 
emperor — an event of far greater importance 
than the suppression of a few convents, seeing 
that the constitution of the church was founded 
on bishops, not on monks. — yet the Elector of 
Saxony at last offered to place all the sup- 
pressed convents under sequestration : the se- 
questrees, honourable men chosen from among 
the nobility of the land, were to pledge them- 
selves to the emperor to allow nothing to be 
abstracted from the property, till a council 
should decide on its application. || 

Such were the advances once more made by 
the Protestants to the church of Rome, and to 
the majority in the empire. It is difficult to 
understand how the latter did not meet them 
with eagerness. 

On one point the committee of the majority 
made a great concession to the Protestants. 
It expressed the hope of obtaining, at the en- 
suing council, the general admission of mar- 
ried priests, according to the example of the 
primitive church.l It also opposed no scruple 
to the sacrament in both kinds. 

After so near an approximation, of what im- 
portance were a few differences in practice ? 
Was it necessary to sacrifice to them the unity 
of the empire and the nation, and the bless- 
ings of peace ? 

That such was the lamentable result, may 
be mainly ascribed to the inability of the Ca- 
tholic leaders to act as perhaps they would 
have wished. We know that the affair had 
been already discussed and decided at the 
papal court. The papal legate, Campeggi, did 
not neglect to visit the emperor at the critical 
moment, in order to inflame his Catholic zeal, 
and bring him back to the views of the Curia.** 



§ Unexpected answer, Forstemann, ii. 256. Compare 
with the Reflections, idem, p. 245, p. 75. From the latter 
it appears, that they tried to derive all hierarchical insti- 
tutions expressly from human laws, including even the 
Papacy itself, which, on those conditions, might be tole- 
rated. How far Luther assented to this may be seen in 
Reflections signed by him. Walch, xx. 2178. 

11 Sächsische Apologia. Müller, p. 861, and the Archiv, 
of Forstemann, p. 150. 

^"That the conjugati should be admitted to priests' 
estate and ordained, in like manner, as was the usage 
for some centuries in old times in the first churches." 
Unschlüssige und unvergriffliche christliche Mittel. (Un- 
decided and impracticable Christian Measures.— Proposals 
of the Catholic Committee.) Forstemann, ii. p. 250. 

** Thorn. Leodius, Vita Friderici Palatini, vii. 151. Ut 
intellexit, ita rejecit. See Melanchthon to Camerarius. 
Corp. Ref. ii. 590. To this also tended Campeggi's first 
observations. "I santi padri," says he, "con la santita 
delta vita, osservantia delli precetti divini, con summa 



Chap. IX. 



ATTEMPT AT MEDIATION. 



367 



He maintained that all the ordinances of the 
church were immediately dictated by the 
Holy Ghost. He. worked on the minds of the 
Statßs by similar arguments, and at length 
they required that, until the decision of the 
council; the Protestants should appoint no 
more married priests to benelices: ihey per- 
sisted in compulsory confession ; they would 
consent neither to the omission of the canon 
in the mass, nor the abolition of private masses 
in Protestant countries; and, lastly, they re- 
quired that the participation in the Lord's 
Supper, in one kind should be declared not 
less valid than in both. 

These, however, were concessions which 
would have as completely destroyed the in- 
fant work of Protestant organisation as those 
demanded in 1529. Half-formed convictions 
would thus have been shaken to their very 
foundations. The Protestants were prepared 
not to condemn the sacrament in one kind; 
but it was impossible for them to resolve to 
declare it equally conformable with Scripture 
as their own form, '-since," as they affirmed, 
"Christ instituted the sacram.ent in both 
kinds." Nor could they be expected to rein- 
troduce the private masses, v/hich they had so 
vehemently denounced as utterly at variance 
with the idea of the sacrament. This would 
have been to destroy their ovv'n work, notwith- 
standing their conviction that they had under- 
taken it on just grounds, 

4s the negotiations advanced, too, every 
step revealed a greater difference of funda- 
mental principles than the parties had avowed 
to themselves. The Catholics regarded the 
ordinances of ecclesiastical authority as the 
rule which admitted, at the utmost, of rare 
exceptions. The Protestants, on the contrary, 
saw the rule of faith and life in Scripture 
alone; they would admit the peculiar institu- 
tions of the Romish church only conditionally, 
and in so far as it was wholly unavoidable.* 
The former derived all the ordinances of the 
church from divine right; the latter saw in 
them only human and revocable institutions. 
But little was gained so long as the Protest- 
ants were unanimously inclined to regard the 
Papacy as an earthly and human institution, 
and therefore needing limitations; since the 
religious ideas of the opposite party Vy-ere en- 
tirely founded oii the divine right of the Ca- 
tholic church, and the character of its head 
as Vicar of Christ. 

And even had they come to some sort of un- 
derstanding, and settled some terms of com- 
promise, it would have been almost impossible 
to put them in execution. What difficulties, 
for example, would ihe re-establishment of 
bishoprics have created ! The character of 
the new church rested mainly on the inde- 
pendence of the lower clergy, and its imme- 
diate connexion with the territorial power. 



vigilaatia c stiuiio si sono sforzati a partecipare del spirito 
santo, (lal quale senza dubio spinti hantip cosi santa- 
merite ordinate tutte le cose della chiesa." 

* Brenz spoke of a preceptum dispensabile in casu 
necessitatis. The necessity is to hiin the decree of the 
Komish Church, which, however, he by no means regards 
as justified thereby. 



The old antipathy of the cities was already 
aroused by the suggestion; the Nürnbergers 
declared they would never again submit to 
the domination of a bishop. t 

Another and a less numerous meeting, con- 
sisting of only three members on eitlier side, 
was convened towards the end of August, 
after the first negotiations were broken off; 
but on following their discussions with atten- 
tion, we find that they never approached the 
point which the former assembly had reached. 

Some isolated attempts at conciliation were 
afterwards made. Duke Henry of Brunswick 
had a conference with the son of the Elector 
John Frederick, in the garden of a citizen of 
Augsburg. In the church of St. Maurice, the 
Chancellor of Baden made certain proposals 
to the Chancellor of Saxony, who was accom- 
panied by Melanchthon : these were discussed 
for a time, but could lead to no results. 

The Protestant party had conceded as much 
as possible, consistently with their religious 
convictions; they had reached the farthest 
limits of compliance; nay, murmurs were 
already heard in their own body against the 
concessions that had been made ; it was impos- 
sible to induce them to advance a single step 
farther. During these negotiations, Elector 
John exhorted the theologians to look only at 
the cause, and to take no thought for him or 
his land. ' 

Nor was any farther concession to be ex- 
torted from the other side, fettered as it was 
by the pope. 

NEGOTIATIONS OF THi EMPEROR. 

It was impossible that the emperor should 
be inclined to acquiesce in such a termination 
of the diet, or to allow it to disperse thus. 
He was. on the contrary, deeply impressed 
with the conviction, that an interminable train 
of still greater evils and troubles must then 
ensue. :^ 

At the very beginning of the deliberations, 
the Catholic majority had repeated the de- 
mand for a council, and Charles, who already 
contemplated an ecclesiastical assembly from 
his own peculiar point of view, as emperor, 
had written about it to the pope. Clement 
VII. laid the demand before a congregation 
which he had appointed to settle matters of 
faith. Many declared themselves against it, 
especially on the two following grounds: first, 
because persons who had rejected the former 
councils would not consent to a new one; 
secondly, because any attack on the part of 
the Turks would be far more dangerous while 
the public attention was absorbed by these 
internal affairs. But the pope was bound by 
the promises he had made during his cap- 
tivity in the castle of St. Angelo, as well as 
by expressions he had let fall in conversation 
at Bologna: he therefore entreated the em- 



t Opinion of Spengler in Hausdorfs Leben Spenglers, 
p. 65. 

I An opinion presented to the diet (Brüssels Archives) 
says, " La matiere ne peut pas demeurer en ces termes 
sans en attendre pis et inconvenient irreparable." 



36S 



PROPOSALS FOR A COUNCIL, 



Book V. 



peror once more maturely to weigh the thing; 
but if his majesty, who was on the spot, and 
whose zeal for the Catholic religion was un- 
doubted, held it to be absolutely necessary, 
he also would consent ] but only under the 
condition laid down by the emperor and 
States themselves — that the Protestants must, 
till then, dutifully return to the rite and the 
doctrines of the holy mother church. He 
proposed Rome as the most suitable place for 
the meeting.* 

It was in consequence of this correspond- 
ence that, on the 7th of September, the em^- 
peror sent a message to the Protestants, in 
which he announced the council; adding, 
however, "ihaf they must in the interval 
conform to the faith and practice of the em- 
peror, the states, and the universal Christian 
church." 

Did Charles really believe, after all that had 
passed, that a command of this nature would 
be obeyed 1 Such an expectation would only 
prove that the temper and modes of thinking 
of the Protestants were for ever closed and un- 
intelligible to him. They had already heard 
of the intended proposal, and were prepared. 
They replied, that to compl}* with such a de- 
mand, would be to run counter to God and 



their consciences ; and that, 



moreover. 



they 



were not legally bound to do so ; that the 
council granted was a consequence of pre- 
vious decrees of the empire, but that no con- 
dition like that now attached to it had ever 
been so much as discussed. No resolutions 
which the majority might recently have passed 
in Spires to this effect could possibly bind 
those who had solemnly protested against the 
whole proceedings there. In the oral commu- 
munication the emperor had described them 
as a sect ; against this they entered an imme- 
diate and solemn protest.! 

"\7e are in possession of the letter which 
the emperor hereupon sent to the pope; it 
proves that he was no less m.ortified than in- 
censed. '"'They have answered me," says 
he, "in the stubbornness of their error, where- 
upon I am reflecting what to do." 

As the necessity of having recourse to force 
already arose in prospect before him, fee 
thought that, although the mediation of the 
States had so utterly failed, he -might be able 
to effect something by his personal interfer- 
ence. "In order that all our measures may 
be more completely justified," he continues, 
"it seems good to me that I should speak 
with them myself, both jointly and severally, 
which I think immediately to proceed in." 
Not, therefore, without giving notice to the 
court of Rome, he offered the Protestants his 
personal endeavours to discover means of re- 
storing unity, previous to the meeting of the 
council. 

* Air imperatore di man propria di demente (L. di 
pr. ii. 197): Pregatala prima clie esamini maturamente— 
dico a V. M. che son contenlo che quella, in caso g:iudiclii 
essercosi necessario, oiferisca e prometta la convocatione 
del concilio, con conditione pero, che appartandosi da' 
loro errori tornino incontinente al viver Catholicamente. 

t Remarks on the Ansbach Acts, in Forstemann's Ur- 
kundenbuch, ii. 39-3. Sächsische Apologia in Förste- 
mann's Arch. 136. 



He deceived himself greatly, however, if 
he hoped to accomphsh any thing with the 
Protestants by means of such a missive as he 
now addressed to them. In this he maintained 
the nullity of the protest, without going into 
the grounds on which, it rested, and solely 
because it was reasonable and expedient that 
so insignificant a number should yield to the 
majority: he likewise expressed his astonish- 
ment that the Catholic deputies had carried 
their concessions so far. As the Protestants 
had already expressed their final decision, 
they could not do otherwise than reject a 
negotiation founded on such assumptions as 
these. They entered into no discussion of 
the religious questions in their answer; they 
onl)^ sought to make the legality of their pro- 
ceedings clear to the emperor. They replied, 
that they were determined to take their stand 
on the recesses of the diets of 1524 and 1526 
— a position from which no majority could 
remove them — and asked for nothing save 
external peace. I 

Inevitable as such an answer was, it deeply 
offended the emperor. He gave the Protest- 
ants to understand that he had received the 
same "'with notable displeasure." He says 
in one of his letters that he cannot describe 
what vexation this affair causes him. Cling- 
ing tenaciously to the idea of the Latin church, 
and animated by a chivalrous sort of ambi- 
tion, he had hoped to triumph over all his 
enemies. Instead of this he saw himself in- 
volved in a dispute, the very grounds of which 
were unintelligible to him.§ 

In fact, he now thought that all peaceful 
means were exhausted, and that he must 
have recourse to arms. In the letter to the 
pope, to which we have just alluded, he says, 
" Force is what w^ould now bring the m.ost 
fruit;" and he was only restrained by the 
consideration that he was not sufficiently pre- 
pared. After the second answer, of the Pro- 
testants had been sent in, he declared to the 
majority of the States, that, as he could con- 
sent to nothing prejudicial to the faith, and as 
all conciliatory measures had been of no avail, 
he was ready to risk his possessions and his 
person in the cause, and w^ith the aid and 
counsel of the States, to do whatever might 
be necessary. He would likewise seek assist- 
ance from the pope and other sovereigns. 

This thought had been entertained in his 
privy council from the very commencement 
of the diet. Should the Protestants remain 
obstinate, and, as their enemies vrished, re- 
fuse to submit either to the judgment of the 
emperor or to the council, the legate was to 
be consulted as to the kind of force to be 
employed. II 

The emperor appeared disposed to treat the 
Protestants as he had done the Moors in Spain. 
Had he been fully prepared with munitions of 



t Answer of the Protestants, dated 8th Sept. Forste- 
mann's Urkunden, ii. 411. 

§ Förstemann's Urkunden, ii. Heller's Report, 422. 

II Si lesdits Lutheriens - - demeurent obstinez, il faut 
savoir I'intention du Sieur Legat, comment et par quels 
moyens on pourra proceder contra eux par righeur. 



Chap. IX. 



APOLOGY FOR THE CONFESSION. 



369 



war, and had he not been bound by the reso- 
lutions of the majority, he would probably, 
spite of his natural mildness, have been led 
by his consistent adherence to engagements, 
to proceed immediately in this work. 

It is, however, not surprising that the ma- 
jority of the diet had some hesitation in 
assenting to such a course. Certain interests 
had been agitated (as we have already men- 
tioned), about which the States were not fully 
agreed with the emperor y^ they were not dis- 
posed to follow him implicitly in a crusade. 
The old sentiments of members of the empire 
had not yet so entirely given place to religious 
hatred. On the contrary, at this moment, the 
project of electing a king of the Romans (lo 
which we shall shortly recur) excited fresh 
dissatisfaction among them. 

The States submitted a project of a recess, 
which held out, indeed, a menace of war, but 
at a distance ; th-e Protestants were to be 
allowed tim.e for repentance till the next 5th 
of May, in order to explain themselves on the 
articles on which it had been found impossible 
to come to an agreement. 

Unfortunately, however, this project was 
also conceived in terms which wounded the 
feelings of the Protestants. It was said, that 
they must compel no one to join their sect : — 
the word and the thing were equally odious to 
them: it contained ordinances to which they 
did not think themselves at liberty to submit ; 
e. g. not to allow any thing relating to matters 
of faith to be printed within the period assign- 
ed, and to allow monks to confess and say 
mass; and lastly, it was expressly asserted 
that the confession had been confuted with 
arguments drawn from the Holy Scripture. By 
accepting and subscribing this recess, they 
would have signed the condemnation of their 
own cause. They rejected it without a mo- 
ment's hesitation. They not only explicitly 
stated the grounds of their refusal, but seized 
the opportunity offered them by the assertion 
that the confession had been confuted, to lay 
before the emperor an apology for it. On all 
main points the apology is like the confes- 
sion ; but, if I mistake not, the nature and 
style of the former recede still more widely 
from Catholicism. 

This brought down upon them another 
storm. Elector Joachim of Brandenburg an- 
nounced to them, that if they refused to accept 
the recess, the emperor and States were de- 
termined to veiiture person and property, land 
and people, in order to put an end to this 
matter. The emperor declared that he would 
consent to no further alterations ; if the Pro- 
testant party would accept the recess, there it 
was : if not, he, the emperor, in concert with 
all the other Estates, must take immediate 
measures for the extirpation of their sect. 

But if former threats had been unavailing, 
these were not likely to make any impression. 
The religious spirit which, in the rigour of its 

* Konigklich wirde zu Hungern sc. Revocation der 
babstlichen bulle so auf den vierten Tail d' geistlichen 
gutter erlangt. The revocation of the papal bull is de- 
manded for the fourth part of the ecclesiastical lands, by 
the king in Hungary, &,c. Förstemann's Urk. ii, 843. - 
47 



conscientiousness, had scorned every alliance 
not founded on perfect uniformity of belief, 
now showed itself no less inflexible towards 
the system from which it had seceded. 

Such was the end of every attempt at ap- 
proximation. The minority were determined 
to maintain their position in all its integrity, 
and calmly to await whatever their enemies 
might undertake against them. 

Thus the parties separated. 

It were a complete mistake to imagine 
that the Elector of Saxony had any political 
schemes of opposition to the emperor. On 
the contrary, it was a sincere affliction to him 
to be forced to sever himself thus from his 
emperor and lord; but he could do no other- 
wise. The moment had arrived, when, being 
about to depart, he went to take his leave. 
'•Uncle,' uncle," said the emperor. '-I did not 
look for this from you {Eiv. Liebdsn].'''\ The 
elector made no answer ; his eyes tilled with 
tears, but he could find no words ; so he left 
the palace, and, immediately after, the city.t 

A complete separation had taken place 
among the princes of the empire. In Spires 
this had extended to the princes alone ; now, 
the emperor was not only present, but im- 
plicated. 

The rupture which had hitherto been con- 
cealed beneath the hope of a reconciliation, 
was now laid bare to view. 

The division had aheady extended to the 
cities. 

First, Reutlingen, and then, one after an- 
other, Kempten, Heilbronn. Windsheim, and 
Weissenburg in the Nordgau. had joined 
Nürnberg. 

Four other to\^ns. Strasburg, Memmingen, 
Constance and Lindau, which had hitherto 
adhered to the Swiss views of the Lord's Sup- 
per, had given in their own confession — the 
so-called Tetrapolitana — to the contents of 
which, so highly important to the internal his- 
tory of Protestantism, we shall return here- 
after. § To them, too, the emperor caused a 
Catholic refutation to be |'ead aloud ; of course, 
without the smallest effect. Strasburg showed 

t Your well-helovedness, would be someniiat correspond- 
ing to this title, by which the emperor was wont to ad- 
dress his immediate vassals. — Traxsl. 

t Erzählung der sächsischen Apologia in Förstemann's 
Archiv, p. 206. Granvella mentions this trait, as a proof 
of the loyalty and afiection of the elector towards his 
imperial majesty. 

§ Fürstenberg (5th July) relates the following: " Es ha- 
ben die von Strasburg vergangener Tag uns "und etlich 
mehr von Städten bei sich erfordert, und die Bekanntniss 
irer Lere und Predig, so sie der Keys. Mt. zu übergeben 
willens, zuvor anhören lassen, ob sich jemand vilTeicht 
mit inen unterschreiben wolt. Wie wol nun dieseibig 
fast wol gestellt und, etwas subtiler und zugtiger dan der 
Fürsten gewest, so haben wir doch, diweyl bis anher bei 
uns des Sacraments halber ihre Opinion nit gepredigt, das 
underschreyben abgeschlagen ; dergleichen haben auch 
andere getiian, uss Ursachen von jeglichen insonderheit 
furgewant." — "Yesterday they of Strasburg invited us 
and some others of the cities to come to them, and to hear 
the confession of their doctrine and preaching, which they 
intend to deliver in to the emperor; and to'see whether 
perchance any will subscribe it with them. A'ow, although • 
the same be well drawn up, and somewhat more subtle 
and discreet than that of the princes was, yet have we, 
seeing that till now their opinion on the sacrament has 
not b'een preached am.ong us, refilsed to sign ; the like 
have also others done, for reasons by each severally as- 
signed," 



370 



DIVISION AMONG THE CITIES. 



Book V. 



as much courage as Nürnberg and other cities. 
Had the intended reconcdiation taken place 
between Cathohcs and Protestants, the four 
cities would have fallen into little jeopardy. 
But as things turned out in Augsburg, they 
had less to fear than at first, and they there- 
fore gave the less ear to any suggestions from 
the other side. 

It was only to the other cities that the em- 
peror caused it to be announced, on the 24th 
of September, that Saxony and his kinsmen 
and aJhes had causelessly and wrongfully re- 
jected a recess drawn up, in fact, in their 
favour. — doubtless mainly because they were 
required to restore the convents; but that he 
was resolved to put an end to this thing. As 
the other States had promised to stake life 
and property on the cause, he hoped to find 
the same zeal in them. - The cities requested 
to be allowed first to consult their authorities; 
the emperor pressed for -an immediate answer. 

Hereupon those who had remained Catho- 
lic, the smaller as well as the larger, Rottweil, 
Ueberlingen. Cologne, Hagenau, even Regens- 
burg, attached themselves without hesitation 
to tlie emperor. 

The others, who had hitherto allowed free 
circulation to the confession, without setting 
themselves in open opposition to the emperor 
and the majority, were now in no small per- 
plexity. They considered that, by accepting 
the recess, they should admit the confession 
to be confuted, and that they should be com- 
pelled to fight against their co-religionists: 
gradually therefore Frankfurt, Ulm, Schwä- 
bisch-Hall — and lastly Augsburg, rejected it. 
In Augsbuig, as may be imagined, this diffi- 
culty was most felt, in consequence of the 
emperor's presence. It was thought neces- 
sary to resort to the extraordinary measure of 
convoking the great council, in which mem- 
bers of all the guilds took part. But the Pro- 
testant spirit had already petietrated the body 
of the citizens too deeply for them to find it 
possible to renounce it. In the very face of 
the emperor, Augsburg refused to accept his 
recess.* 



* Kress and Volkamerto Nürnberg, in Corp. Ref. ji.422. 
Tlie correspondence between the city of Frankfurt and 
its delegates is specially worthy of noie. '■ Sollte es aber 
mil sich bringen, wie es on Zweyfel thut," wrote Fürsten- 
berg on the M of October, "dass wir stillschweygend ge- 
liehen, dass die Bekenntniss des Churfürsten und seynes. 
Anhanes mit den lieyligen Evangelien und Geschriften 
gründlich abgeleynet worden, welche Ableynung wir doch 
nie gesehn noch an Tag kommen ist, das istunsersErach- 
tenswider unser Gewissen und Verstand und deshalb zu 
bewilligen ganz beschwerlich und nit thunlich, und wan 
es gleich desfalls nit zu widerfechten were, khan E. W. 
QU Zwevffel wol ermessen, wo es zur Handlung kommen 
soll, was E. W. derwegen mit Pulver Buxen Geld und 
andern zu leihen und darzustrecken zugemut word wer- 
den : wir wollen geschweygen was das uf im hab zuzusa- 
gen und zu halten was weiter beschlossen wird." — 
"Should it, however, come to pass, as it doubtless will, 
that we tacitly admit that the confession of the elector 
and his followers is fundamentally confuted from the holy 
Gqspels and Scriptures, (which confutation we have, how- 
ever, not seen, and which has not yet been made public,) 
that were, according to our judgment, against our con- 
science and understanding, and to assent to it were very 
difficult, and not a thing to be done ; and if, in like man- 
ner, it were not to be controverted, your worships can 
without doubt well estimate, if it should come to action, 
what your worships would be asked to lend and contribute 
in powder, firelocks, money, and other things; we will 
eay nothing about what is to be said to this matter, and 



There were now fourteen cities, and among 
them precisely the most affluent and flourish- 
ing in the empire — Strasburg, Ulm, Augsburg, 
Frankfurt, and Nürnberg, — that actively op- 
posed the recess. They were a minority, but 
not so inconsiderable a minority as had at 
first appeared. 



Meanwhile, the emperor had business to 
transact with the majority, who, as we have 
said, did not attach themselves with such cor- 
diahty to his house as the support they now 
received from him seemed to demand. 

The grant of the ecclesiastical lands in Ger- 
many and Austria, made by the pope to King 
Ferdinand, was obstinately rejected. The 
clergy first declared their resolution not to 
consent to it, and the whole assembly then 
made the cause their own. In a report with 
marginal notes, written by Granvilla, it ap- 
pears that they threatened to withhold all 
subsidies for the Turkish war if this project 
was persisted in. Such an innovation, they 
declared, such an assumption on the part of 
the pope, could be endured neither in the 
empire, nor in the Austrian hereditary d'omi- 
nions.t Granvilla made this known to the 
king, and Ferdinand was at length compelled 
to let the bull drop. 

Not till then were the Turkish succours 
granted : nor even then were they such as 
the emperor had wished them — permanent, 
which the states declared would only be pos- 
sible in case of the co-operation of the whole 
of Christendom. On the other hand, a con- 
siderable body of troops raised in haste were 
immediately granted ; twice as many as for 
the Roman expedition of 1521 ; viz., 40,000 
foot soldiers, and 8,000 horse, for six months 
only at present, but for longer in case of need. 



will hold to what may be further determined." The emi- 
nently discreet council of Frankfurt hereupon resolves on 
this answer to the emperor. (14th Oct.)— " Dieweil Kais. 
Ml. ein Concilium zu verschaffen sich allergnediglichst 
erpotten, und ein erparer l\ath kainswegs sich ye verse- 
hen, dass i<!ais. Mt. dem ewigen Gottes Wort etwas zu- 
wider werde aufrichten oder handhaben lielffen, so wolle 
einerbarer Rath in Bedacht hochgedachter Kays. Mt. als 
eines allergnedigsten gütigen miilen Kaisers selbss erbie- 
ten sich desselbigen getroisten, auch füran, als einem 
christlichen Magistrat wol geziemt, und so viel sie gegen 
Gott der Seelen^und Gewissen halb und der Kays. Ml. 
von des Reichs wegen Gehorsam zu leisten schuldig, wie 
pillig allerunterthängist gehorsamen." — " Since your 
imperial majesty has most graciously proposed to procure 
an ecclesiasiical council to be held, and since our honour- 
able council has by no means seen that your imperial 
majesty would ever help to establish or maintain any 
thingcontrary tothe everlasting word of God, our honour- 
able council regarding your imperial majesty as a most 
gracious, kind and clement emperor, proposes to trust to 
your imperial majesty as it beseems a Christian magis- 
tracy, and in as far as they are bound to tender obedience 
to God, on account of their souls and consciences, and to 
your imperial majesty on account of the empire, so far 
most dutifully to obey, as is just and reasonable." In 
these obscure folds do they wrap up their refusal. In the 
main, they agree with their ambassador. 

t Les deputes ont dit clerement, que la dite hastive 
ayde ne sera en maniere nulle consentie, si premierement 
le roi (Ferdinand) n'abolit entieremeut la bulle du pape, 
et ce non seulement en I'empire, mais aussi a i'encontre 
des subjects de tous les estats qui sont demourans el habi- 
tans en pays d'Autriche, car ils donnent ä entendre que 
de la sorte ils ne veulent nullemenl estre en subjection 
du pape: (Brussels Archives.) Granvilla adds the re- 
mark, au roi, que S. M. regarde, etc. 



Chap. IX. 



DIET OF AUGSBURG. RECESS. 



371 



The succours were not to be in money, but in 
men, and to be levied according to the division 
of the circles. 

Some other internal affairs vrere likewise 
transacted. 

One main purpose of the diet, announced 
in the proclamation, was, to allay the disputes 
between the spiritual and temporal Estates 
which had recently made so much noise. At 
a former period the spiritual States had been 
vehemently attacked; now, they were the 
complainants. Formerly, this would have 
given occasion to the most violent contests; 
now, as these mutual animosities had given 
way to a common antipathy, a committee, 
composed of both, was appointed, and a com- 
promise actually effected, which the emperor 
consented to proclaim as a constitution of the 
empire.* 

The hundred Gravamina were likewise once 
more brought forward. The temporal princes, 
accustomed to persist in their resolutions, pre- 
sented them anew. As the papal legate was 
not empowered to enter into negotiations on 
the matter, the emperor engaged to have them 
agitated by his ambassador in Rome.t 

It appears almost as if the abolition of these 
grievances had subsequently been regarded 
as conceded, and as if the constitution just 
mentioned had obtained a certain authority.! 
But these interests now vanished before the 
far weightier one of the reformation. 

The most important question was, what 
attitude the emperor and the majority Avould 
assume in their relations with the States which 
had rejected their recess. 

From all I have been able to discover, it 
appears that the emperor was more for an 
immediate resort to force, while the majority 
were inclined to defer taking up arms. 

After being repeatedly asked, they gave in 
their opinion, that the emperor should issue a 
new religious mandate on the basis of the 
edict of Worms. If Saxony, with his fol- 
lowers, should refuse obedience to it, the em- 
peror should summon them to appear before 
him, pronounce the due punishment, and pro- 
ceed to its execution. 

The recess is conceived in the same spirit. 

The emperor therein proclaims his serious 
determination to enforce his edict of Worms; 
he specifies a number of infringements of it, 
all of which he condemns, whether they be 
Called Lutheran, Zwinglian. or anabaptist ; he 
insists on the maintenance of every point of 
the disputed usages or doctrines, and estab- 
lishes anew the jurisdiction of the spiritual 
princes. The imperial fiscal was immediately 
to proceed judicially against the recusants, 



* Coiicordata of the spiritual and temporal grievances, 
collected in the form of a constitution. Bucholtz, iii. 636. 

t In Adrian's Catalogus is quoted (No. 196, p. 93), Con- 
sultatio et deliberatio consiliariorum deputatorum super 
gravaminibus qus nation! GermanicEe per sedem apostoli- 
ca.ai inferuntur, which would belong here. 

J Spittler, Geschichte der Fundamentalgeselze der 
deutsch-katholischen Kirche (Werke, viii. 501), affirms that 
the two documents, the Gravamina, which were regarded 
as actually settled, and the Concordata, lay on the table 
of the Imperial Council (Hofrath) for daily use. 



even to the punishment of the ban of the em- 
pire, which should be executed according to 
the ordinances of the public peace, 

A main point, and one to which we shall 
shortly have occasion to return, is that the 
Imperial Chamber was immediately reconsti- 
tuted and bound to enforce this recess. 

An appeal to arms remained, however, as 
we see from this document, always in reserve; 
it was an idea to which the emperor inces- 
santly recurred. 

In a letter to the pope of the 4th October, 
he expressed himself with great vivacity on 
the subject; he informed him that the nego- 
tiations were broken off, and their adversaries 
more obstinate than ever, but that he was de- 
termined to apply all his force to subdue them. 
He wishes the pope to exhort the other princes 
of Christendom to espouse this cause. § 

We have another letter, dated 25th of Octo- 
ber, from Charles to the cardinals, in which he 
earnestly entreats them to promote the convo- 
cation of a council. Meanwhile, he wishes to 
consult them how he is to act in the interval 
towards the Lutherans, so as to avoid further 
danger ; and especially how he ought to fulfil 
the functions of an emperor, which had de- 
volved upon him. "We declare to you," 
adds he, "that for the termination of this 
affair we will spare neither kingdoms nor do- 
minions ; nay, that we will devote to it body 
and soul, which we have wholly dedicated to 
the service of God Almighty." II 

On the 30th October he sent his major domo, 
Pedro de la Cueva, to Rome, to inform the 
pope that the Catholic princes were indeed of 
opinion that the year was too far advanced 'to 
undertake any immediate measures against 
the Lutherans ; but to exhort him (the pope) 
by no means to desist from preparations for 
such an enterprise. The emperor, on his 
side, however desirable it might be for him 
to go to Spain, would postpone every thing, in 
order imjiiediately to put in execution what- 
ever in the pope's opinion might conduce to 
the service of God and of his holiness. 

In Rome the question had long been de- 
cided. Campeggi had told the emperor that, 
without some strong measure, he would arrive 
at no result. He had reminded him of Maxi- 
mihan, who had never been able to obtain 
obedience till he took up arms, and used 
them successfully against the house of the 
Palatinate. IF 



§ Raince, 18lh Oct. Lui (au Pape) escrivoit le dit em- 
pereur estre delibere employer tous ses biens et forces et 
sa propre personne ä leur faire la guerre, priant S. Ste. 
vouloir adnionester et requerir tous les princes Chretiens 
vouloir aider et entrer ä I'expedition de la dite emprise, et 
sur cela s. d. St6. fait dimanche congregation de cardinaux. 
MS. Bethune at Paris. 

II II vous plaira, selon votre prudence et bonte, adviser 
comment on se peut gouverner avec eux— (les Lutheriens) 

tant pour empescher qu'il n'advienne plus detriment 

ä la chose publique, que partiellement pour la satisfaction 
des charges et offices, esquels par la divine clemence fumes 
constitues, vous advisansque n'epargnerons ni royaumes 
ni seigneuries pour la consommation de chose tant neces- 
saire, etc Bethune, 8539. 

TT Molto piu a V. Mtä. conviensi in questa impressa 
santa e Christiana a farsi obedire con tutte le vie e modi 
che si ponno trovare, che fece la felice memoria di Maxi- 
miliano sue avo nelle imprese che contra i Palatini si 



372 



WARLIKE DISPOSITION OF THE EMPEROR. 



Book V. 



In short; as the Protestants were not to be 
brought to conform by mild measures, western 
Christendom and the German empire, repre- 



gloriosamente fini. dipoi la quale sempre fu poi tenuto e 

riverito e obedito, ricordando sempre che e impossi- 

bile senza qualche gagliarda exactione et ordine estirpare 
le heresie. 



sented by the pope, the emperor, and the as- 
sembly of the empire, appeared resolved to 
put them down either by law or by force. 

It remained to be seen whether the re- 
cusants would have the physical and moral 
strength necessary to make effectual resist- 
ance. 



. BOOK VI. 

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE. 
. 1530—1535. 



As even in the remote times described by 
Tacitus, the Germans deemed it the heaviest 
of all punishm.ents to be forbidden to attend 
the public assemblies and sacrifices ; so. during 
the middle ages, they acconnted it an intolera- 
ble misfortune to be excluded from the com- 
munion of the church and the peace of the 
empire. These two communities appeared to 
embrace all the good which man can enjoy on 
this side the grave and on the other. 

The evangelical States now found them- 
selves on the point of being excluded from 
both. 

From the church, encumbered as it was 
Avith abuses which they had hoped to reform., 
they had, since their efforts were unsuccess- 
ful, voluntarily severed themselves. They 
clung with fervent and steadfast attachment 
to the idea of an improved church. On the 
other hand; the established church strenuously 
resisted every attempt nt change, and repulsed 
every advance unaccompanied by complete 
submission. 

Hence it happened that the imperial au- 
thority, on which the evangelical party at 
first thought they might rely for support, 
having concluded a close alliance with Rome, 
now threatened them with exclusion from the 
public peace, — that is to say, with war and 
ruin. 

It seemed evident that the evangelical party, 
with their slender territorial power, still fur- 
ther enfeebled by internal divisions, if once 
involved in a serious contest vrith a large ma- 
jority of the States, the puissant emperor, and 
the whole of Latin Christendom united, must 
be instantly and hopelessly overwhelmed. 

This it is which constitutes the most striking 
feature of the diet of Augsburg: that, in full 
view of this danger, they resolved never to 
abandon the religious position they had taken 
up, and the importance of which filled their 
whole souls. 

When, indeed, this resolution was once 
taken, it appeared, on a calm survey of their 
situation, that, in spite of the superiority of 
their opponents, the cause they so intrepidly 
r ■'^fended was by no means desperate. 

And, in the first place, the tendency to re- 
lorra was inherent in the course of events and 
the progress of public opinion, and had innu- 
merable allies hing without the pale of its 
acknowledged domain; all the force of the 
principle of which the protestors were the 
avowed champions, must, without any effort 
of theirs, come to their aid. 
2g ' 



At the same time the whole of the Germane- 
Roman nations of the west were attacked by 
the most formidable enemy they had eve'r 
encountered. In spite of all differences, in 
spite of the attempt to exclude them from the 
great pohtical body of which they were mem- 
bers, the Protestants belonged to this menaced 
and assailed community ; they, indeed, were 
the representatives of a new stage of that in- 
tellectual culture, of which the barbarian 
enemy meditated the extirpation ; Europe 
neither could nor would dispense with their 
aid . 

But, lastly, the external unity of Cathohc 
Christendom was only the product of a mo- 
ment of good fortune and victory, or of 
prompt and successful pohcy. It was hardly 
to be expected that such a peace as this would 

I lead to serious co-operation, or would^even be 

: of any long continuance. 

j I do not believe that any of the men then 
living arrived at a full sense of the real situa- 
tion of things. Landgrave Philip was the first 
who had a dim perception of it ; the others, 
without much reflection on vv'hat was passing 
around them, took counsel only of their con- 
sciences. 

The important thing both for them and for 
the general progress of society was, that a 
centre of resistance should be firmly estab- 
lished, so that they might not be overpowered 
by the first storm, and might on some future 
occasion take' advantage of favouring circum- 

I stances, by which their enemies nov*' so largely 

i profited. 



CHAPTER I. 

FOUNDATION OF THE SCH3IALKALDIC LEAGUE. 

The church had of herself no political 
power ] for that, she was wholly dependent on 
the arm of the empire. " The anathema." 
says the Sachsenspiegel, '-'injures only the 
soul : the penalties of the law of the land or 
of the feudal law are consequent on the king's 
ban." 

Hostile as was the temper of the majority 
at the diet to the Protestants, this ban, spite 
of their secession from the church, was not 
prQclaimed against them. The 'majority, 
which had not even permitted the emperor 
to act as judge, hesitated to put arms into his 
hands. 

(373) 



374 



ELECTION OF THE KING OF THE ROMANS. 



Book VI. 



While war still appeared imminent, they 
conceived the design of transferring the com- 
bat to another field ; "they would not fight, 
but right" {nicht fechten sondern rechten)^ as 
they expressed it. Of all the great institu- 
tions of the empire which had been so labori- 
ously founded for the conservation of the na- 
tional unity, the only one that still enjoyed 
some consideration Vv-as the Imperial Chamber 
(Reichskammergericht), which exercised the 
jadicial functions of the emperor, while its 
character was eminently representative.* This 
tribunal they resolved to employ for the pur- 
pose they meditated. At the diet of Augs- 
burg, the Imperial Chamber was extended 
and better organised for the despatch of busi- 
ness. The number of assessors was increased 
from eighteen to twenty-four, retaining, of 
course, the right of election of the circles; 
but besides this, it was thought necessary, in 
order to get rid of long arrears of business, to 
appoint eight experienced doctors. Further, 
the court determined to subject itself to a new 
visitation. The reader will remember the 
manner in which it was purified, at the time 
the old Council of Regency fell.t The same 
spirit presided over the present reforms. Seven 
of the procurators and advocates were se- 
riously admonished on account of their reh- 
gious opinions, and an eighth was obliged to 
absent himself for a time.t And this tribunal, 
thus strengthened, and purged from all incli- 
nation to the new opinions, was now most 
earnestly exhorted to observe the Augsburg 
recess, particularly in the article concerning 
faith ; the president of the chamber was to be 
not only empowered, but bound, to remove 
any who might infringe it, and must do so 
mider pain of the emperor's displeasure. § 

The Imperial Chamber was thus rendered a 
complete expression of the prevailing senti- 
ments of the majority. 

The Protestants were well aware of this. 
In a project for the maintenance of peace, 
communicated to them at the conclusion of the 
diet, it was said, that no one should invade 
another's dominions unlawfully. They in- 
ferred from this that such invasion might take 
place, in pursuance of a sentence of the Im- 
perial Chamber, the nature of which could not 
be doubtful. 

At the same time, however, a new^ measure 
was introduced for the government of the 
empire. 

Of late years the house of Austria had 
more than once had occasion to fear that, in 
consequence of the nullity of the Council of 
Regency, and the absence of the emperor, 
people might either proceed to elect another 
chief, or might revive and recognise the rights 
of the vicars of the empire, of w^hom the 
Elector of Saxony was one. 

* Ständisch. See Translator's note, p. 52. 

t See p. 193. 
• 1 Harpprer.ht, Staatsarchiv, des Kammergerichts, v. 82. 

§ Recess of the 19th Nov. 1530, §§ 76, 82, 91. All the 
persons of the imperial chamber should " bear themselves 
agreeably to the recess of this diet now and here holden, 
esnecially in the article of faith and religion." 



In order to put an end forever to plans of . 
this sort, the emperor abandoned all considera- 
tions regarding his possible posterity, and, as 
we have said, determined to raise his brother 
to the rank of »King of the Romans. 

It had been objected to INIaXimilian on a 
similar occasion, that he was himself not 
crowned emperor, and therefore, in fact, only 
King of the Romans; and this was one of the 
reasons for Charles's coronation in Bologna. 

To this the five Catholic electors raised little 
objection, presuming that their compliance 
would be requited with favours. The Pala- 
tinate was promised compensation for its 
losses in the Landshut war, and moreover the 
sum of 160.000 gulden. A final settlement 
of the affair of Zossen and the Bohemian fiefs, 
together with other advantages, was promised 
to Brandenburg ; in his letters he tells with 
great delight what a gracious emperor and 
king he has.ll A number of extraordinary, 
and indeed almost contradictory favours were 
to be granted to the Elector of Mainz; e. g. 
to procure him, from the court of Rome, the 
powers of a legate a latere for his dioceses, 
and at the same time, permission to leave 
these same dioceses to coadjutors, and keep 
an accumulation of estates and benefices for 
his own perpetual use.T Treves had for some 
years been secured by a sum of money. The 
longest hesitation was on the part of Cologne, 
the promises made to whom eleven years ago 
at the election of Charles V. were not yet ful- 
filled; but at length, having received suffi- 
cient guarantee, he assented. Saxony alone 
held out. 

It was suggested by some, that, as Saxony 
could in no case be won over without conces- 
sions which the emperor was determined not 
to grant; it would be most expedient to take 
advantage of his defection from the Church of 
I Rome, at once to exclude him. The pope ac- 
I tually sent a brief, according to which Elector 
John could be stripped of his right of elect- 
ing, in virtue of a bull of Leo X., subjecting 
the' defenders of Luther to the pains and 
penalties of heresy.** Deliberations were ac- 
tually held upon the matter; but the electors 
had not yet reached such a point as to con- 
sent to so formless a proceeding, which might 
afterwards be turned against any one of them- 
selves. The evidence we have seems to 
prove, that the elector palatine most strenu- 
ously' opposed it,tt and that John of Saxony 
was'in fact invited. The pliant pope had fur- 
nished a brief to meet this case also, in which 
he declared that the participation of Saxony, 
ahhough, in virtue of the above-m.entioned 



II Letter of the ]Sth Äug. 1530. Berlin Archives. 

•JT The last, in the letter of grace (Gnadenbrief) of the 
6th Sept. in Bucholtz. iii. 662. The first, in the Brussels 
Archives, 7th Sept. Contendemus obtinere a D. N. de- 
mente VII. facnltates ad instar lesati a latere pro electors 
antedicto in omnibus suis dioecesibus, nerape Moguntina, 
Magdeburgensi, et Halberstadensi. 

** Extract in Bucholtz, ix. 17. 

ttTaubenheimtoEI. John. Förstemann. ii. 821. "Wie 
ichs vermerke, so szolle Pfalz die vornehmste Ursach sein, 
damit E. Ch. G. nicht, ausgeschlossen werden." Accord- 
ing to what I observe, the palatine is the chief cause why 
your E. G. is not excluded. 



Chap. I. 



ORIGIN OF THE SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE. 



375 



bull; he might be regarded as excommuni- 
catecl, should not prejudice the validity of the 
election. 

The warning thus given, and the threat im- 
plied in the new mstructions to the Imperial 
Chamber, were the immediate causes of the 
Schmalkaldic League. 

We have seen how little the evangelical 
princes had hitherto succeeded in' forming 
any permanent union; and even now they 
w^avered as long as the emperor remained in 
Augsburg, and there was still a doubt what 
measures' he might take in concert with the 
majority. A congress already convoked was 
given up again in consequence of some pacific 
expressions of the emperor.* But now that the 
recess had appeared, and was of so decidedly 
hostile a character. — now, that the above- 
mentioned citation was at the same time sent 
to the Saxon court, they could no longer defer 
their meeting. 

In a letter to George of Brandenburg, Elec- 
tor John gives the following reasons : — First, 
that in answer to a question concerning the 
instructions given to the fiscal of the Imperial 
Chamber, the emperor had replied, that he 
(the fiscal) should not be prohibited from pro- 
ceeding against those who would not submit 
to his "recess: it would, therefore, be neces- 
sary to deliberate on a unanimous exception 
against such a proceeding. And likewise, 
that the summons to the election rendered it 
necessary that they should converse with 
each other about it, and immediately agree 
on some common measures of opposition.! 

I know not whether I am wrong in sup- 
posing that this turn of affairs w^as essentially 
favourable to the Protestants. 

The all-important point was. that they should 
not be excluded from the peace of the empire, 
on account of their ecclesiastical changes. 

Had the old modes of thinking still pre- 
vailed, a crusade would have been set on foot 
against them. 

But, inasmuch as the majority resolved to 
attack them by means of the great represent- 
ative [ständischen) tribunal, and on the field 
of the ancient laws of the empire ; inasmuch 
as the emperor invited them to concur in his 
brother's election, the legality of their partici- 
pation in the business of the empire, in spite of 
* their ecclesiastical differences, was recognised. 

The whole contest was converted from an 
ecclesiastical into a general; — from a political 
question, to one of public law; and on this 
ground the Protestants had now to unite, and 
to organise their resistance. 

On the 22d of December, 1530, John of 
Saxony, Ernest of Lüneburg, Philip of Hessen. 
"Wolfg-ang of Anhalt, the Counts Gebhard and 
Al brecht of jMansfeld, the latter of whom was 
bearer of the vote of Grubenhagen, and also 
delegates from George of Brandenburg and 

* It was fixed for the Monday after the feast of St. 
Catharine. (28th Nov. 1530.) 

f This is in fact expressed in the paper which is an- 
nexed to the letter from Torgau, of St. Andrew's Eve 
(29th Nov.) The elector invites the markgrave, " ir (S. 
Gn.) seihst und der Sachen zu gut," (" for your grace's own 
sake, and that of the cause.") (W. A.) 



from several cities, assembled in Scnmalkal- 
den. The heights which surround the town 
were covered with snow. It was not for their 
pleasure that they passed the festival of 
Christmas in this small frontier town, in the 
midst of a rude mountain district-. 

They resolved, in the fir.st place, that, as 
soon as any attempt should be made by the 
imperial fiscal to enforce the law against any 
one of them, the whole body should come to 
his aid.j They agreed on certain exceptions 
which they intended to take hi common, and 
appointed two or three procurators to conduct 
the business before the Imperial Chamber. 

This is the essential part of the league ; and 
it affords the cfearest evidence that the reli- 
gious dispute was transformed into one of 
law. In this all who had originally subscribed 
the Augsburg Confession, or had since given 
in their adhesion to it, joined. 

They also agreed that they must try to in- 
duce the emperor to mitigate the terms of the 
recess, or perhaps, protest against it altogether. 

Had they proceeded to act immediately, it 
is probable that a uniform external organiza- 
tion of the new churches would have been 
effected. Most of them were in favour of the 
introduction of a general church ordinance, — 
mainly in order to render open vice amenable 
to ecclesiastical chastisement. 

On the other hand, they could not come to 
so perfect an understanding concerning the 
second principal subject of deliberation — the 
election of the king. 

Saxony declared his opinion that they should 
not allow so great a latitude to the emperor, 
as that he should be able to carry through an 
affair of this importance single-handed; other- 
wise, there would soon be an end of the privi- 
leges and franchises of the empire. There 
was a great difference, he said, between an 
election after a regular vacancy, and an at- 
tempt to place a king of the Romans by the 
side of a living emperor. In the latter case, 
a consultation of all the electors, and an una- 
nimous resolution, must precede the summons 
to the election. But nothing of the kind had 
been thought of. Even the citation which 
had been sent to himself (the Elector of 
Saxony), allowed much too short a time, and 
was as completely null a« all the rest of the 
proceedings. Lastly, it was impossible to suf- 
fer Ferdinand, who had distinguished himself 
by his enmity to the Gospel, to be imposed 
upon them. While lieutenant, he had con- 
trived the strangest artifices, and as king, he 



J 'Wo der kais. Fiscal, der Bund zu Schwaben oder 
Jemand anders J. Chf. und Fürstlichen Gnaden oder die 
eemeldten Städte, eine oder mehre, oder jemand von den 
Iren in Sachen unfern heil. Glauben oder v.-as demselben 
anhanget (belaniren), auf den ausgegangenen Abschied 
fürnehmen und im Schien des Rechtens oder andere Wese 
beklagen würde,— das Ire allerGn und Gunsten einander 
in solche beistendig, räthlich und hülflich seyn sollen."— 
" If the imperial fiscal, the Swabian league, or any others, 
should undertake, in virtue of the recess just published, 
and under the appearance of law, or in any other way, to 
accuse your E. and P. Graces, or the above-mentioned 
cities, on account of our holy faith, or what is connected 
therewith— that all your graces should stand by one an- 
other with counsel and help." 



870 



QUESTION OF RESISTANCE TO THE EMPEROR. 



Book VI. 



elect Ferdinand thus, without any stipulation, 
would be to put arms into the hands of their 
enemies. They must stand firm as one man, 
and refuse obedience with common consent. 
They could negotiate afterwards. They would 
then have a good opportunity to oblige the king 
to order the fiscal to stay proceedhigs, or en- 
tirely to repeal the recess.* They might, 
according to the expression in the original, 
'•put a bit in his mouth." 

These views were very readily listened to, 
and especially coincided with those of Land- 
grave Philip. They were approved by a large 
majority of the States. 

Markgrave George and his neighbours of 
Nürnberg alone would not go so far. The 
former stood in too various and peculiar rela- 
tions to Ferdinand, to venture to off"end him 
personally. The great desire of the latter 
was, to show themselves the more especial 
subjects of the emperor. At the first request 
on his part, they had delivered up the corona- 
tion regalia which were kept at Nürnberg, and 
had sent an ambassador for that express pur- 
pose to the imperial court. 

Another question was i-ntimately connected 
with the former. 

Although the attacks more immediately to 
be dreaded were of a judicial kind, it was im- 
possible not to see that, in case of need, the 
emperpr meditated employing force. It was 
remarked that in the recess he had enjoined 
peace on others, but had not promised to ob- 
serve it liimself.t It is certain that a corre- 
spondence concerning the necessity c^ raising 
troops, was carried on between Ferdinand and 
the papal court, in the beginning of the year 
1531.1: People asserted that they had heard 
Henry of Brunswick say, that he and Esk of 
Reischach were to take the command of the 
army. 

The first question, therefore, to be decided, 
was, whether it was lawful to resist the em- 
peror. ■ 

The opinion of the theologians, who took 
their ideas of the imperial authority from the 
New Testament, was, as we are aware, against 
resistance. 

But in a time of such vast changes, when 
the secular element was universally emanci- 
pating itself from the hierarchy, the notions 
of public law necessarily became cleared of 
all theological admixture. 

The jurists adduced certain arguments 
drawn from the civil law, concerning the re- 
sistance which might be ofi'ered to a judge 
who should take no notice of a legal appeal ; 
chiefly, however, they called in question, 



* Article, what is to be treated of the following day at 
Schmalkalden. (W. A.) 

t Letter of the Saxon envoy. Förstemann, ii. 711. The 
Nürnbergers announced as early as the 21st October, that 
all was, "dahin gericht, wie man die thatliche Handlung 
wider die Anhenger des Evancreliums zum tapfersten an- 
fange,"— "so arranged, that forcible measures may be the 
most vigorously begun against the adherents of the 
Gospel." 

X A. de Bnrgo to Ferdinand, 2d March, 1531. Dixi quod 
esset providendum de viribus etremediis in re Lutherana, 
quod solum concilium non futurum. esset sufficiens, sed 
paratffi vires facerent bonum concilium, et quod paratis 
viribus possint illi (ae?) converti, ubi, etc. 



whether the power which the theologians 
ascribed to the emperor was really his by 
law.§ 

The theologians hai even advised the 
princes to allow the emperor to proceed in 
their dominions according to his pleasure ; to 
allow^ him, for example, to drive out them- 
selves (the preachers). To this it was objected, 
that such a proceeding would be utterly un- 
precedented m any other matter, and that the 
emperor did, in fact, possess no such power. 

New ideas on the general nature of the 
German constitution gradually made their 
way. It was observed, that if, on the one 
hand, the princes did homage to the emperor, 
he, on the other, took an oath which he was 
bound to observe : the princes were the here- 
ditary sovereigns of the country ] the emperor 
was elected. A doctrine which was long in 
obtaining acceptance, and was not recognised 
as consonant with public law until the conclu- 
sion of the i^eace of Westphalia, was likewise 
then broached : — the doctrine, namely, that 
the constitution of the German empire was 
not of a monarchical, but an aristocratical 
nature. According to this theory, the relation 
of the princes to their head was not very 
different from that of the senators of Rome to 
the consuls, or those of Venice to their doge, 
or of a chapter to its bishop. Kut neither 
canons nor senators had ever been bound to 
passive obedience. '•' The States govern jointly 
with the emperor, and the emperor is not a 
Qionarch.'"il 

To these arguments the theologians had no- 
thing more to oppose. They could now ad- 
here to their text from Scripture, without being 
compelled by it to condemn all resistance to 
the emperor. "We did not know," say they, 
" that the sovereign power itself was subject 
to law."1F 

The earnestness of their scruples was proved 
by the difficulty with which they shook them 
ofi-, and by their subsequent recurrence to 
them from time to time. 

Luther was peculiarly impressed with the 
fact that, as he had continually remarked, the 
emperor did not attempt to act independently ; 
but always by the advice of the pope, and of 
the princes of Germany. He pronounced him 
to be no '• Augmenter of the Empire,""** but a 
captain and sworn vassal of the pope. And 
should the Protestants now encourage their 
old enemies — their neighbours of Bohemia, 
who would use the authority of the emperor's 
name — by declaring resistance unlawful^ 
" They hope," says Luther, " that we shall not 
defend ourselves. But if they mean to show^ 
their knighthood against the blood of our 
people, they shall do so with peril and fear. "ft 



§ Etlicher furtrefflicher Rechtsselehrten in Wittenberg 
Sentenz. (Sentence of certain excellent lawyers in Wit- 
tenberg.) Plortleder, Book ii. cap. vi. 

II Juristical decision; Hortleder, P. II. B. ii. C. viii. at 
the end. 

«^ Considerations of the Theologians, Ibid. c.*9. 

** Mehrer des Reichs ; one of the titles of the Emperor. 
— Transl. 

tt See "Warnung an seine lieben Deutschen."— Altenb. 
v. 538. "Alles ist ein Getrieb des obersten Schalks in der 



Chap. I. 



ELECTION OF KING FERDINAND. 



377 



On these grounds Saxony now proposed to 
the assembled States a league for their mutual 
defence, even aganist the emperor. In a]l 
previous coalitions of the kind, he had been 
excepted ; but such a course would now be 
useless, since their enemies now acted under 
cover of his name.* 

These views were by no means shared by 
Nürnberg, or by Älarkgrave George. Their 
theologians had remained unconvinced or 
doubtful. Nürnberg declared that it could not 
found so important a resolution as this on opi- 
nions of so revolting a kind. The reader will 
remember that a similar difference existed the 
year before, between the divines of the two 
States."!" 

The others, however, accustomed to follow 
Saxony, or perhaps even rejoiced that she had 
at length abandoned her scruples, declared 
their entire assent. 

A draft of an agreement was immediately 
drawn up, in which the emperor's name was, 
indeed, carefully avoided, and the causes of 
alarm obscurely alluded to, in such expres- 
sions as this. " It appears as if there existed 
an intention 'of crushing the followers of the 
pure word of God ;" but it was more exphcit 
iiivwhat related to measures of defence. The 
allies bound themselves to hasten to the aid 
of any one among them, who might be at- 
tacked on account of the word of God. It 
was further declared that this league was 
directed neither against the emperor, nor 
against any individual whatsoever ; which 
only meant that it would attack no one, and 
would rigorously confine itself to self-defence. 

The league included Saxony, Hessen, Lüne- 
burg, Wolfgang of Anhalt, the two Counts of 
Mansfeld, the cities of Magdeburg and Bre- 
men. The other assembled princes and States 
promised to declare themselves within a short 
time. On the 3 1st of December they dis- 
persed. J 

These nine days may be reckoned among 
the most important in the history of the world. 
The threatened and despised minority, under 
the influence of a religious idea on which de- 
pended the future development of the human 
mind, assumed an energetic and even warlike 

Welt."— "All is a manceuvre of the chiefest rogue in the 
world." He did not advise recourse to arms; but, as he 
■writes to Spengler, " Ego pro mea parte dixi, ego consulo 
ut theologus ; sed si juristae possent docere legibus suis id 
licere, ego pertnitierem eos suis legibus uti. Ipsi vide- 
rint." 

* " Dieselbig Widerpartei die Sachen in die kaiserlich 
Majestät, als ob sy diselbig gar nicht zu thun hätte, 
Echieven wil." — '-The same adverse party will shove the 
thing on his imperial majesty, as if tliey themselves had 
nothing at all to do with it." 

t Müller's Annales Norici. One disputed question was, 
v.hether the imperial authority extended to matters of 
religion. The Landgrave of Hessen, particularly, denied 
this. The Brandenburg opinion, however, maintains it. 
Saxony says, in the above-mentioned proposals, "Wo 
sich gleichwol I. Mt. Amt in des Glaubens Sachen er- 
strecken sollt, wäre das doch durch die Appellation, so an 
I. Maj. un ein Concilium sämtlich nach rechtlicher Ord- 
nung erschienen ist, suspendirt." — "But even if your 
majesty's functions should extend to matters of faith, 
- they must be suspended by the appeal which has been ad- 
dressed, according to legal order, to your imperial majesty 
and a council." 

t Eece#s of the diet held at Schmalkalden, 1530. Last 
day of December. (W. A.) 

48 2g* 



attitude. They determined in like manner, 
as they had confessed the new doctrine and 
refused to abandon it, so they would now de- 
fend the whole position into which that con- 
fession had led them ; — by legal means, in the 
first place ; but if necessary, by arms. As ta 
the former, all were agreed ; as to the latter, 
the majority (some still entertained scruples 
as to their legal right); and thus, at the very 
origin of the innovation, a compact and deter- 
mined union was formed for its maintenance, 
which its antagonists were likely to find it 
difficult to overcome. 

The affair of the election soon proved the 
force and value of this resistance. 

During the deliberations in Schmalkalden, 
John Frederic of Saxony, the heir to the elec- 
torate, had gone to Cologne, to oppose the 
election in his father's name. 

His opposition had, as may be imagined, no 
effect in preventing a thing which was already 
decided. Ferdinand was chosen at Cologne 
(5th January, 1531) by the five other electors^ 
and a few days afterwards was crowned at 
Aix la Chapelle.^ By his election .capitula- 
tions he was expressly bound to maintain the 
existing forms of religion, and specially in 
virtue of the recess of Augsburg. II This re- 
cess, which involved all the interests of the 
Catholic majority, and was the principal wea- 
pon in their hands, had nov/ all the value and 
force of law. From this time the emperor 
left the administration of the empire chiefly 
to his brother.lF He reserved to himself only 
the privilege of being consulted in some 
weighty cases ', c. g. the granting of banner 
fiefs, or of high titles of nobility ; or the deci- 
sion concerning monopohes — the most con- 
siderable mercantile interests of those days : 
or such proclamations of ban, or alliances, as 
might have the effTect of involving the country 
in regular war.** But how complete and valid 
soever the election thus appeared to be, the 
opposition of Saxony did not fail to produce a 
great effect. The public voice was, inde- 
pendently of this, against the act of the elec- 



§ Spalatin, Verzeichniss der Handlung in Colin, in 
Struve's Archiv, i. 62. 

li The words in the copy at Brussels are, " Das wir in 
Zeit solcher königlichen Würde, Ambts und Regierung 
die Christenheit und den Stuel zu Rom, bebstliche Heilig- 
keit, auch die christliche Kirch bei dem alten loblicheJi 
und wolhergebrachten Glauben, Religion und Cerimonien 
vermöge des jüngsten zu Augsburg aufgerichten Abschie- 
des bis zu endlicher Determination khünftigen gemeinen 
Cqnoils in guten Bevelch, Schutz und Schirm haben sol- 
len." — "That we, as holding such royal dignity, should 
have in our good ordering, protection and defence, tire 
stewardship and government of Christendom and the See 
of Rome, the pope's holiness, also the Christian church, 
with its ancient praiseworthy and well-established be- 
lief, religion and ceremonies, in virtue of the recess newly 
drawn up at Augsburg, until the final determination of a 
future general council." 

IT Extract from the original document, Bucholtz, ix. IG : 
—I am struck by the distinction, "imperium per Germa- 
niam superiorem regat." Was lower Germany excepted, 
because the Saxon vicar of the empire had not given his 
assent ? or (more probably), because the emperor would 
suffer no interference of the authorities of the empire 
with his Netherland government ? 

** The Brussels Archives contain the Sommaire me- 
moire au roi des Romains d'aucuns points esquels il 
sernble ä I'empereur que le dit S. roi doit avoir considers, 
tion et regard touchant le gouvernement de rempire, 
pour lequel Teinpereur luy envoye ample pouvoir. 



378 



ORIGIN OF THE SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE. 



Book VI. 



tors. 

Dukes of Bavaria, who had never concealed 
that they aimed at the crown (alleging that 
members of their house had been emperors 
and kings when the ancestors of the Habs- 
burgers were still seated among the counts), 
had now a lawful ground for refusing to ac- 
knowledge the validity of the king's election. 
They cared littlo, for the motives which had 
prompted Saxony's opposition. It is remark- 
able that, on this point, the ultra Catholics 
united with the leaders of the Protestants. 
At a second meeting held by the alhes at 
Schmalkalden, shortly before Easter, 1531. 
Grubenhagen, Hessen and Anhalt declared 
still more emphatically than before, that they 
would persist with Saxony in refusing obedi- 
ence to Ferdinand. The cities were not all 
so resolute ; yet they also refrained, for the 
most part, from giving him the title of King 
of the Romans. 

Very shortly after, Ferdinand complained to 
his brother, that he bore the title indeed, but 
that it commanded no respect or obedience ; 
he had no more weight than any other prince 
of Jhe empire.* 

From day to day the league assumed a 
moi'e important aspect. 

At the second meeting, the treaty for mu- 
tual defence, the duration of which was pro- 
visionally fixed for six years, was sealed by 
Saxony, Hessen, Lüneburg and .Grubenhagen. 
For the- ratification by the cities, a certain 
process was agreed on, which was afterwards 
adopted. As they had not yet determined on 
a formal military organisation, and as the 
movements of their adversaries seemed to 
make some measures necessary, they re- 
solved, for the present, to take a certain num- 
ber of horsemen into their pay, till they should 
see '• whither these hasty and strange mea-^ 
sures v.'ould extend." 

At a third meeting at Frankfurt on the 
Maine, on the 5th June, the principal subject 
of discussion was, the affairs of the Imperial 
Chamber. The allies were not perfectly 
agreed to whom they should entrust their pro- 
curations; some objections were raised to the 
persons proposed, but on the main point there 
waä no hesitation ; the procurators were to be 
empowered " to act in all their names, and to 
help to carry through all things regarding 
their faith and rehgion, which the fiscal might 
bring against any of the alhes. "t They 
agreed upon a small tax to pay the procura- 

* Yo no soy mas que un principe de los del ymperio por 
agora, no siendo obedecido por rey de Romanos. (B. A.) 

t "Alle und jede Sachen die Religion Cerimonien und 
Avas dem anhangt anlangend, so der ks. Fiscal vielleiclit 
nsbefel ks. Mt. oder uf anhalten sonderer Personen oder 
Parteien wider die ernannten Städte eine oder mehrfür- 
gewendt hette oder noch fiirpringen würde, in irei" aller 
Namen semptlich und sonderlich zu vertreten und usfiih- 
ren zu helfen."— "To act and aid in all and every matter 
relating to religion, its ceremonies, and what belongs 
thereto, if the imperial fiscal should, by the command of 
his imperial majesty, or by the suggestion of other per- 
sons or parties against the above-mentioned cities, have 
alleged or should allege one or more of such matters, you 
are in all their names, collectively and severally, to act 
as their representatives, and to help to carry the business 
through." The draft was already prepared at Schmalkal- 
den, but was adopted at Frankfurt. 

\ 



tors. Strangely enough, the first permanent 
contribution which was agreed on in the 
league, as in the empire, had a jurisdictional 
destination. 

Such were the fundarhental characteristicc, 
juridical and military, which the league ex- 
hibited from its very commencement. Not all 
its members, however, shared both these ten- 
dencies. Brandenburg and Nürnberg would 
not consent to armed resistance. It was there- 
for.e arranged that their delegates should not 
be admitted to the meetings in which mea- 
sures of defence were discussed. Two re- 
ports, or recesses, were drawn up, of which 
the one was described as the general ("ge- 
meine^^), the other the particular {^^ sunder- 
liche^^}. The former related to the more ex- 
tensive, and merely peaceful ; the other, to 
the narrower — that is, the warlike coalition.? 
The adherents of the latter, however, still 
hoped to induce Brandenburg and Nürnberg 
to join them. Brandenburg was immediately 
threatened by the Swabian league, and the 
markgrave v/as told that had he but signed 
the treaty for mutual defence, the Swabian 
league would have left him at peace. But 
every thing was yet in a state of mere prepa- 
ration. 

Hitherto we have devoted our attention 
mainly to the relations of the princes ; but 
those of the cities in upper and lower Ger- 
many were not less remarkable. Negotia- 
tions with the upper German cities, leading 
to the most fortunate results, and justifying the 
highest expectations, may be traced through 
all these meetings of the allies. 

We should, however, be unable to appre- 
ciate them, if w^e did not first attend to the 
course which the reformation had in the 
meanwhile taken in Switzerland. 



CHAPTER II. 

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN SWITZER- 
LAND. 

The restored unity of Latin Christendom 
was, as may be concluded, no less dangerous 
to the dissidents of Switzerland than to those 
of Germany. 

It happened that the Catholic movement 
was directed first against Germany, because 
the head of Christendom, the emperor, en- 
joyed an authority universally acknowledged 
and respected in that country ; but every step 
of its progress was felt to be of imminent dan- 
ger to Switzerland. 

The situation of the latter country was. how- 



J Untertheniger Bericht der Sachen so sich in der Hand- 
lung zu Frankfurt Trinitatis, 1531, zugetragen und im 
Abschiede nit verzeichnet sind. " Humble report of tlie 
affairs transacted at the meeting at Frankfurt, Trinity, 
1531, and not entered in the recess." (W. A.) There 
exist, as we see, three documents concerning this meet- 
ing; the general and the particular recesses, and this re- 
port. 



Chap. II. 



THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 



379 



ever, very different from thai of the former. 
There, as iii Germany, the reformation en- 
countered a majority armed with traditional 
privileges; but m Switzerland this majority 
was enfeebled by a long series of reverses. 

We have seen how Zwiugli gained over to 
his opinions the two" most powerful of the 
eight noblest cantons — Bern and Zürich; of 
those which had joined the Confederation 
later, Basel; and of those more remotely con- 
nected With it, St. Gall, Biel and JVluhlhausen. 
In all these he had introduced a new organisa- 
tion of the church. 

, On the other hand, he experienced an ob- 
stinate resistance from the remaining cantons : 
of these, five of the older — the four Forest 
Cantons and Zug, were decidedly hostile. 
The reader will remember which party had 
been triumphant there in the year 1522 ; their 
refusal to give up the pensions and the right 
of taking foreign service, and their determina- 
tion to maintain the ancient faith with all its 
external observances. 

Had the several cantons been completely 
separate states, they might, no doubt, have 
remained peaceful neighbours. But there 
"were districts wdiere the government was 
shared by the two opposing parties — the lord- 
ships and bailiwicks which were subjects of 
the whole Confederation: here the adverse 
powers necessarily came into collision. If we 
reflect that the Confederation had attained to 
its strength and compactness chiefly by means 
of its common conquests — that the real knot 
of the aUiance consisted in these — it will be 
evident how important must be a difference 
which came to an open breach on this very 
ground. Here the majority had always en- 
joyed parampunt consideration ; it w^as now 
to be seen whether it was in a condition to 
maintain it. 

The five older cantons refused to tolerate 
the new doctrines in the free bailiwicks. The 
bailiifs, Joseph am Berg of Schwytz and Jacob 
Stocker of Zug, inflicted on the dissidents fine, 
imprisonment, stripes and banishment. The 
preachers had their tong-ues slit, and v/ere 
driven out of the country, or put to death 
with the sword. Germans w^ho had fled from 
persecution, and taken refuge in Switzerland, 
were delivered up to the Austrian government 
of the Vorlande, which put them to death 
without trial or delay. ^^ Ail books of the new 
doctrine, as well as Testaments and Bibles, 
were seized. In Baden, the dead belonging 
to the evangelical party were refused decent 
burial. 

The Zürichers had long seen these things 
with displeasure; and as soon as they felt 
themselves strong enough to resist, they de- 
termined to endure them no longer. One of 
the main articles in the treaty between Zürich 
and Bern is, that the two cantons w^ould not 
allow the people of the common lordships and 
bailiwicks (the due proportion of the sove- 
reignty over which belonged to them as mem- 
bers of the Confederation), or the congrega- 

* Proclamation of Zürich, 3d March, 1529. See Bullin- 
ger, ii. 31. 



tions \vhich had determined by the vote of a 
majority to adhere to the evangelical party, to 
be prevented from so doing by violence. t 
, This at once roused all the oppressed evan- 
gelical spirit in Thurgau and the valley of the 
Rhine. The Five Cantons despaired of keep- 
ing them down solely by the authority of their 
bailifts: on the 30th of November, 1528, they 
assembled all the magistrates and deputies of 
the communes of Thurgau in Frauenfeld, and 
admonished them not to separate themselve« 
in matters of faith from the majority of the 
cantons to which they owed obedience; but 
rather to aid the bailiff in punishing the re- 
bellious. This meeting, however, had also 
been attended by deputies from Zürich and 
Bern, who had come uninvited, and did not 
fail to offer exhortations and assurances of a 
contrary tendency. The country people asked 
to be allowed time for reflection till the feast 
of St. Nicholas, when they assembled again in 
W^infelden. At first they showed some hesi- 
tation ; gradually, however, a majority de- 
clared itself determined to adhere to the evan- 
gelical confession, and w^as openly supported 
by promises of assistance from Zürich and 
Bern. The former had also been applied to 
by the people of the Rhine valley, as the prin- 
cipal canton of the Confederation, and had 
replied, that '■ it would not allow them to be 
driven from God's word."t 

This was an act of self-government on the 
part of the people. As the governingvbody 
was divided, it depended on their free deci- 
sion which party to espouse. They chose the 
cause of reform. 

In Thurgau there soon remained but nine 
nobles who had not joined this party, and even 
these begged only for delay. In the Rhine 
valley there was only a single parish in which 
the majority did not vote for the burning of 
pictures and images, and the abolition of the 
mass. Finding that the reforming communes, 
with the help of Zürich, had been victorious 
over the Catholic council which adhered to 
the party of the Five Cantons, the free baili- 
wicks and the country round soon followed. 

However strong the assurances given, that 
the secular obedience due to the estabhshed 
authorities should not suffer, it is obvious that 
the basis of power — influence, to which the 
subject willingly submits — was thus of neces- 
sity lost to the Five Cantons. 

And already a dispute not less unfavour- 
able to their cause had taken place in another 
district. 

Unterwaiden- had ventured to offer assist- 
ance to the Bernese Oberland, w^here the mea- 
sures taken by the city for the introduction 
of reform — and especially the suppression of 
the convent of Interlachen — had excited irri- 
tation and resistance: and without any decla- 
ration of hostilities, to invade the territory of 
one of its co-confederates with baiuaers flying. 



t Original document of tlie treaty between the cities, 
Bullinger, ii. 11. 

X Recess at Frauenfeld and Instructions of the Zü- 
richers for Winfelden. Bullinger, ii. 27. Bernh. Weiss, 
p. 93. 



380 



ALLIANCE OP THE FIVE CANTONS WITH AUSTRIA. 



Book VL 



Bern placed itself on the defensive^ reduced 
its subjects to obedience, and compelled the 
invaders to retreat; but it is. obvious what 
must be the effects of so open a breach of the 
ancient alliance. Unterwaiden found support 
from the four cantons with which it was more 
particularly connected ; but all the City Can- 
tons were of opinion that Unterwaiden must be 
chastised. Solothurn and Freiburg promised 
to assist Bern, as they were bound to do. 

In this state of political and religious infe- 
riority,- and threatened with vengeance, the 
Five Cantons conceived the idea of applying 
^ to the house of Austria for succour. It was, 
indeed, a general principle with them not to 
give up alliances with foreign powers. 

On the frontiers of Switzerland power was 
still in the hands of those who had put down 
the insurrection of the peasants, and sup- 
pressed the preaching in those parts : — Count 
Sulz and Count Fürstenberg, and Marx Sittich 
of Ems, baihfF of Bregenz. The clan of Ems, 
which had recently been strengthened by an 
alliance with the Castelan of Musso, sustained 
the cause of Catholicism in the mountains 
generally ; and the Five Cantons had no diffi- 
(^ulty in obtaining-a favourable hearing from 
them. Meetings were held at Feldkirch and 
Waldshut; the arms of Switzerland and Aus- 
tiia were displayed side by side; and it was 
even asserted that the old antagonists of the 
peacock's feather (the badge of the house of 
Austria) were now seen decorated 'with it. A 
treaty was drawn up, in vrhich Kipg Ferdi- 
nand and the Five Cantons mutually engaged 
to jeniain constant to the ancient faith ; to 
chastise any who might assail it in their re-, 
ypective territories: and, in case this brought 
down hostilities upon them, to afford each 
other assistance. Any conquests made within 
the Confederation were to belong to the Five 
Cantons ; any without its boundaries, to the 
king. 

The chief stipulation of the treaty is, that 
Ferdinand guarantied to the Five Cantons 
'•all that may be^subject to or connected with 
them'* (and consequently the common baili- 
wicks and Thurgau), while the Five Cantons 
expressly declared that they would not regard 
Constance as a member of the Confederation, 
but would leave it to the king.* 

The Five Cantons were right in replying to 
the City Cantons, who reproached them with 
this treaty, that they also had allied themselves 
Avith foreigners; but the circumstances were 
widely different. Constance was closely con- 
nected with the Confederation, inconsequence 
of the treaty it had concluded with Zürich. It 
had always been the aim of Austrian policy 
to prevent this; and Llaximilian had once, 
fronl that m^otive, taken a large part of the 
communes into his service : the Five Cantons 
now abandoned Constance to Austria. 

It is remarkable that this happened at the 
very time (the beginning of the year 1529) 
vv'hen the majority of the States of the empire 
once more embraced the side of the house of 



* Original treaty. Hottinger, ii. 475. 



Austria. All political grudges now disap- 
peared before a community of religious in- 
terests. 

Ferdinand sought to strengthen the Swiss 
alliance by every means in his power. In 
Innsbruck, where it was concluded, he had 
also summoned a part of the Tyrolese land- 
holders to the council ; all the Vorlände. Wür- 
tenberg included, were to be admitted' to it. 
He hoped, perhaps, by- this means, to break 
forever the power of the Confederation ;t but, 
at all events, to oppose an insuperable barrier 
to the further progress of the new opinions. 

But it was a question whether a coalition of 
this kind could really afford protection to the 
Five Cantons. Its measures, tried by the 
principles of the Confederation, were thorough* 
ly unjustifiable — the invasion of the Bernese 
territoiy. no less than the alliance with Ferdi- 
nand. They were utterly .at variance with 
the idea and with the existence of the Confe- 
deration. To the success which, thanks to 
the goodness of their cause, attended the 
measures of the City Cantons, was now added 
all the weight of the interests of the country 
at large, and of hidisputable right. 

Peace was, at all events, out of the question 
for the Confederation. The deputies of the 
City Cantons who went into the mountain 
country, in order to warn their old brother 
confederates against forming this^ alliance, 
found the arms of their cities nailed to the 
gallows, and themselves treated as heretics 
and traitors; in spite of their presence and 
efforts, the most terrific punishments were in- 
flicted on seceders. The reformation in cen- 
tral Switzerland had also its martyrs. Jacob 
Keyser, a preacher from the territory of Zü- 
rich, who went from time to time to Caster to 
conduct the worship of an evangelical church 
in that place, was arrested in the forest of 
Eschibach, on the high road, and dragged to 
Schwytz. The office of ^bailiff of Gaster did 
not at that time belong to Schwytz ; and, even 
if it had, the trial ought to have been heard 
before the tribunal of Utznach. Nevertheless 
the commune condemned the unfortunate and 
guihless riian to the flames, which he endured 
with great constancy. t 

This roused Zürich to open resistance. In 
June, 1529, when a new bailiff of Unterwaiden 
was to make his entrace into Baden, Zürich 
openly declared that it would not suffer it, nor 
indeed have any further community with the 
Unterwalders : from henceforth it would not 
permit them to exercise the oÖice of bailiff in 
the domains over which they had a common 
jurisdiction. § 

Zürich had long since announced to the 
Schwytzers its determnnation to avenge itself, 



t Invitation to the WiiVtenberg districts, ii. orig. doc. 
No. 144. " That the power of the same confederation is 
divided by the above-mentioned union, while his royal 
majesty and his subjects who adhere to the ancient Chris- 
tian faith are strengthened with foreign aid, as well as 
the above-mentioned Five Cantons." 

t BuUinger, Ref. Gesch. ii. p. 148. Eidgenössische 
schweizerische Märtyrer, Misc. Tig. ii. p. 35 (insigiiilJ- 
cant). 

§ They are particularly reproached for this in Eck's 
" ilepulsio." 



Chap. II. 



MMINENCE OF WAR, 1529. 



381 



if any violence was used towards the preacher 
of its feudatories. Keyser's execution was 
therefore the signal for war. 

On the 5th of June the first company of 
Zürich troops marched out to protect the free 
bailiwicks from a bloody re-establishment of 
the ancient faith ; soon afterwards another was 
sent to Thurgau and the Rhine valley, and a 
third to invest the Schwytz portion of Gaster, 
which had pat the preacher to death. The 
enemy having instantly assembled at Bar am 
Boden, the great banner of the city was un- 
furled on the 9th of June, under the Banneret 
Hans Schweizer, who had already borne it in 
the Milanese w^ars. 

For the first time did two Swiss armies, not, 
.as before, of peasants and their lords, but 
of adversaries equal in rights and fnlly 
prepared for war, stand confronted, in conse- 
quence of religious differences. " They are 
so full of hatred to each other," said King- 
Ferdinand, -'that nothing but open violence is 
to be expected.'' 

The evangelical party had, however, at this 
moment a decided superiority. 

The Zürich army had not its equal. It con- 
sisted of the brave men who had embraced 
the , cause of the reformation with all the 
moral earnestness with which Zwingli preached 
it. No common women were suffered in the 
camp ; no curses or oaths were to be heard, 
and even dice were banished^ the amuse- 
ments consisted of athletic exercises, such as 
leaping, hurling, &c. ; quarrels hardly ever 
occurred, and prayers before and after meals 
were never omitted. Zwingh himself was 
with them; he had been relieved from the 
obligation of going out with the great ban- 
ner as preacher, but he had voluntEirily 
mounted himself, and taken a halberd on his 
shoulder. 

Zwingli was firmly persuaded of the supe- 
riority of his party ; and as the accounts from 
all sides tended to confirm him in this opinion, 
he conceived the most sanguine hopes. It 
was at least certain that the Five Cantons had 
nothing to expect from Ferdinand, who was 
occupied elsewhere, and found himself re- 
duced to make applications to his states, from 
which but small results were to be expected. 
Zwingli now thought himself about to reach 
the goal upon which he had from the first 
fixed his eyes. He would listen to no propo- 
sitions of peace, unless accompanied with the 
two great concessions, on which he had always 
insisted, i. e. that the whole system of pen- 
sions should be forever forsworn, and the 
preaching of the Gospel permitted throughout 
all the cantons of Switzerland. He represented 
to the members of the government, that in 
this way only was unity in the state to be ob- 
tained, as well as in the church. " Stand fast 
in God," exclaimed he; "they give you good 
w^ords now, but do not be deceived ; yield no- 
thing to their entreaties till the right is estab- 
lished. Then shall we have made a war 
more advantageous than any that was ever 
made before; we shall have accomplished 



things which will redound to the honour of 
God and of the city, centuries hence."* 

Had it depended on Zwingli and on Zürich 
alone, they would have ventured every thing, 
and have followed up their advantages to the 
utmost. 

But there is a general and a most just dread 
of beginning war and of sheddnig blood. 
Whilst the Zürichers were preparing to take 
the field, Ebli, the Ammanti of Glarus, ap- 
peared among them, and represented how 
often they had shared weal and woe with 
those whom they were now about to cast off. 
His address produced the greater effect, be- 
cause he was known to be an honest man, 
who at bottom entertained the same views as 
those which prevailed at Zürich. He obtained 
a truce. Zwingli alone, who saw farther into 
futurity than the others, was not satisfied wit.h 
a compliance which appeared to him ill-timed. 
'■'Good gossip Ammann," said he to Ebli, 
"thou wilt have to give an account of this 
matter to God,"t 

Meanwhile Bern also spoke out. The power- 
ful influence exercised by Zürich was not 
agreeable to the Bernese, and they now de- 
clared that they would lend assistance in case 
Zürich were attacked, but not otherwise. 

The notion of the independence of states, 
wdiich had become prevalent in Germany, also 
gained groinid in Switzerland. Bern deemed 
the conditions proposed by Zwingh inadmissi- 
ble, because it would not be right to interfere 
so much with the independence of the govern- 
ment of the several cantons. 

Thus the obstacles which prevented the 
great reformer from carrying out his views 
with the armed hand, originated in the evan- 
gelical party itself. 

Negotiations were set on foot, which, con- 
sidering the power the adverse party still pos- 
sessed, and the opinions that still predominated 
among the Confederates, could not lead to the 
decisive results contemplated by Zwingli.? 

The utmost that could be expected was, 
that the Five Cantons should consent to give 
up the treaty with Ferdinand; should promise 
compensation for the expenses of the war, and 
the punishment of those who had used inju- 
rious language ; and should formally consent 
to the rule laid down by the City Cantons, 
that, in the common domains, the vote of the 
majority should decide the form of religion in 
each parish. The prohibition of pensions, and 
the freedom of the evangelical faiih, were also 
discussed; but they were by no means so de- 
cisively agreed to as Zwingli had desired. 
The abolition of the pensions appeared only 
in the light of a request of the City Cantons 
to the Five Cantons ; and instead of proclaim- 



* Opinion and letter in the Appendix to Hottinger, 
Geschichte der Eidgenossen, ii. 483. 

t Bullinger, ii. 170. 

t Journal of Hans Stockar of Schaf hausen, 199. "Dye 
von Zürycli mianttend,uns hyeoch jn zu zychen, das niai 
vvyder unser Bunttbryef was und uns nitt zustund."— 
" Those of Zürich thought that to sign this was contrary 
to our treaty of confederation, and not within our com 
petence." 



382 



PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 



Book VI. 



ing liberty of preaching, it was only said, that 
the one party would not punish the religious 
opinions of the other.* 

But even thus it appeared that no slight 
advantage had been obtained. 

The Five Cantons were compelled to pro- 
duce on the spot their original treaty with 
Ferdinand: arid although the mediators inter- 
posed to prevent it being read aloud, from 
the fear that it might revive old animosities, 
Ammann Ebli no sooner saw it than he stuck 
ids dagger through the document and tore it, 
upon which those who were standing near 
snatched off the wax of the seal. 

In consequence of the obvious superiority 
of the evangelical party, reform advanced 
much more rapidly after the peace. 

Bullinger mentions the number of places in 
which a majority formed itself 'in favour of 
the U3W opinions; in his language, '-'how the 
word of God was increased.'' In the year 
1529 Zwingli was already able to hold a synod 
in Thurgau, and to establish the evangelical 
church there. Large abbeys, like those of 
Vv^ettingen and Hitzkirch, went over; in the 
former, not more than two monks refused 
their consent. Abbot George Müller, of Ba- 
den, stipulated only. that the pictures and 
images which w^ere removed from the church 
should not be, as in so many other places, de- 
stroyed. t Lastly, a resolution was passed by 
the greater and lesser councils of Schafhau- 
sen, that the mass and the images should be 
abolished. Hans Stockar relates, not without 
suppressed sorrow, how, on the Friday after 
Michaelmas, " the great God in the Mmster" 
was taken away.t The city joined the union 
with Bern, Basel and Zürich. In Sololhurn the 
reformers demanded and obtained a church : 
and only a reputed miracle perpetuated the 
veneration for St. Urs. The evangelical party, 
protected by Bern, arose in Neuenburg : the 
Catholics had already taken up arms, and it 
seemed as if bloodshed was inevitable, when 
they resolved to allow the majority to decide.^ 
It decided for reform. The majority was in 
many cases small ; in Neuenburg, it amounted 
to only eighteen ; in Neuenstadt, to twenty- 
four. The same was the case on the other 
side, under different influences. In Rottweil, 
in the immediate neighbourhood, the six Ca- 
tholic guilds committed acts of such violence 
on the five evangelical, that several hundred 
citizens were obhged to leave the town. II 

But the most important circumstance for the 
progress of Zwingh's opinions was, that in one 
of the eight older cantons, which had hitherto 
remained neutral, — in Glarus, — where the 
evangelical majority had been much more 
free in the declaration of its opinions than in 
the others, it had obtained a complete ascend- 
ancy. The reformed doctrine had already so 
far prevailed, that only two or three churches 



* Landtsfried zii Cappel ufFgericht (Peace concluded at 
Cappel), 25th June, 1529, Bullinger, ii. 185. 
t From N. Manuel's Missives in Grüneisen, p. 135. 
t Journal, 201. 

§ Chambrier, Histoire de Neuchatel, p. 296. 
i Stettler, ii. 36. 



had retained their sacred images. Although 
their congregations begged for nothing more 
than a short delay, till the emperor and the 
empire could take some measures for the 
remedy of abuses, the country communes de- 
termined (April, 1530) that these churches 
too should be purified, and rendered uniform 
with the others in the country. IF There might 
be some recusants ; but, politically speaking, 
Glarus was now evangelical. 

The advantage of having gained over this 
canton, which Zwingli, at the beginning of 
his career, had been obliged to abandon, was 
much heightened by the enlarged sphere of 
legitimate influence over others which was 
thus acquired. 

The .Abbot of St. Gall had used every en- 
deavour to check the progress of the new doc- 
trine in his territory (not the city, which had 
long espoused it, ^ but the country), in spite 
of which it had made its way there as rapidly 
as elsewhere. This abbot was a prince of 
the holy empire, but Glaius, Lucern. Schwytz 
and Zürich exercised a protectorate over him, 
and, in consequence, claimed no little influ- 
ence over the internal administration of his 
domains. At this juncture the abbot died, 
which rendered the change in opinion of two 
out of the four protecting cantons very import- 
ant. Contrary to their express desire, the con- 
ventual authorities contrived, indeed, to bring 
about an election, whi&h was confirmed by 
the emperor and the pope, and approved by 
Schwytz and Lucern, but wdiich Zürich and 
Glarus refused to recognise; alleging that they 
lay under far more sacred obligations to the 
district x^here the evangelical movement was 
now going on, than to the conventual author- 
ities. Zürich proceeded on the principle, that 
it was not the abbot who constituted the reli- 
gious house, but that all the country people, 
villages and communes were committed to 
the guardianship of the protecting cantons. 
In concert with ihe inhabitants, an order was 
issued, according to which a captain taken out 
of the four protecting cantons, and a council 
consisting of twelve members, were to con- 
duct the government. But, that they might 
not have a commander out of Schwytz or 
Lucern, hostile to the new doctrines, they 
made it an express condition that the captain 
should be of the evangelical party, and that 
he should not receive homage till he had 
sworn to allow the vassals of the abbey to 
continue their attendance on the preaching of 
God's word.*=* The newly established free- 
dom extended to Toggenburg: even during^ 
Zwingli's youth, that town had begun to pur- 
chase its exemption from service to the con- 
vent, and this redemption it now completed. 
Early in the year 1531, Zwingh had the joy 



IT Tschudi in Hottinnrer, p. 2?7, note 30. Bullinger, p. 
289.\ " Messaltäre und Götzen wurden abgemeeret : etliche 
Götzen uf besser Glück entzückt und verborgen."—" Mass- 
altars and idols (images) were removed; some idols with- 
drawn and hidden till better luck." 

** Ordnung und Satzung wie hinfüro by den Gottshus- 
lüten Rat und Gericht zhalten.— Ordinance and rule how, 
in future, council and judgment are to be held among the 
people (subjects or tenants) of the house of God (abbey). 



Chap. III. RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO PROTESTANT PARTIES. 



383 



of revisiting his native place — now perfectly 
free — and of establishing in it a church after 
his own heart.* 

Extensive as \Yas this progress, it did not, 
however, fulfil the views which he had ori- 
ginally cherished, and on the accomplishment 
of which all depended. The ruling party in 
the Five Cantons remained inflexible ; even 
on the field of Gappel the commanders were 
said to have promised each other, in defiance 
of the first article of the treaty of peace,t not 
to allow the spread of the new opinions, and 
even to put to death any who might attempt 
to disseminate them. It is at all events cer- 
tain, that nobody ventured to profess them in 
their dominions, though many were well in- 
clined to them. The suppression of injurious 
language was not even attempted. The people 
of Zürich and Bern were represented as a set 
of mean, traitorous, heretical pedlars, and 
their preachers, as stealers of the cup and 
murderers of souls: the mountaineers said, 
Zwingii v:as one of the gods of the Lutherans; 
the undiscriminating bigotry of their priests 
made no distinction between the opinions of 
Zwingii and those of Luther. Though the 
treaty with i^ustria was pubhshed, fresh ne- 
gotiations were continually set on foot. De- 
puties from Lucern and Zug were present at 
the diet of Augsburg. On their journey thither 
they were most honourably received by the 
Catholics, and were lodged in the town near 
the emperor, by his especial desire ; they 
were observed to give him some written 
papers. They also experienced support from 
their old allies, JMarx Sittich, Eck of Reischach, 
and Hans Jacob of Landau : and they discussed 
vast plans, such as an attack on Strasburg; the 
destruction of the Confederates who might 
come to its aid; and a simultaneous invasion 
of the reformed part of Switzerland, from Sa- 
voy, the Rhineland and the Alpine country.:|: 
These projects found the more easy credence, 
since tiie nofcility of Savoy was actually pre- 
paring for a descent on Geneva ; and, at the 
same time, the castellan of jMusso, with his 
kinsmen and allies of Ems, fell upon the Ori- 
sons. The Five Cantons took good care to 
aflbrd no assistance to the threatened dis- 
tricts; indeed the people of Wallis plainly de- 
clared that, for the sake of the faith, this ought 
not to be done. Zürich and Bern naturally 
combined all these circumstances; and, in- 
deed, the same was done on the other side ;§ 
— for example. King Ferdinand feared that if 
the City Cantons were masters of the Grisons, 
they would attack the Five Cantons, and when 
once they had subdued them, would turn their 
arms against the hereditary dominions and the 



* ßiillinger, ii. 271, 344. 

t Land friede.— Vea.ce of the country, i. e. domestic or 
internal peace. We want a correlative word denoting 
the termination of what we call civil war. — Transl. 

1 Christian Friedhald of St. Gall, Augsburg, 16th July, 
in Escher und Hottiugers Schweizeriscliem Archiv, i. p. 
433. 

§ From a letter from Bern to Zürich, 16th October, 1530. 
Hottinger, ii. 326. The game was begun too soon : a 
Savoyard^ let out the secret that this was the plan of the 
ciergy. See Landgrave Philip's Instructions in Eschar's 
Archives, ii. p. 304. 



empire. It was mainly on this ground that 
he requested the emperor to afford succour, 
if necessary, to the Five Cantons. II 



CHAPTER III. 

ATTEMPTS AT A RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO 
PROTESTANT PARTIES. 

At this juncture we find the Confederation 
in circumstances very analogous to those of 
the empire. 

In the Swiss diet, as well as in that of the 
empire, an increasing minority, sustained by 
pubhc opinion, stood opposed to an orthodox 
majority. 

The chief difference consisted in this: — 
that the emperor and the empire possessed a 
spiritual, as well as a temporal 'authority ; 
while the Swiss diet, w^hich could not appeal 
for support to the emperor (to whom, as such, 
it had no legal relation), was wholly without 
the former. On the other hand, however, the 
Swiss minority had not, like the German, 
general decrees of former diets in its favour. 
The conflict was, in Switzerland, more one of 
fact; in Germany, of law. 

Both majorities looked to the house of x\us- 
tria as their main prop. It appeared, there- 
fore, the interest of the minorities to use the 
most earnest endeavours to heal the breach 
that had so long existed between them. 

But the misfortune was. that Zwingii had 
expressed himself, in the year 1530, in a man- 
ner rather calculated to excite resentment and 
increase division, than to bring about any sort 
of reconciliation. Whether he was irritated 
by the unfavourable reports which Vv-ere spread 
by the Lutherans concerning the conference 
of Marburg; — or whether he was influenced 
by Carlstadt, who had just then come to visit 
him, and soon after obtained a post in Swit- 
zerland, it is impossible to determine :^-it is 
enough to say, that hardly was the Augsburg 
Confession in his hands, when he sent the 
emperor, though not at all called upon to do 
so, a statement of his own belief, in which he 
not only attacked the Catholic church with 
greater violence than jMelanchthon had done 
(for example, he utterly rejected the institu- 
tion of bishops), but also retracted concessions 
he had already made, such as that on original 
sin : indeed he almost expressly reproached 
Luther with sighing to return to the flesh-pots 
of Egypt, and gave the coarsest interpretation 
to his words. IT 

It was therefore no wonder that the Lu- 



ll Extracts from Ferdinand's letter to Charles in Bu- 
choltz, V. 2,53. 

TTAdCarolura Rnmanum Imperatorem fidei Huldrychi 
Zwinglii ratio. Quod Christi corpus per essentiam et 
realiter, h. e. corpus ipsuni naturale, in cubIo aut adsit aut 
ore dentibusque manduceter, queniadmodum Papistje el 
quidani qui ad oUas Eiivptiacas respectant perliibent, id 
vero neque tantum negamus, sed .... Mitratum genus 
atque pedatum (says he, further on) credimus vödov. 



nm 



MARTIN BUTZER. 



Book VI. 



therans expressed an increased aversion to 
the followers of Zwingli. 

The necessity for peace was, however, so 
urgent, that at this naoment the desire to 
effect a reconciliation arose in another place. 

The Oberland States, especially Strasburg, 
belonged, in fact, to both parties. 

On the one hand, they shared in the pecu- 
liar circumstances of the German cities, and 
in the desire which prevailed with singular 
strength among them to render the clergy 
subject to the civil law, and to put an end to 
the influence of the great religious bodies on 
the presentation to benefices ; — an influence 
which had been as great in Strasburg as any- 
where. In all the measures they had adopted, 
they had constantly referred to the recesses 
of the imperial diets. In consequence of the 
recess of 1523, the council of Strasburg had is- 
sued an admonition to the preachers, '^hence- 
forward to preach undaunted the Holy Scrip- 
ture, pure and unmixed with men's fables ; 
for a worshipful council would support them 
in the same."* From the diet of 1526, the 
Strasburgers further deduced their right to 
make alterations in the ceremonies of the 
church; especially, to abolish the mass; and 
from this they did not suffer themselves to be 
deterred by the admonitions of King Ferdi- 
nand, or the Council of Regency.! They were 
consequently among the first who were im- 
peached before the Imperial Chamber. In all 
these respects, they had now to adopt the 
same means for their defence as the other 
German cities. 

On the other hand, however, the dogmatic 
opinions of Zwingli vv'ere very popular in Stras- 
burg, and gradually became completely j^redo- 
minant; statues and altars were removed; the 
interior walls of the churches, ornamented 
with paintings, w^ere washed over with stone 
colour; the preachers proclaimed that no 
graven image must be tolerated by the godly; 
no instrumental music was permitted; even 
the organs were all silenced. I Strasburg had 
likewise the same political interests as the 
Swiss cantons, in so far as both were menaced 
by the Austrian power in Alsatia. In January, 
1530, it joined the union of the Swiss cities ; 
they promised each other mutual aid. and, in 
particular, Strasburg engaged to furnish the 
Swiss with gunpowder. 

Such being the religious and political state 
and interests of Strasburg, it may be imagined 
that nowhere was the desire for the reconcilia- 
tion of the contending parties more earnest. 

And already had a man appeared who de- 
voted his whole life to bring about this recon- 
ciliation, as to matters of doctrine. 

This man was Martin Butzer. After the fall 
of Sickingen, in whose service he was, he had 
been driven by persecution from place to place, 
with a pregnant wife (he was one of the first 

* Rörich, i. 175, 455. In the first chapter of the Tetra- 
politana, the motive assigned forthis change is, that the 
great diet of J523 commanded that the sermons be taken 
out of the Holy Scripture, and the authority cited. 

t Statement of the deputies of the council of regency. 
Jung, Actenstiicke, p. 66, 

X Röhrich Ref. v. Strasburg, ii. p. 8. 



evangelical preachers who had married), and 
in the greatest poverty, and had at length 
sought refuge in Strasburg, where he found 
not only an asylum, but a field for his highest 
and most strenuous exertions. It is reported 
of him, that, in his youth, when carrying on 
scholastic disputations, he had invented a 
method for severing the essential and neces- 
sary from the accessory and accidental. § By 
comparing the subject with each of the two 
contradictory predications, he discovered a ii 
third term which reconciled them. Butzer 
has the reputatron of a pliancy not always to 
be justified. He is generally thought to have 
yielded too much to circumstances. It is un- 
deniable that his attempts at mediation were 
prompted by the pressing necessity for peace 
without, no less than by his own reflections; 
but they were, as far as his convictions were 
concerned, most sincere. He possessed an 
acute and subtle apprehension of the ideas of 
others, and a remarkable talent for developing 
them; — for what may be called 'secondary ' 
production. 

At first, Butzer had seen in Luther's inter- 
pretation of the Lord's Supper, merely a new 
attempt to turn Christ into bread, as he calls it 
[cine neue Verhrotung Christi) ]\\ but on a more 
profound study, especially of the greater con- 
fession of the Lord's Supper, it became clear 
to him that this was not the case : in a treatise 
he wrote, as early as the year 1528,*!! he re- 
marks, that Luther's real meaning was totally 
different from that generally imputed to him. 
In this opinion he was confirmed at the con- 
ference of Marburg. 

But he was not more disposed to accede to 
the notion generally entertained by the Lu- 
therans, that the Oberländers regarded the 
Lord's Supper as merely bread and wine. We - 
have observed that, at the diet of Augsburg, 
the four cities found themselves compelled, as 
they were not allowed to subscribe the Saxon 
confession, to deliver in a confession of their 
own. Butzer, who had the principal share in 
drawing it up. made choice of such expres- 
sions as might preclude the possibility of this 
reproach fo^- the future. In, the 18lh article 
of the "Confession of the four Free and Im- 
perial Cities, Strasburg, Constance, Memmin- 
gen, and Lindau,"— the so-called Tetrapoli- 
tana — it is said, "The Lord gives, in the Sa- 
crament, his real body and real blood, really to 
eat and to drink, for the nutriment of souls to 
eternal life."** It is evident that the word 
"real" is designedly repeated, but without 



§ Adami Vitse Theologorum, 102. 

II Frairment of a letter from Butzer to the brethren in 
Coire, Kohrich, ii. 135. The Irttor to Blaurer (ibid. p. 275) 
is likewise very instructive. Dum ipsi (Lulherani) veram 

prresentiam tueri voluerunt iis verbis eam affir- 

inarunt, quaj si ad vim exigös, localem statuunt. Contra 
nostri, dum localem voluerunt negare, sic locuti sunt, ut 
visi sint Christum cosna prorsus excludere. 

IT Vergleichnng Doctor Luthers und seines Gegentheyls 
— Dialogus, ]32d.— (Comparison of Dr. Luther and his ad- 
versaries.) 

** First printed in 1531, with an apology of Butzer, in 
which Hospinian, a zealous Zvvinglian, finds the " vera et 
orthodoxa sententia de coena domini." Historia sacra- 
mentaria, ii. 221. 



Chap. III. ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE THE TWO PROTESTANT PARTIES. 



335 



prejudice to the spiritual import of the par- 
taking. 

For Butzer's scheme of reconcihation rested 
on the assumption that Luther did not, any- 
more than his antagonists, mean that the body 
was locally contained iu the bread : but only 
that there existed a sacramental unity of the 
body and blood of Christ with the bread and 
the wine ; and that, on the other hand, the 
spiritual nature of the partaking did not ex- 
clude the real presence of the body of Christ. 
In so far as Luther ascribed a spiritual essence 
to the body of Christ, Butzer sided with him. 
He admitted that the body might unquestiona- 
bly have another than a local presence ; the 
bread and wine did not cease to be symbols, 
but they were symbols of the present, not of 
the absent body ; of the bodily presence, — that 
is to say, the real presence.* 

The question now was, whether Butzer 
would succeed in rendering this explanation 
acceptable to both parties. 

He first submitted it to Melanchthon at 
Augsburg; after which he hastened to Co- 
burg, where he showed Luther those passages 
of his writings which treated the most plainly 
of the sacramental spiritual partaking; he re- 
ported that he had received from both assur- 
ances which led him to hope the best. 

Luther, however, was not disposed to make 
the task of mediation a light one. To guard 
against mistake, he proposed two questions 
which left no room for ambiguity : the one, 
w^hether the body was really in the symbols; 
the other, whether it was really received by 
sinners. It is remarkable that the latter and 
more difficult of these questions had already 
been raised in the 12th century. Otto of Frei- 
singen alludes to it, but he thinks it better to 
evade it, than to command that it be answered 
in the affirmative."!" To Luther this affirma- 
tive did not appear to be attended with any 
such great difficulty, since it must at all events 
be admitted that God's word v.-as heard by 
sinners^ — that God's sun shone even upon the 
blind. And in fact, Butzer declared himself 
in a satisfactory manner on both points. He 
acknowleciged that Christ was really present 
in the sacrament ; even in the bread and to the 
mouth ; and that, as all the promises of Christ 
must be true, he did not doubt that the un- 
godly, as well as the pious, partook of the 
body and blood of Christ. For himself, he 
accepted both articles. With regard, however, 
to his "Co-servants of the Word," he re- 
marked, that they were convinced of the first, 
but were not free from doubt as to the second. I 

* Melanchthon de Buceri sententia. Corp. Ref. ii. 316. 
See Litei'fB Buceri ad Pontanum 4th Aug. 3530, in Coles- 
tin, ii. 302. Letter of Butzer's to Duke Ernest of Lüne- 
burg in Hess's " Leben CEkolanipads," p. 317. 

t Chronicorum liber, viii., Prologus: utrum mali vera- 
citer sacramentis communicent, an exterius tantum ea 
accipiant.. 

t We have not, indeed, Butzer's letter itself; but the 
expressions of Luther, to whom it was addressed, leave 
JIG doubt as to its contents. (To Wencelaus Link, in De 
Wette, iv, 327.) Likewise to Menius: Bucerus etfecit 
tantum, ut concedant omnes,vere adesse et porrigi corpus 
Domini, etiam corporali prEesentia ; casteri tantum fideli 
aniraie ac piee ; Bucerus vero consentit et impiorum manu 
49 2h 



Luther had previously consented not to press 
the second at present, if the first were but 
agreed on : th*is he now repeated ; by the ad- 
mission that the sacrament was in the sym- 
bols, he invested it with its proper quality; 
the question, what sinners received, he agreed 
to postpone. 

This was an epoch in which ecclesiastical, 
nay, even dogmatical questions, were inter- 
woven in the closest manner with political. 

In consequence of the first advances made 
by Batzer, an invitation had been sent to the 
delegates of the Oberland cities to take part in 
the deliberations at Schmalkalden, in Dec, 
1530. But after an explanation hke that above, 
they were, without further scruple, formally 
received into the union at the second meeting.^ 
John Frederick, who filled the place of his 
father, made it his first business to speak with 
the deputies of the four cities; he exhorted 
them openly to preach the doctrine thus agreed 
on, and to cause it to be made known to all 
the world. They assured him that, as Butzer 
did not treat for himself alone, but with the 
authority of his masters, there could be no 
doubt on the subject. II 'Strasburg, Lindau, 
Constance and Memmingen had been joined 
not only by Biberach. Ysni and Reutlingen, 
but even by Ulm. This powerful city had 
protested against the recess of Spires ; and, in 
spite of all the emperor's admonitions, had 
refused to subscribe the recess of Augsburg ; 
— measures of so decisive a nature as clearly 
to show how strong the reforming spirit must 
already be. But the opposite party in the 
city long retained considerable strength, and 
num.erous violent re-actions took place. At 
length the citizens gave the council full 
powers to restore order. In a very short time 
an evangelical confession appeared, agreeing 
with the Tetrapolitana on the article of the 
Lord's Supper. The cities above-mentioned all 
signed the treaty of mutual defence at Schmal- 
kalden. 

Butzer's efforts having thus been successful 
with regard to Saxony, he proceeded to incul- 
cate his views in Switzerland. 

Of the two great Swiss reformers, he gained 
over one without difficulty. The peaceful 
Qj^kolampadius thought that Butzer was as 
dihgent a promoter of truth as of charity, and 



porrigi et ore sumi. In Plank, iii. 340, these letters are 
obviously overlooked. 

§ Instruction uf den angesetzten Tag gegen Schmal- 
kalden, Torgau, 25th March. "Uns ist itso wieder ein 
Schreiben von Wittenberg zukommen, so der Butzer an 
Dr. Martin und Phil. Mel. gethan, daraus die zween, wie 
uns angezeigt ist worden, nit anders zu vernehmen wissen, 
denn das der hintersteiligen Punkt halber auch vollend 
verglichen." (W. A.) — "Another letter from Wittenberg 
has now come to us, which Butzer had addressed to Dr. 
Martin and Philip Melanchthon, from which, as it is 
shown to us, those twain can understand no other.wise 
than that the article concerning the doubtful point had 
been fully settled." 

II Account of the transactions at the diet held at Schmal- 
kalden in the week after Judica. "Haben keinen Zvvei- 
vel, sie (ihre Herrn) werden verschaffen, dass dergleichen 
gepredigt gelehrt und verkündigt werde, auch solches 
lautbar zu machen."—" Have no doubt that they (our go- 
vernors) will take care that the same shall be preached, 
taught, and proclaimed, so as to make it known." 



5S8 



ATTEMPT TO RECOXCILE THE TWO PROTESTANT PARTIES. Book VI. 



recommended his interpretation to his col- 
league, Zwingli.* 

It was impossible, however, that Zwingii 
should share his sentiments. 

In the first place, he had far too frequently 
and too decidedly accused Luther of a» coarse 
and material view of the subject, lightly to 
abandon the charge. It was also not to be 
denied that, although Butzer adhered to the 
idea of the spiritual partaking, he approached 
nearer to Luther's exposition of the mystery 
than Zwingii could possibly approve. He was 
too conscious that his view of the subject was 
to be traced to a totally different origin. He 
did not directly reject Butzer's formula, but 
the threefold repetition of the word '■'•reaV 
was very offensive to him ; he thought that 
people would understand this in the sense of 
natural. He had no objection to Butzer's pub- 
lication of a letter v>-hich he had addressed to 
the Swiss, on the identity of the two doctrines ] 
but he reserved to himself the right of giving 
a commentary upon it, expressive of his own 
peculiar opinion. He consented indeed to 
adopt the formula, that the body of Christ was 
present in the sacrament ; but not without the 
addition of the words. '•' only to the believing 
soul;" he utterly refused to assent to the 
proposition, that the body of Christ was pre- 
sented to the mouth. t The whole force of his 
original conception vras aroused within him, 
and he could not be induced to advance one 
step further on the path of conciliation. 

This, however, did not prevent Basel, under 
the guidance of GEkoIampadius, from accept- 
ing the mediation. There was already a re- 
pon in Switzerland of a peculiar doctrine 
taught by GEkoIampadius, which was said to 
have a considerable number of adherents. :J: 

In short, the rumours of a closer union be- 
tween the two parties of reformers were ge- 
neral, earnest, and uninterrupted. In a cer- 
tain sense this had already taken place : Stras- 
burg, and, since July 1530, Landgrave Philip 
having joined the union of the Swiss cities, at 
the same time that they were members of the 
Schmalkaldic league. The following fact ap- 
pears tome extremely striking : — Bullinger's 
History contains a copy of a treaty of alliance 
which Zürich laid before Basel and Bern, at a 
congress held in February 1531, with the remark, 
that it was already accepted by some Germans. 
On nearer inspection I find that, word by word, 
from beginning to end, it is merely and pre- 

* Utrinsqiie (veritatis et caritatis) Bucerus mea sen- 
tentia observantissimiis e?t. Proinde confido non iiipra- 
tum tibi fore quicquid ille in medium attiilit. 19th Nov. 
1530, in Hottinger, ii. Sau. 

t Letter in Hess, CEkolampadius, p. 341. 

X From the otherwise very empt}»^ and uninstructive 
essay of Faber, de admirabili cathoiicis .... data vic- 
toria, we see this (cap. vi. 0pp. iii. 145). In a letter of 
Landgrave Philip, dated the Friday after Palm Sunday, 
(W.A.) CEkolampadius is regarded as completely agree- 
ing with that party. "Since CEkolampadius and the 
others are of one mind with us in the matter of the sacra- 
ment, and it is to be hoped that the otliers also will come 
to us" .... 



cisely the formula of the Schmalkaldic treaty. 
How remarkable, that Zurich should (at least, 
as it appears from this) have earnestly pro- 
posed to its most intimate allies to join the 
Schmalkaldic league ! 

There was no point of time at which the 
Swiss Confederation w^as so near to an internal 
reconstitution, in consequence of the progress 
of church reform, and likewise to a re-union 
with Germany, as the one we are now, con- 
templating. The two factions into which it 
was divided were powerfully attracted by the 
corresponding elements of the German mother 
country. Zwingii said, the matter must be 
settled in Switzerland, before the emperor 
would have his hands free in Germany. Fer- 
dinand feared a general union of all the Pro- 
testants. In the unusually energetic resist- 
ance which he encountered on all hands, he 
thought he detected traces of the confidence 
which such a coalition was calculated to in- 
spire. § 

But religious differences once more formed 
an insuperable obstacle to their union. 

At the meeting at Frankfurt on the i\Iain, 
in June, 1531, the matter was agitated anew. 

Bern and Zürich had again declared that 
they would not accept Butzer's formula, not 
because it appeared to them unchristian, but 
because it was obscure, and might easily give 
occasion to dangerous misconceptions.il 

On the other hand, the Elector of Saxony 
had instructed his envoys, in case the Con- 
federation should not subscribe a confession 
in harmony w^th that of Augsburg, to break 
off all negotiations with them, and to refuse 
even to be the bearers of any thing they 
might desire to send him. 

This again necessarily had an influence on 
the internal transactions of the Schmalkaldic 
league. 

A project of a military organisation was sub- 
mitted in Frankfurt, which the OberJanders 
thought very ably conceived and expedient ; 
but they declined to subscribe it, because it did 
not include the confederate cantons. They 
declared that the enemies by whom they 
were surrounded were too strong j allies so 
remote would not be able to afford them ade- 
quate assistance. 

Without doubt they wished to wait to see 
how things would turn out in Switzerland. 

For it was evident that in that country every 
thing would be referred to the decision of 
arms, and that this decision would re-act in 
various ways on Upper Germany. 



§ Es cierto que se haran todos unos y peoi;es que iiunca 
por los fuercas y ventaja que de dia en dia van cobrando 
Jos que sigu'en estas sectas. Prina, •27th March, 1531. 

i, Correspondence between Bern,, Basel, and Zürich in 
Escher and Hottiiiger's Archiv, ii. p. 290. Basel insists 
that Butzer's explanation is " also luter, das sie mit irem 
(der Gegner) natürlichen lyblichen substanzlichen oder 
wesentlichen Lyb gar keine Gemeinschaft hat," — "so 
clear, that it has nothing whatever in common with their 
(the opposite party's) natural, bodily, substantial, or ma- 
terial bodj." 



Chap. IV. 



ZWINGLI'S POLITICAL REFORMS. 



387 



CHAPTER IV. 

CATASTROPHE OF THE REFORMATION IN SWIT- 
ZERLAND. 

The attack made by Savoy on Geneva was 
repulsed in 1530: in the spring of 1531, the 
Castellan of jMusso was also driven out of the 
Grisons. As, on the one side) the cities had 
not joined the Schraalkaldic league, so, on the 
other, the Five Cantons had in fact concluded 
no alliance with Austria. The two parties 
in the Confederation stood confronted, each 
limited to its own resources, but more embit- 
tered than ever. 

The Five Cantons complained, and indeed 
not unjustly, that their rights as majority were 
no longer respected. They refused to assent 
to ordinances like those which had been issued 
in St. Gall. The first captain who, according 
to the new regulations, was to assume the 
command there (he was from Lucern), dis- 
dained to take an oath to peasants, and rode 
away. 

On the other hand, the evangelical cities 
were, also with apparent justice, incensed 
that they had not been supported in matters 
regarding their interests as members of the 
Colifederation, and affirmed that the bond 
which united them was thus broken : nor 
were they disposed longer to endure the 
"coarse, inhuman-' vituperation of which 
they had been the object. The answers of 
the' Five Cantons were, they said, in them- 
selves an insult. "* 

Zwingli's intention had been to put an end 
to the thing at once by force. 

The difference wliich existed between Lu- 
ther and Zwingli was at least as great on po- 
litical, as on religious points. Luther's policy, 
if it deserves the name, was entirely depend- 
ent on his religious views, and was limited to 
immediate defence. Zwingli, on the con- 
trary, pursued, from the very beginning, ends 
of a positively political nature ; a complete 
change in the form of the Confederation vras 
the central point of all his ideas, and he had 
laid the most extensive plans for its accom- 
plishment. He is, without doubt, in both re- 
spects, the greatest reformer that Switzerland 
has produced. 

It had often been complained of as unfair, 
that the forest cantons, which contributed so 
much less in men and money to the wars of 
the Confederation than the populous city can- 
tons, yet enjoyed an equal share of the advan- 
tages of victory and dominion. This was the 
true cause of the dissensions which foUow^ed 
the Burgundian wars. Zwingli found that 
this state of things had of late become more 
intolerable. Zug having joined the four forest 
cantons, a majority had been formed which 
decided all the business of the diets, and 
against which there existed no lawful remedy. 
Zwingli was of opinion that this advantage, 



* Antwurtten und Meinungen der Radtsbotten der 
christlichen Stetten. — Answers and opinions of the envoj-s 
of the councils of the Christian cities. 24th April, 1531. 
Bullinger, ii. 362. 



which they so recklessly abused, was highly 
unjust. The guidance of the Confederation 
much more properly belonged to the two 
I cities of Zurich and Bern, which had always 
1 been its most powerful members, and done 
; the most for its interests. It would be neces- 
sary to send back the act of Confederation to 
the Five Cantons, and make a new one, either 
' entirely excluding them from the common 
bailiwicks (at least on this side of the Alps), 
I or making a fresh division ; or at all events 
: putting an end to their influence as a ma- 

We see that Zwingli wanted to place the 
■. constitution on a totally different basis, and to 
' estabhsh its unity on the preponderance of ac- 
; tual force. The same principles would then 
: have prevailed through the whole territor}-, 
both in religion and politics. 

Plans of this- sort can never be executed 

without an energetic co-operation of forces at 

the favourable moment. The first question 

was, whether JMaster Ulrich Zwingli, powerful 

; and respected as he was, were sufficiently so 

I to unite his own party in an undertaking of 

' this kind. 

{ But even in Zürich, Zwingli had still to con- 
i tend with hostile opinions and obstinate pri- 
I vate interests. In the Grand Council, which 
' managed the affairs of the church, there were 
; still, towards the end of the year 1528, men 
i who retained their preference for the old 
1 usages. Zwingli demanded from the pulpit 
[ the purification of the council from the' un- 
I godly, who could not_ endure the word of God. 
Accordingly. Zwingli's partisans proceeded to 
interrogate the members of the guilds, one 
after another. v\-hether they would repair to 
■ the Lord's table like other Christians; and ex- 
cluded those who refused, from the counciLj 
: But this did not put an end to all the diffi- 
culties. Among th© noble families there were 
many who had reluctantly given up the pen- 
, sions, and had not broken off all connexion 
; with the leaders' of the Five Cantons. If 
Zwingli could not break this connexion, he 
was determined at least to render it innocuous. 
The influence of the noble families in Zürich 
: rested upon this, — that whereas only three 
/members of each of the other guilds sat in the 
Lesser, and twelve in the Grand Council, the 
i noble guild — called the Constafel — had the 
' privilege of sending six to the former, and 
: eighteen to the latter. § Zwingli had suffi- 
cient influence to break down this inequality. 
He carried the point of putting the Constafel 
on the same footing as the other guilds. 

t Was Zürich und Bern Not zu betrachten sey in dem 
fiinfortisen Handel.— What is to be regarded as the danger 
of Zürich and Bern in the quarrel with the Five Cantons. 
Hotiinger, ii. 467. 

i Bernhard Weiss, p. 91, fortunately enters more into 
detail than Bullinger. The difficulties of the situation 
are moreover apparent from the following passage from 
Zwingli's own writings: — An non optimi quique ac in- 
nocerrtissimi, cum senatores tum pleheji, sic me colunt ac 
tiientur. ut nisi id constantissime facerent, minor esset 
publica tranquillitas. Responsio ad amici hand vulgaris 
epistolam. Gualth. ii. 323. 

§ See Bluntschli Staats- und Eechtsgeschichte von Zu- 
rich, i. 359.— Unfortunately, this book contains no further 
account of the above-mentioned relations. 



388 



DEMANDS OF THE CITY CANTONS. 



Book VI. 



Nothing less than measures of such severity 
m Zurich itself, could have brought about that 
politico-religious unity in the public authority 
which was necessary to Zvvingli's plans. But 
it was clear that secret; if not open counter- 
action was inevitable. In a very short time 
he was made to feel this. 

Far greater difficulties were opposed to him 
by Bern. There, where the attachment to the 
pensions was much more deeply rooted ; where 
a certain jealousy of Zürich always showed it- 
self; the separation which had hitherto existed 
between the several cantons found stubborn^ 
if not ardent defenders. 

I know not whether Zv»'ingli's plan, which 
seemed so advantageous to the Bernese, was 
ever even submitted to them. I find no trace 
of it in the transactions of their diets. 

The demands of the city cantons were con- 
fined to the three following : first, that blas- 
phemers should be punished; secondly, that 
the poor people who had been driven from 
house and home for conscience" sake, should 
be received again: lastly, that the religious 
doctrines of the city cantons should be tole- 
rated in the territories of the other cantons ;* 
— demands which the nature of the case ren- 
dered inevitable. For what could be the Con- 
federation in which the one member would 
not receive the oath of the other *? What the 
community of justice in the bailiwicks, where 
the one portion of the rulmg body persecuted 
the faith in which the other beheld its salva- 
tion '? How, above all, could the evangelical 
members of the Confederation look on, while, 
at a few miles' distance, their co-religionists 
were thrown into prison 'I These demands 
therefore were merely an assertion of the 
Christian character of the new state of things ; 
a recognition of this was all that they claimed. 

At this time, however, the rehgious creed 
Avas far' too intimately couHOcted with the civil 
power, for concessions, even of this kind, to be 
obtained, except by compulsion. In the Five 
Cantons, that power was founded on the ex- 
clusive sway of Catholicism. Had the author- 
ities consented to admit the contrary opinion, 
a hostile party would have formed itself in 
the population, under their own eyes; and, 
supported by the tendencies of the age, and 
encouraged by sympathy from without, might 
easily have became dangerous to themselves. 
They therefore at once decidedly rejected 
these demands. 

Upon this Zwingli did not hesitate to advise 
war, and to urge an immediate attack while 
the advantage was still in their hands: he so 
far prevailed that Zürich, where no one now 
^''entnred openly to oppose him, declared itself 
for that course. 

In Bern, however, his authoiity \v?.s not so 
great. That city also regarded coercive mea- 
sures as inevitable, but did not choose imme- 
diately to come to extremities. It succeeded 
in prevailing on its allies for the moment to 

* All the iiPijotiations are to be found in Biillinger's 
Chronicle, from which nearly all authors, even the earlier 
ones, have drawn most of their information, and which 
is now printed. The want of the continuation of Zwingli's 
correspondence is severely felt. 



resort to no act of open aggression against the 
Five Cantons, but merely to withhold supphes. 

This, however, was little likely to content 
Zwingli. He, clearly saw that delay would 
ruin every thing. He felt that his adversaries 
at home were once more bestirring themselves, 
arid complained from the pulpit of the support 
that Zürich itself afi'orded to the enemy. At 
one moment he was seriously determined to 
resign his post. As he was prevented, though 
with difficulty, from putting this design in exe- 
cution, he made another attempt to convince 
the Bernese of the necessity of adopting an- 
other line of conduct. We find him holding 
a secret meeting, by night, in the house of the 
preacher at Bremgarten, with certain delegates 
from Bern, while the councillors of Bremgar- 
ten kept watch without. But he seems not to 
have found much encouragement here. Before 
day dawned, Bullinger conducted his master 
to the ^road, through a gate near the shooting- 
house. Zwingli was deeply depressed. He 
wept as he took leave of Bullinger. " God 
keep thee, Henry," said he, ''and only re- 
main thou faithful to the Lord Christ and his 
church. '"t In August a comet had appeared ; 
Abbot George Müller of Wettingen one day 
asked Zwingli in the churchyard of the great 
minster, what that might signify. " My 
George," an^vered Zwingli, "it will cost me 
and many an honest man dear: the church 
will be hi jeopard}^, but you will not be de- 
serted by Christ.'"^ 

Things fell out as Zwingli had foreseen, — 
indeed, as it was inevitable they should. Bern 
probably hoped that the common people in 
the Five Cantons would not be able to hold 
out against the scarcity, and would rise against 
their governors; but the very contrary came 
to pass. The people were -exasperated be- 
cause, under the pretence of zeal for the Chris- 
tian religion, their adversaries withheld the 
fruits of the earth, which God caused to grovv^ 
freely for all.§ The governing class turned 
this disposition of the public mind to the ad- 
vantage of their own authority. The Zürich- 
ers had put forth a manifesto for their justifi- 
cation, and had sent it to Lucern; the council 
of Lucern treated all those who had received 
and communicated it to others as traitors, and 



t Bullinger's P^Tarrative, iii. 49. ' 

I I may be permitted here to quote the charming narra- 
tive of a contemporary, which has been printed in the 
Schw. Mus. ii. 535. He tells how, when he was at St. 
Gall in those days, he one night climbed up the Bernegh 
v/ith Zwinirli's friend Vadianus, Dr. Joachim von Watt,' 
and some others ;— how, when they had climbed up to the 
very top, the doctor sea ted himself in the midst of them upon 
the ^'round in the dew, and explained to them the names 
of the constellations, the opposite motions of the Zodiac 
and the rest of the firmament, and the wonders of the 
Creator, whom he desired soon to behold. Hereupon lie 
cast his eyes upon the country, and spoke of the first 
spttlement'by the Romans, of the founding and fortunes 
of the town, how many times it had been burnt, whence 
each gate thereof had" its name, how the neighbouring 
forest' had been cleared, and who had established the 
flourishing trade of linen weaving : this thought led him 
back again to the comet, which none doubted to portend 
the wrath of God. Theophrastus von Hohenheim, then 
dwelling at St. Gall, and others, interpreted it to foreshow 
not only bloodshed and the overthrow of the government, 
but especially the destruction of learned men. 

§ Hallwylin Kirchhofer's Malier, 107. 



Chap. IV. 



BATTLE OF CAPPEL. 



389 



sentenced them to the rack. And, indeed, the 
feeliftg of continual offence \Ya3 of itself suf- 
ficient to render the temper of the two parties 
more hostile from day to day. Thus all nego- 
tiations were abortive. The Five Cantons per- 
sisted in demanding of the cities to open the 
common stores to them, according to the terms 
of the Confederation, or to grant them their 
rightful share. The cities refused to enter 
into the question of right, as, by the terms of 
the public peace, the withholding of the stores 
was expressly appointed as the punishment for 
continued insults and offences. This punish- 
ment they now intended to inflict. The me- 
diators, among whom we find Strasburg depu- 
ties, proposed that the punishment of the 
insults complained of should be left to them. 
To this the cities consented, but the country 
cantons were not to be induced to agree to it. 

No remedy could be devised; war was in- 
evitable ] war, under totally different auspices 
from what Zwingli had desired. 

In September die Five Cantons held a diet 
at Lucern. in order to consult on the means of 
carrying on the war. At first, Uri, Schwytz, 
and Unterwalden, oh dem Wald, were against 
an immediate attack ; indeed Uri proposed to 
wait for the resolutions of the approaching 
diet of the empire. But Unterwalden, nied 
dem Wald, insisted on the necessity of declar- 
ing war without delay, and at length all came 
round to this opinion; "for they could not 
perish of hunger, they must fetch means of 
subsistence, and for this they must risk body 
and soul."* 

The friends of the Five Cantons regarded 
their decision with some alarm. King Ferdi- 
nand feared they would succumb, and that the 
confusion v^-ould then become too violent and 
general to be repressed. 

They were undoubtedly very inferior in num- 
bers, but they were united; their leaders were 
bound together in the closest manner by com- 
munity of interest and of danger, and were 
supported by the popular exasperation. They 
had likewise the advantage, that while no ac- 
tive steps had as yet been taken in the cities, 
they could rush down from their mountain 
fortresses, and make a sudden attack on the 
most vulnerable points. For some days no- 
thing was heard of them ; the passes were 
vigilantly guarded, and no suspicious person 
Avas allowed to go out or in. There were, in 
the high country, friends of the Zürichers, 
who had promised to give them intelligence 
if any thing was in preparation ; but they were 
so strictly watched as to render this impossi- 
ble. A few days onl}' were necessary to make 
all ready for an outbreak. Suddenly, on the 
9th of October, a company from Lucern crossed 
the borders, and plundered the free bailiwicks. 
On the 10th. a boat laden with soldiers was 
seen crossing the lake of Zug; the sound of 
horns announced their arrival in Zug, and the 
pipes of the men of Uri was heard on the bor- 
der, xlt the above-mentioned meeting at Lu- 
cern, it was immediately determined to com- 

* Bullinger, iii. 73. The first attack upon Bern ema- 
nated rather from Obwalden. 

2h* 



bine forces at Zug; the council of war had 
only to fix the day, and then to set things in 
order for the attack. t 

Had the cities been prepared for this assault, 
they would easily have repulsed it ; Zürich had 
only to guard the pass over the Albis, and she 
would have time to make the most efficient 
preparations for her defence. But the Zürich- 
ers were up to this moment continually occu- 
pied- with the coercive measures they had 
adopted; they had just been devising means 
to prevent the approach of troops from Alsatia 
on either side the Reuss. Whilst busied about 
means of coercion, .they found themselves 
suddenly attacked. Their confusion was the 
greater, since the attack coming from different 
quarters, left them in doubt against what point 
it was more especially directed. 

On the morning of the 11th of October, 
1531, the militia of the Five Cantons took the 
oath, and marched, eight thousand men strong, 
under their five banners, to invade the terri- 
tory of their chief foe, the Zürichers. 

In front of them, near Cappel, a troop of 
about twelve hundred Zürichers had posted 
themselves. 

The great banner had indeed been unfurled 
the same morning in the city of Zürich, and 
the militia belonging to it began to assemble ; 
but all this was done with disorder and precipi- 
tation. At the sam.e hour a part of the troops 
marched towards the free bailiwicks. And 
now, at the decisive moment^ it became evi- 
dent that all were not of the ^ame mind. A 
secret counteraction had paralysed every mea- 
sure.? jMessage after message^ arrived, that 
the cogribined forces of the ene^my threatened 
the troop at Cappel, and would utterly destroy 
it, if assistance were not immediately sent; 
so that the militia attached to the banner, 
weak as it was — there were only seven hun- 
dred men — was compelled to take the field 
without further delay. 

The only means of salvation would have 
been, to surrender Cappel and withdraw the 
troop. 

The proposal was indeed made in their 
ranks to retire before the superior force. But 
it appeared to these brave men an act of 
cowardice to retreat a step, even when their 
inferiority was so manifest. Rudy Gallmami 
stamped his foot on the ground when the pro- 
posal was made, and exclaimed, "God giant 
that^I may not live to see the day when I shall 
yield one foot of earth to these people. Let 
this rather be my grave." 

Already had the superior enemy advanced 
and the firing begun, as the banner reached 
the summit of the Albis. The company wa^-, 
as we have said, extremely weak. William 
Toning, captain of sharp-shooters, looked 
around, and gave it as his opinion that it 

t Kurze Beschreibung der fünf katholischen Orte Kriegs 
wider ihre Eidgenossen der fünf zwinglischen Orte (Short 
description of the war of the Five Catholic Cantons 
against their confederates of the Five Zwinglian Cantons), 
which, since Haller's time, has been attributed to Gil?? 
Tschudi, but which appears in MS. under the name of 
Cysat and others. Balthasar's Helvetia, ii. p. 186. 

X Examination of Eudolf Lavater. Escher, ii. 311. 



390 



DEATH OF ZWINGLL 



Book VI. 



■would be better to halt a while, and to wait 
for reinforcement from the people, who were 
now flocking to join them, before they marched 
further. But Master Ulrich Zwingie, who had 
also marched out with the banner, and, on this 
occasion, as preacher, in virtue of the ofhce 
which he had not been permitted to resign, 
replied, that it would ill become them to look 
down idly from the mountain on the brave 
people fighting below. "I will to them in 
God's name," added he, -'and die with them, 
or help to save them." — ^-Wait, Toning, till 
thou be'st fresh again," said the standard- 
bearer. '^I am as fresh as you," answered 
Toning, "and will be with you." 

The company of the Five Cantons had 
posted itself on a little height surrounded with 
wood, called the Schürenberg:* here the 
banner rushed upon them. It was, indeed, 
the force of Zürich which now stood con- 
fronted with the Five Cantons; but careless- 
ness at first, disunion and want of discipline 
afterwards, had caused it to consist of little 
iTiore than two thousand men, whereas the 
city could easily have put ten thousand men 
into the field. 

This little band was now met by the troops 
of the Five Cantons, four-fold their numbers, 
not (to say the least) less warlike, and far 
better commanded. Little remains to be said 
of a battle which was decided ere it began. 
The Zürichers had left the thicket at the foot 
of the hill unoccupied ] through this the enemy 
rushed, almost unobserved, and began the at- 
tack with the utmost confidence in his supe- 
riority. The valour of the Zürichers was of 
no avail; they were routed and overthro^vn in 
a moment, and a furious carnage began. Of 
the two thousand Zürichers, five hundred 
perished; and what was the most grievous, 
among them were the most eminent and 
zealous evangelical leaders, for they had been 
the first to take up arms. There did Ri^idy 
Gallmann find the grave he pointed to. The 
standard-bearers, Schweizer and Wilhelm To- 
ning, fell, and the banner itself was saved 
with great difiicuity : the gTiildmaster Funk, 
the brave Bernhard Weiss, to whom we are 
indebted for so many excellent reports;! the 
director Geroldseck, several preachers, and, in 
the midst of his flock, Zwingli himself. The 
enemy, drunk with victory, and already dis- 
persed over the battle-field in search of plunder, 
lound him lying under a tree, still breathing, 
'■ with his hands folded and his eyes raised to 
heaven." Is it too much to conjecture that as 
he lay there weltering in his blood, a thought 



* In tlie " Kurze Beschreibung," Schönenberg; but there 
too ii onsht rather to be Schiirenberg. " 1st ein ziemlich 
hoher Bühel, daruff vor Zyten ettliche hüser und schüren 
gestanden sind, daher nians genambt hat, wie es noch 
lieissl, zu oder ufF Schüren."— " This is a somewhat high 
hill, whereon in former times stood several houses and 
barns, whence it had the name by which it still is known, 
of the barns (Schüren)." Bulling, iii. 111. 

t According to Accolti (in Epistolis Sadoleti, vii. 273), 
of the 300 senators only se.ven remained. The truth is 
That seven members of the Lesser, and nineteen of the 
Great Council were killed in battle, besides sixty citizens 
and seven clergymen (quam plurimi sacerdotes) ! Bullin- 
get enumerates tiiem ajl. The rest were men from the 
country. Accolti, indeed, reckons the Zürichers at 20,000 
men. 



which he had lately expressed in gloomy fore- 
bodings was present to his soul ? The pros- 
pects of the Confederation, in the sense in 
which he understood and desired it, he pro- 
bably felt he must renounce forever; the pros- 
pects of the church and of the religion of the 
Gospel, he could contemplate with unshaken 
confidence. Thus was he found dying by two 
common soldiers, who exhorted him to confess 
himself to a priest, or as it already seemed too 
late for that, at least to receive the blessed 
Virgin and the saints into his heart. He made 
no answer, and only shook his head ; they did 
not know who he was; they thought him 
some obscure "stubborn heretic," and gave 
him a death-stroke. It was not till the next 
day that it was remarked that Zwingli was 
one among the many distinguished men who 
had fallen. All flocked to see him. One of 
his acquaintances from Zug declared that his 
countenance in death had the same expression 
as it used to have when inspired by the ardour 
of his mind in preaching. No sight could be 
more welcome to his enemies, the pensioners. 
They instituted a sort of trial of Zvvingli, quar- 
tered his body, burned it, and scattered the 
ashes to the winds. 

But the Five Cantons were not yet com- 
pletely victors and masters in the Confedera- 
tion. The Zürichers now determined to oc- 
cupy the pass over the Albis, and under the 
shelter thus aflbrded, they collected their 
strength. They had very shortly an army of 
twelve thousand men of their own and allied 
cantons in the field. Meanwhile Bern too 
had taken the field, and its army, together 
with those of Basel and Biel, was supposed to 
amount to about .the same number. When 
these troops united at Bremgarten, the Five 
Cantons saw clearly that they could' do no- 
thing against such masses; they therefore 
evacuated the ravaged territory, and retreated 
towards Zug, where they encamped at Bar am 
Boden. 

It now appeared as if an offensive war 
might be carried on by the cities, as Zwingli 
had always advised; and they did indeed 
march in pursuit of their enemy ; but circum- 
stances were totally altered. 

Since their victory, the Five Cantons had 
become bolder than they had ever been before ; 
on the other, hand, it ^vas remarked that the 
cities w:anted an impulse such as Zwingli 
would perhaps have given them. Zürich had 
indeed lost its best citizens : people said, "they 
had lost the rye out of the wheat."J The 
Bernese had never displayed much ardour for 
w^ar, and consequently they did not engage in 
it with the necessary energy. They neglected 
to fall on the enemy at the favourable mo- 
ment, when he w^as changing his position. 
W^hen at length they resolved to attack the 
very strong encampment in which he now 
was, from the Zug mountains on the one side 



X To those unacquainted with the habits of the German 
people, this expression requires explanation. They do 
not willingly eat wheaten bread, which they regard as 
much less nutritious than that made of rye. A j)easant 
will tell you that it is impossible to work upon wheaten 
bread, there is no strength (kraft) in it.— Tkansl. 



Chap. IV. 



ATTEMPT OF THE EMPEROR ON SWITZERLAND. 



391 



t)Lr;d the valley on the other, and for that pur- 
pose occupied the mountain, they did it with 
so little skill and prudence, that they gave the 
enemy, whom they meant to surprise, an op- 
portunity to fall upon the division posted on 
the mountain, and to cut off a great number 
of men.* Notwithstanding their'superior num- 
bers, the cities had no longer courage to make 
a strenuous attack on their brave and con- 
quering enemy. They only hoped to weary 
him out by surrounding him with a winter en- 
campment. 

How totally were the daring schemes which 
Zvvmgli had cherished, overthrown ! It is 
clear that the pohtico-religious principle of 
which he was the representative and the 
champion, was, in fact, not so strong in Zurich 
as he had flattered himself, and that it was 
still weaker in Bern. It was not suiiiciently 
powerful to pervade and to animate the exist- 
ing elements of society. At the decisive mo- 
ment, mistaken measures were adopted, the 
ground of which always was, want of that 
union and high-minded energy which alone 
-couid have insured success. 
( The fears which had been entertained by 
the Cathohc party at- the beginnifig of these 
disturbances were now changed, by such 
unexpected successes, into the mosi sanguine 
hopes. 

With undisguised joy and exultation Ferdi- 
nand sent his brother an account of the battle 
of Cappel and the death of the arch-heretic 
Zwingli. ••This." says he, '-'is the first ad- 
vantage which has been gained of late by the 
cause of the faith and of the church."' 

On the arrival of the news of the second 
successful engagement, he began to lay plans. 
He exhorted his brother to remember what 
favour God had shown to the defenders of his 
cause. \Vere the emperor not so near a,t 
hand, he himself, feeble and poor as he was, 
would hasten to assist in so sacred an enter- 
prise. But now he could not refiain from ex- 
horting him. the head of Christendom, to do 
this ] never could he have a fairer occasion 
for acquiring renown. Without Switzerland, 
the German sects would be easily subdued. 
He advised him to send succours openly or 
secretly to the Catholic cantons. He goes so 
far as to tell the emperor that this was the 
ti\ie way for him to put an end to religious 
discords, and to become master of Germany.f 

Nor was Charles V. in any degree indifferent 
to projects of- this kind. He answered that 
the excellence of his brother's advice struck 
him the more, the more he reflected upon it ; 
that the dignity with which he was invested, 
solicitude for the orthodox princes, the duty of 

* " Das was ungfar urn die swei nach Mitternacht Mor- 
gens 2:iiistag den, '2A Üctobris." " Maria die Mutter Got- 
tes war dero Nacht ihr Krie^szeichen." — "This was at 
about two hours after niidnieht on tjae morning of Tues- 
da\- the 24th October." " Mary, llie mother of God, was 
their watchword on that night." Kurzer Bericht. 

t ]st Nov. Vra. iMagestad a la qiial su])lico quiera 
mirar lo que yinporta y usar de la occasion y opportuai- 
dad del tiempo, pues es el mas a proposito que se pudo 
desear i cammo para remediar las quiebras de nuestra fe 
y ser Vra. Md. senor de Jllemanna y liazer una cosa la mas 
senualada que iu nuestros tempos se ha hecho. 



defending the Christian religion and the com- 
mon weal, and considerc^tions for the house of 
Austria, rendered it incumbent uj^on him to 
do something. 

The Five Cantons had been joined in their 
camp on the Zug mountains by some compa- 
nies of Italians. We discover from a letter 
that this took place with the knowledge of 
the emperor; he was of opinion that all future 
assistance must be given in the name of the 
pope. I 

Nor did he stop here. He immediately sent 
to ask the King of France to give his support 
to the Five Cantons, and to declare war against 
those, which had faUen off from the faith. 

But he found little cordiality in Francis, who 
had seen with great displeasure the close al- 
liance of the Five Cantons ^^■nth Austria^ and, 
with a view to luaintain a counterpoise, had 
entered into negotiations with the other can- 
tons shortly before this catastrophe. The king 
pleaded to the emperor's ambassadors all the 
sums he had had to pay in consequence of 
the engagements he had entered into at Cam- 
bray. What he had lately inherited from his 
mother, he wished to apply to the defence of 
his kingdom. The emperor, he continued 
with increasing bitterness and irritation, had 
tied his hands for every enterprise where any 
thing was to be gained ] he v;as friendly only 
where nothing was to be got but blows and 
expenses, — against the Turks and the Swiss. § 

Negotiations were likewise entered into 
\vith the Venetian ambassador in Milan. The 
Bishop of Yeroli, papal nuncio, prayed the re- 
public for permission to send two thousand 
Spaniards through the Bergamese territory 
into Switzerland. The ambassador, Giovanni 
Basadonna, did not immediately consent to 
this; he wished to see the full powers of the 
nuncio, and observed to him that the Spa- 
niards, if allowed to interfere in the intestine 
wars of the Confederation, might easily render 
themselves its masters. He induced Veroli 
to drop his request. The nuncio repaired in 
person to Switzerland, where he expressed 
the hope that it might be possible to induce 
the seceders to return to their ancient alle- 
giance to the see of Rome. II 

It is evident that, had it depended on the 
emperor and his brother, the victory of the 
Five Cantons would have been immediately 
succeeded by a general attempt to establish 
Catholicism in Switzerland. 

Meanwhile, however, the Swiss themselves 
had begun to consider of the means of putting 
an end to their dissensions. 

The army of the cities was- by no means in 
a condition to remain under arms, in the 
mountains, when the bad season set in. As 
the Five Cantons prepared to attack them 



X Bruselles, 2d Nov. 1531. Archives of Brussels. 

§ Lettre du roi ä Mr. d'Auxerre, 21 Nov. MS. Bethune, 
8477. Pour la guerre du Türe ou des Suisses^oü il n'y a 
que coups et despenses d'argent. 

II Relatio V. N. Joannis Basadone. Come el mi disse, 
andava cum proposito di rimover Lutheran! dalla loro mala 
opinione con mezzo di alcuni suoi amici e cum danari. 
Aixhives of Venice. 



392 



RESTORATION OF CATMCLICISM IN SWITZERLAND. 



Book VL 



again, Züricli, and afterwards Bern, were 
obliged to accept the peace dictated to them. 

It was exactly the reverse of the last internal 
peace. The cities were now obliged to give 
up the alliances they had concluded with 
foreign powers, and, in one form or another, 
to pay all the expenses of the war. 

They were allowed the exercise of their 
religion. They had not fallen so low that 
their enemies could dare to assail this. They 
had suffered some reverses, and their attack 
had failed, but they were not subdued. 

They were forced, however, to submit to a 
great diminution of their political and reli- 
gious influence. The Five Cantons intended 
to chastise, not only the districts which im- 
mediately belonged to them — Ilapperschwyl, 
Toggenburg, Gaster and Wesen, — but also 
those over which the cities had a joint con- 
trol with them, such as the free bailiwicks in 
Aargau, Bremgarten, and Mellingen. In the 
other common bailiwicks, those who had ac- 
cepted the new creed were to be not indeed 
commanded, but permitted, to return to the 
"ancient and true Christian faith." Expres- 
sions of this kind the cities w^ere obhged to 
endure throughout the treaty.^ 

No sooner had Bern accepted this peace, 
than the revival and re-establishment of Ca- 
tholicism began on a,ll sides. 

Immediately after the battle of Cappel, me 
Catholic minority in Glarus bestirred itself, 
revoked the succours of the canton already 
determined on, and warned the subjects of 
the same not to furnish them; they did every 
thing in their power to favour the turn things 
had taken. Very shortly a certain number 
of churches were restored to them ; and from 
that time they have exercised a far greater 
influence on the public business of the canton 
than the evangelical party, which was dis- 
heartened and enfeebled by the great losses 
sustained by their co-religionists. Schwytz, 
therefore, experienced no resistance when it 
overran Gaster and V/esen, abolished the old 
liberties, and restored the altars and images, 
and the mass. Glariis united with Schwytz, 
and'Uri undertook to reinstate the abbot of 
St. Gall. His abbey was restored to him, and 
the city compelled to pay him a large sum as 
compensation. The people who cultivated the 
lands of the religious house were once more 
regarded as its subjects, and the abbot main- 
tained that he was not bound by any stipula- 
tions in their favour in the treaty of peace; 
for that he was a free lord, and the protecting 
cantons could lay down no rule fo'-jiis govern- 
ment. These tenants gradually' all became 
Catholic again. Fortunately for Toggenburg, 
at the very last moment, when it withdrew 
from the cities, it took better securities for 
its religious freedom, which, thoua'h greatly 
abridged, was not destroyed. The abbot 
placed the government of the country in the 
hands of those who had been driven out of it 
in the recent troubles. 

* The copy of the treaty of peace in Hettinger's Ap- 
pendix to vol. ii. collated anew with the original. , 



Rapperschwyl was also reclaimed. At the 
news of the successes of their co-religionists, 
the Catholics rose, and being reinforced by- 
succours from Schwytz, were completely vic- 
torious. The leaders of the evangelical party 
were obliged \o flee, or were put to death. 
There lived in the town a very skilful gun- 
smith, one Michael Wohlgemuth, of Cologne, 
who had the courage to defend himself after 
the fashion of old times : he barricaded hij3 
house, planted his matchlocks at the windows, 
and defended himself for some time with 
equal gallantry and success, till at length he 
was regularly besieged and taken prisoner. 
He was put to death with horrible tortures. 
Of the remainder, some submitted, some were 
thrown into prison, and some exiled. On the 
19th of November, mass was performed again. 

In the Aargau, the Five Cantons used the 
rights of conquest with the utmost rigour. 
Wherever their banner appeared, the preach- 
ers retreated from the death with which they 
were threatened by the Germxan, and still 
more by the French Swiss. Bremgarten and 
Mellingen were forced e."spressly to engage to 
restore the ancient rites of the church. ' The 
aged Schultheiss Mütsohli, who had hitherto 
governed Bremgarten, lay on his death-bed 
when the newly appointed Catholic authorities 
sent to order him to quit Bremgarten. "Tell 
them that I shall not trouble them longy' he 
replied. He died soon after, and lies buried 
at Oberwyl. 

The treaty of peace did not leave Thurgau 
and the Rhine valley so much at the mercy 
of the Five Cantons; they were obliged to 
content themselves with restoring the con- 
vents, which recovered their old privileges. 

In Solothurn, on the other hand, the Ca- 
tholics were completely triumphant. Nearly 
seventy Protestant families were obliged to 
leave the city. 

This second restoration of Catholicism oc- 
curring in our history, was not so bloody as 
the first, which took place in Upper Germany 
after the peasants' war; but, like that, it was 
brought about by the casualties of war; hke 
that, it v.-as violent; and it was- far more 
lasting. 

The general relation of the two confessions, 
at that time established in the Alps, has en- 
dured down to the present time. 

Even the evangelical cantons felt the influ- 
ence of the restoration. The Constafel of 
Zürich regained their lost privileges. The 
people were obliged to acquiesce, so that Ca- 
tholicism Vvas not again in activity. The 
Great Council was forced to make such pro- 
mises to the country districts as greatly limited 
its authority. 

The war" had lasted only six weeks, but it 
had totally changed the prospects of Switzer- 
land. Bullinger's Chronicle contains at the end 
a short comparison of what the reformers had 
projected, and what they had actually accom- 
plished. They had desired the uniform intro- 
duction of the evangelical faith; the depres- 
sion of the oligarchies; the abatement of the 
majority of the Five Cantons. The result 



Chap. V. 



MAGDEBURG. 



393 



was, that the new doctrine was extirpated 
from many places where it had been preach- 
ed ; that the Papacy was reinstated in its au- 
thority; that the Five Cantons acquired such 
an ascendancy as they had never enjoyed be- 
fore, and that the ohgarchies had more power 
than ever.* ''Honour is overthrown, arbitrary 
power is established," says Bullinger. " The 
counsels of the Lord are marvellous.-' 



CHAPTER y. 

THE REFORMATION IN THE CITIES OF LOWER 
GERMANY. CONCLUSION OF THE SCHMALKAL- 
DIC LEAGUE. 

The spirit of reform had embodied itself in 
two parties of very different tendencies ; the 
one, bold and comprehensive, both as to reli- 
gious doctrines and political views; inclined 
to the £^bsolute rejection of the traditional, 
and ready for attack : the other, conservative 
(as far as it was possible) even in matters of 
doctrine; and, on the field of politics, reluc- 
tantly brought to make a resolute defence. 

The former of these had failed in its pro- 
jects; it necessarily followed that the whole 
strength of the growing reformation now at- 
tached itself to the latter. The Schmalkaldic 
league was the more formidable to its ene- 
mies, because its rivals were no longer in a 
state to compete with it. 

The cities of the Oberland had already 
made as near an approach as possible to the 
religious principle of the Schmalkaldic league : 
and. since their Swiss allies were compelled 
to dissolve the ties between them, they had 
politically no other support remaining than the 
strength of the united German States. 

Their own danger was increased by the ca- 
lamities of the Swiss. They knew the lively 
share which the court of Ferdinand had taken 
in the affairs of the Confederation, and rumours 
were afloat of warlike preparations in Alsatia, 
the Breisgau and the Sundgan. 

The Oberlanders now no longer hesitated 
to engage in a definitive consultation on a 
plan^f warfare. This took place at a meet- 
ing at Nordhausen, in November, 1531. 

But, before we examine the organisation 
which the league then assumed, we must 
endeavour to understand distinctly what pro- 
gress the cause of reform had in the mean- 
time made in the cities of Lower Germany. 



REFORMATION IN THE CITIl 
GERMANY. 



OF LOWER 



The first city that joined the evangelical 
princes was, as we have seen, Llagdeburg. 



* Bullinger, iii. 353. The state of things is parlicularly 
described in an essay written by Leo fu&ce in his own 
justification. "There are two great parties in Zürich, 
the one will protect God's word and help to secure all jus- 
tice to it, the other will plant all dishonesty, and uproot 
the word of God, re-establish the Papacy, and take foriegn 
service and pensions again. It appears to the pious that 
the latter party have always more favour and encourage- 
ment than they." 
50 



Here, in a city which had pretensions to hold 
immediately of the empire, and had seen it- 
self, with great disgust, turned over to the 
jurisdiction of the archbishop; — here, where 
Luther had gone to school, and where his per- 
sonal friends were still in possession of honours 
and employments, his ideas had easily capti- 
vated the whole body of the chizens. One 
day an old cloth-weaver was sitting under the 
statue of Otho the Great, singing^ a Lutheran 
hymn, and offering copies of it for sale. Just 
then the Bürgermeister Rubin, who had been 
at mass, came by, and ordered him to be 
arrested. This was sufficient to arouse the 
slumbering fire. The agitation spread from 
the audience collected about the old man, 
over the whole city. The citizens, who, ever 
since the year 1330, had taken an important 
part in secular affairs, thought that they had 
a right to a no less participation in spiritual. 
On the very same day, the 6th of IMay, 1524, 
the parish of St. Ulrich proceeded to exercise 
this right. They met in the churchyard, and 
deternained to choose eight men out of their 
body, who for the future should manage the 
affairs of the churchNVv-ith their concurrence, 
and should choose preachers. Other parishes 
followed this example, and the council did not 
deem itself called upon to prevent them. 
Evangelical preachers were universal!}' ap- 
pointed by the side of Catholic priests. 

But a state of things like this could not last. 
The priests administered the mass according 
to the ancient ritual ; the attacks of the preach- 
ers Vv^ere mainly directed against the mass. 
There was no peace till either the priests went 
over to Protestantism, as M. Scultetus did, or 
were silenced, or sent away. The parishes 
of St. John and St. Ulrich having opened a 
formal negotiation with the dean of Our Lady's 
Church, and he having refused to grant them 
such priests as they desired, they solemnl}' 
renounced his authority, ^-'in order to take 
refuge with the sole eternal supreme priest, 
guardian of souls, bishop and pope, Jesus 
Christ; with him as their captain, Vv'ould they 
do battle like true knights. "t On the 17th of 
July, 1524, the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per was administered according to Luther's 
form, in all the churches of the o]d town. 
Hereupon the councillors and hundred men 
assembled in their armour, and the citizens, 
according to the four quarters of the city, with 
matchlocks and halberds ; they swore to stand 
truly and firmly by each other, if trouble should 
come upon the city on account of the abolition 
of the mass. They had no doubt that the 
archbishop, Cardinal Albert, would resort to 
severe measures against them. They there- 
fore hastened to cut a canal from the Elbe to 
the city ditches, in order, in case of need, to 
fill the latter with water ; the walls were raised, 
the pahsades strengthened with blocks: the 
workmen in the town taken into their service 
for a small remuneration. They were resolved 



t Cause and Proceedings in tlie imperial, honourable, 
and Christian City of Magdeburg, pertaining to a Chris- 
tian Walk and Conversation. By VVolfF Cycloff; Doctor 
of Medicine, 1524. Printed in Hahn's Collectio Menu- 
mentorum, ii. 459. 



394 



REFORMATION IN THE CITIES. 



Book VI. 



to defend with life 'and limb the spiritual in- 
dependence they had asserted. But the time 
was not yet come when their resolution was 
to be put to the proof; for the present, matters 
did not go to' that extremity.* 

In Brunswick things took very nearly the 
same course a few years later. The citizens 
read Luther's books, and translation of the 
Bible; above all, his hymns produced the 
strongest sensation; they were sung in every 
house, and the streets resounded with them. 
It had become customary here for the priests 
who held benefices to leave the business of 
preaching to young men whom they paid, and 
who were called Heuerpfaffen (hire-priests). 
It is not surprising that these men generally 
espoused the new doctrines, and took part 
v/ith Üie citizens. Examples occurred of their 
giving out from the pulpit, instead of the Latin 
hymn to the Virgin, one of the new German 
psalms, in which all the congregation joined 
with the greatest enthusiasm. 

Indeed, the people would no longer listen to 
^sermons of any other tendency. Scholastic 
demonstrations were tumultuously interrupted, 
and incorrect quotations fiom Scripture loudly 
and eagerly corrected by the congregation. 
The clergy sent for Dr. Sprengel, one of the 
most respected of the orthodox preachers of 
the neighbourhood, and already practised in the 
handhng of controversial points; but he could 
make no impression. At the conclusion of his 
sermon a citizen called out, "Priest, thou 
liest," and set up the Lutheran hymn, "Ach 
Gott vom Himmel sieh darein !"' (0 God, look 
down fioni heaven !) which the whole congre- 
gation sang with triumph. 

The priests could at last devise no expe- 
dient, except to request the council to rid 
them of their heretical assistants. But the 
jcongregations only attached themselves the 
more iirmly to the latter. The town and sub- 
urbs united nominated delegates, at fhe head 
of whom was Autor Sander, one of the leaders 
of the whole movement (he belonged to the 
literary class of innovators of whom we have 
formerly made mention); they now, on their 
side, petitioned the couiicil to remove the 
priests. 

At first, the council inclined to the existing 
order of things, but it was soon carried along 
by the popular movement. Reforms were at 
that time going on in various places, in conse- 
quence of the decree of the empire of 1526; 
among others, in the neighbouring state of 
Lüneburg ; Duke Henry of Brunswick -Wolfen- 
büttel, who would undoubtedly have opposed 
it, being occupied in his expedifion into Italy. 
Under these circumstances, the council passed 
the resolution, on the 13th of March, 1528, 
that in future only the pure word of God should 
be preached ; that the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper should be administered in both kinds, 
and baptism be performed in the German lan- 
guage. Dr. Bugenhagen came from Witten- 



* Sebastian Lan|c;lians, at that time mil!-bailifi, left a 
history of ilie year 1524, whicli it is very desirable to have 
printed. Up to that date, Rathmann's Extracts and Col- 
lections (iii. 34G— 400) are very useful. 



berg, in order to give a permanent form, of the 
kind prescribed by Luther, to the new order 
of things.! The Duke of Lüneburg promised 
the city his protection. i 

Things took the same course in most of the 
towns of this part of Germany. In all of 
them we see preachers arise, the Lutheran 
hymns become popular, and the congregations 
take part in religious questions: the council 
at first makes a greater or less resistance, but 
at length gives way. In Goslar fifty men 
were appointed out of the several parishes, 
and carried the reforms through ; there was a 
disturbance in Göttingen, because the over- 
seers of the commune were at first hostile ; in 
Eimbeck the council was coi^npelled, by the 
urgency of the commune, to recal the very 
preacher whom they had lately dismissed at 
the request of the canons. 

Our readers will remember the violent com- 
motions which broke out in all the cities be- 
tween the years 1510 — 1516; even in those 
of Lower Germany. The question now arose, 
how far the religious impulse was mingled 
with this democratic agitation, and whether 
the predominant tendency would not be po- 
litical. 

We find a great difference among the cities 
in this respect. 

There were some in which council and 
commune united in good time; and ni these 
the municipal constitutions acquired greater 
strength than ever during the troubles. For 
not only did they get rid of the influence of 
foreign prelates, which had always been op- 
pressive to them ; but the administration of 
church affairs and church property that now 
devolved upon them, gave them a common 
interest which united them more closely. 
In Magdeburg ecclesiastical colleges^ were 
formed, consisting of members of the former 
council, and the newly elected, superintend- 
ants of the communes; this gave additional 
strength to the democratic element which 
already somewhat predominated in the con- 
stitution of the city. The most remarkable 
town in this respect is undoubtedly Hamburg. 
Here, too, the reformers followed the advice 
of Luther, which Bugenhagen had carried 
out theoretically in books, II and practically by 
his own plans in Brunswick; — to establish in 
every parish funds or chests {Gotteshast en) ^ in 



\ The most minute account of these events is to be 
found in Rehtmeiers Kirchen historic dec Stadt Braun- 
schwei'r, part iii., the original source of which is a co- 
temporaneous statement by Heinrich Lampe, preacher at 
St. Michael's church: " Wiiat happened in ecclesiastical 
affairs, shortly before and after the reception of the Holy 
Gospel here in Brunswick;" Gasmer's Funeral Sermon 
for Lampe (which is the basis of Lenz's " Rraunschweii:s 
Kirchenreformation, 1828") is also chiefly taken from that 
statement. 

X Duke Ernest mentions in a letter of the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1.531, a former- compact with Brunswick, in which 
they mutually promised, " in matters relatin;^ to the divine 
word and whatever depends thereon, to risk life and pro- 
perty with each other." (W. A.) 

§ See Rathmann, iv. ii. 28. 

II In the Appendix to the treatise. Vom rechten Glau- 
ben (Of the true Faith), which Bucenhagen published, 
both in hiffh and low German, in 1526, ajid dedicated to 
the bürgermeis'ter, councillors, and the whole community 
of the honourable city of Hamburg. 



Chap. V. 



REFORM IN THE CITIES. 



393 



order to meet the wants of the clergyman and 
the school, and to provide for the poor oat of 
the church property; and chose, as trustees 
of the same, twelve respectable citizens, some 
of whom had already tilled the otlice of jurats 
of the church, and to wiiom twenty-four mem- 
bers of each parish were now attached. The 
same form was adopted m most other towns; 
what distinguishes Hamburg js, that it served 
as the basis of a new political constitution. 
The parish superintendants composed the 
college of the Forty-eight, and, together with 
their assistants, that of the- Hundred and 
Forty-four; two colleges which may be re- 
garded as a true representation of the heredi- 
tary class of citizens (BLirgeischalt). Besides 
this, a fifth and principal chest w .. s established, 
m which the whole propeit) die churdh 

was to be united,* and the a^ ist ration of 
it was entrusted to the three elders of 

the parish overseers. This i ;l;ice with 

the fall consent of the worsh .^ id Council 

on Michaelmas-day, 1528. it. . ,a.i-ut that 
{his college contained the germs of a most 
important institution for the improvement and 
prosperity of the city, and we know how com- 
pletely it has falfilled its destination. After a 
lapse of three centuries, the day of its estab- 
lishment has just been commemorated with 
civic festivities.! 

In Rostock also the council and the citizens 
formed the closest union in opposition to the 
■Mecklenburg princes, who in the year 1531 
Sided for a moment with the Catholic clergy, j 

But things were not everywhere thus peace- 
fully settled. In Bremen, where the churches 
had fallen into the hands of the Lutheran 
preachers as early as the year 1525, and, in 
1527, the two convents of the city had been 
converted, the one into a school and the other 
into an hospital, so violent a hatred of the 
clergy had arisen among the citizens during 
the incessant quarrels in which they had been 
involved with the priests attached to the ca- 
thedral, that they were not satisfied with 
having stripped them of all spiritual influence 
in the city. They laid claim to a number of 
fields, gardens and enclosed lands, which, 
they said, the cathedral had unjustly MTested 
from the town ; and as the council did not up- 
hold , them in these claims, they chose a de- 
mocratic body of a hundred and four mem- 
bers, who not only endeavoured to carry 



* " 7\iclr»esdevveyniger schollen de veer Kisten in den 
Carspeikarcken, wo se nu stalin, tho Versainelinge de 
Aüniszeu blyven, so doch, dathme alleiidt wes bether tho 
da run; gegeven, mid hyrnaiuals tho alien Tyden darin n 
gegeven werden mag, alles getrouwlik in nnd by de Ho- 
vetkysten präsentere und averantwehrde." — " Neverthe- 
less, tlie four chests in the parish Church, where they now 
stand, shall remain for the collection of the alms; so that 
all which may heretofore have been given therein, or may 
Ijereafter be therein given, through all times, may be 
truly presented and answeredfor to the principal [head] 
chest." — Original form of the Foundation of the Overal- 
len (Over-elders), Michaelmas-day, 1528. 

t Lappenberg ; Programm.e of the third secular com- 
memoration of tile municipal constitution of Hamburg, 
on the 29th of September, 152S ; wherein the matter which 
Bürgermeister Bartels and the Presses of the Oberalten 
(Over-elders), Rücker, tfeated in a popular manner in 
Iheir speeches, is learnedly and instructively developed. 

X Rudlof N. Gesch. Mecklenburgs, i. 81. 



through all these measures, but radically to 
alter the constitution of the city ; they over- 
threw the whole groundwork, and rejected all 
the documents and charters upon which it 
rested; proceeded with^he greatest violence, 
and at length were only put down by force of 
arms.§ 

The movement in Lübek was still ^lore 
important. 

Here the patrician families had formed a 
close union with the clergy; the chapter^ 
council, gentry and great merchants consti- 
tuted one party. li On the other hand, the de- 
sire for religious reforms was here as" rife 
among the citizens as in other places, but it 
was repressed with unrelenting zeal; famihes 
were punished only because the servants had 
sung a German psalm. ' Luther's commentary 
on the Scriptures was burned in the market- 
place. 

Unfortunately for the ruling classes, they 
had suffered the finances of the city to fall 
into disorder, and found themselves compelled 
to assemble the citizens, and to call upon 
them for extraordinary supplies. 

The citizens consented. They nominated 
a committed (a, d. 1529), which gradually in- 
creased to the number of sixty-four, in order 
to deliberate with the council on this grant ; 
but they immediately seized the opportunity 
to claim, not only more political power, but 
religious emancipation. They demanded that 
the committee should have a share in regu- 
lating the revenue and expenditure of the 
town, and that freedom of preaching should 
be granted them. The public voice was very 
soon raised in their favour. The people de- 
manded the restitution of the preachers who 
had been expelled a few years before ; here, 
too, the officiating priest was interrupted by 
the psalm, "Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh da- 
rein I'' Satirical songs were sung against Jo- 
hann Rode, the rector of Our Lady's Church, 
charging him vidth having maintained that 
Christ had redeemed only our forefathers, and 
that their posterity must seek salvation from 
him. "They who should feed us, are they 
who mislead us," (Die uns sollen Weiden, 
das sind die uns verleiten,) says one of these 
songs. f In one great meeting of citizens, 
those who wished to remain Cathohc were 
asked to stand aside, when only one complied. 

Overpowered by such manifestations, and 
deprived by its financial difficulties of all sub- 
stantial power, the council was compelled 
step by step to give way. 

In December, 1529, it recalled the expelled 
preachers; in April, 1530, it removed the Ca- 
tholics from every pulpit in the city ; in the 
June of the same year, it found itself com- 
pelled to give notice to the churches and con- 



§ Roller, Geschichte von Bremen, ii. p. 380, u. f. 

li The priesthood was become very numerous, especially 
by the institution of vicars. In the middle of the IStli 
century there were in Lübek and the neighbouring 
churches 169 vicars. They were most of them relations 
of those who had founded masses for the dead. See Grau- 
toff, Schriften, i. 2G6. The disposition of the capital lay 
in the hands of provisors. 

IT The song in Regkmann's Chronicle, p. 133. 



896 



LÜBEK. 



Book V. 



vents to discontinue their established usages. 
At the_ very same time that Charles V. was 
attempting to re-establish the ancient faith in 
Augsburg, it was utterly extirpated in one of 
the most considerable cities of the North. 
This did not pass unobserved at Augsburg. 
The emperor commanded the Sixty-four in 
the most earnest manner, by a penal man- 
date, '-to desist from M'hat they w-ere about;" 
and told the council, in case this was not com- 
plied with, to apply to some of the neighbour- 
ing princes for assistance. It may easily be 
imagined what effect these menaces of a dis- 
tant power were likely to produce in the fer- 
menting city. The agitation redoubled, and 
increased so violently that the council was 
under the necessity of requesting the Sixty- 
four to retain their functions, and even of 
approving their making a fresh addition of a 
hundred citizens to their body.* Doctor John 
Bugenhagen was also invited to Liibek to 
organise a new church, with a commission 
chosen from the council and citizens. t The 
convents were converted into schools and hos- 
pitals; the nuns of St. John's were suffered to 
remain, on condition of their instructing chil- 
dren; in all parish churches, pastors and chap- 
lains attached to the confession of Augsburg 
were appointed, under a superintendent, Her- 
mannus Bonn us. 

It followed, of course, that the Sixty-four, 
whose origin was of a politico-religious nature, 
were not satisfied with the concessions made 
by the church ; the council was obliged to 
promise to account to them for the public ex- 
penditure, to make no treaty or engagement 
withoiTt their consent, to allow them a short 
joint superintendence in military affairs; in 
short, to share all their most important func- 
tions with them.t The council, accustomed 
to nearly unhmited sway, reluctantly con- 
sented. There was, it is true, a public recon- 
ciliation between the bürgermeisters and the 
president of the Sixty-four; but solemn acts 
of this kind have never served to eradicate a 
rooted aversion : a few weeks after, Claus 
Brömse and Hermann Plönnies, the two bur- 
germeisters, found the impotency to which 
they were reduced, and the mistrust of which 
they were the objects, so intolerable, that they 
quitted the city. This was at Easter, 1531. 
No sooner was the departure of the bürger- 
meisters known among the citizens, than a 
storm of anger arose. The people imputed 
to them, and to the whole council, an under- 
standing with the neighbouring princes, and 
expected that the city would be attacked. 



* In the answer of the citizens, in Regkinann, 139, it is 
said that this was proposed by the council, " urn vieler 
Üngestümheit willen, Müh' und Verdriess zuvorf-zukoin- 
men,"—" in order to prevent rauch disorder, trouble, and 
annoyance." 

t Notices in Grautoff, ii. 159. The influence which is 
ascribed in that work to a more moderate party in the 
council stands, however, in need of further proof. 

t The articles of the commune made, agreed on, and 
confirmed on the 13th of October, 1530. Becker, Liib. 
Gesch. iii. 27, says, not all the demands of the com- 
mune were granted ; and he then adduces only those ex- 
pressly mentioned in the journal in Kirchring and Müller, 
p. 166. Is it possible that the title of the articles can be 
80 wrong ? 



First, the Sixty-four, then the Hundred, and 
lastly, all the members of the commune, were 
called together; the gates were closed; the 
members of the council were arrested, either 
in their own houses or in the town-house ; till 
at length the council, subdued, shackled, tor- 
mented, and deprived of its chiefs, deter- 
mined to give up the great seal of the city to 
the Sixty-four. The commune did not go so 
far as to depose them ; never would the Lu- 
theran preachers have approved that. But, 
as they ,sought out a document to prove that 
the council might consist cf a greater number 
of members than actually held seats in it, and 
immediately proceeded to appoint the num- 
ber deficients — as they nominated two bur- 
germeisters instead of those who had left the 
town; they did in fact entirely transform the 
council, and impart to the victorious opinions a 
preponderant influence over all its decisions. 
The preachers consented to this with great 
reluctance; for their idea of the exalted nature 
and dignity of the civil authority extended to 
the city councillors; and at every change they 
earnestly ^^•arned the people from the pulpit 
not to transgress against authority. § 

Duke Ernest of Lüneburg was extremely 
rejoiced, on his return from Augsburg, to see 
around him how little people cared for the 
favour or disfavour of the emperor; on the 
contrary, how much more prosperous was the 
evangelical cause in these cities now than 
heretofore.il The emperor had just admo- 
nished the city of Lüneburg in a private let- 
ter, to remain constant to the old faith ; the 
only result of which was, that the city prayed 
the duke to leave Urbanus Bhegius, the re- 
former, whom he had brought home with him 
from Augsburg, for a time with them, for the 
purpose of organising their church,1l which 
he gradually accomplished. 

So powerfully did the spirit of the reforma- 
tion diffuse itself through Lower Germany. 
Already it had taken possession of a portion 
of the principalities ; it w^as triumphant in the 
Wendish cities; it had penetrated into West^ 
phalia, as we shall see hereafter ; it seemed 
about to pervade the whole character and con- 
dition of North Germany. 

But it was easy to foresee that, bpfore this 
could come to pass, it w^ould have to encoun- 
ter many a storm. 

Very violent political tendencies mingled 
themselves with the attempt to reform the 
church; and it was a question how. far the 
former could be guided in the channel of 



§' In the Chronicle of Hermannus Bonnus it is said that 
there is no better means of maintaining a stable govern- 
ment than to leave the choice of the council in the hands 
of the authorities. 

II Ernest to Elector John, Zelle, Monday, 17th of Octo- 
ber. "Befinde, das wynzig Gottlob in diesen umliegen- 
den Städten kais. Maj. Gnaden oder Ungnaden gescJieuet; 
denn sye itzunder heftiger, als vor nie, in allen Städten 
predigen und das Wort Gottes fürdern." — " J find that, 
thank God, his imperial majesty's favour or disfavour is 
very little cared for in the cities hereabout ; for they now 
preach in all cities more vehemently than ever before, and 
promote the word of God." (W. A) 

IT Letter above: "haben heud der Rath und die Ge 
meyne mir semjjtlich geschrieben."— " The council and the 
commonalty have all written to me to-day." 



Chap. V. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE. 



397 



established institutions, or how far they would 
assume a revolutionary character. 

With these were also connected changes 
of religious opinion, which did not always 
remain within the pale of the Lutheran sys- 
tem, and the future direction of which it was 
impossible to foresee. 

We shall examine more closely these 
changes, which are extremely important: 
ther© came a time when the popular mind, 
violently excited, rushed into wild and path- 
less regions. • 

At present, however, these symptoms had 
not betrayed themselves. 

At present, the only remarkable fact was, 
the support which Protestantism, in its peace- 
ful progress,, experienced from its new exten- 
sion, at the very moment when it was most vio- 
lently menaced by the emperor. This support 
was peculiarly advantageous to the Schmal- 
kaldic league, to which we must now turn our 
attention. 

COXCLUSION OF THE SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE. 

The Magdeburgers were included in the 
earlier Protestant associations. In the year 
1531; being urged by their archbishop to con- 
form to the recess of Augsburg, they looked 
to the Elector of Saxony as their sole refuge, 
and implored him - to protect them in their 
adherence to the eternal word of God.'' They 
delayed not an instant to join the league.* 

Bremen, uninvited, asked the Duke of Lime- 
burg for the first draft of the convention ; and 
declared itself ready to send a representative 
to the meeting, and to contribute its share of 
aid.t 

With Lübek, on the other hand, ^the duke 
had to open negotiations. This was at a time 
M'hen the council still retained some povrer ; 
and, as its sympathies were quite in an oppo- 
site direction, it naturally hesitated. But the 
Hundred and Sixty-four were easily won over. 
On their motion, a delegate of the city ap- 
peared at the second congress at Schmalkal- 
den, in March, 1531. He desired first to be in- 
formed, what support the princes could afibrd 
the city against the ejected King of Denmark, 
if the emperor should attempt to restore him; 
and pleaded the necessity of not exacting too 
much assistance from the citizens. But even 
this reservation was dropped, when the great 
change which we have described took place in 
Lübek. Although the delegate received/ very 
unsatisfactory answers to his questions, Liibek 
immediately after acceded to the treaty. We 
find these three cities mentioned in the first 
sealed formula of the league. 

At the following meeting in June, they were 



* JMagdeburg, Saturday after Estomihi, 1531. " It hap^ 
pinned that our most gracious lord cardinal's steward ap- 
peared on Ash-Weduesday before «s, the whole council 
sitting, and delivered a missive from our above-mentioned 
gracious lord : and thereupon set forth that he had a 
printed copy, which he would also deliver to us; and as 
he had before, signified to our bürgermeister and council, 
that, in the said printed copy, the recess held at Augs- 
burg, and the order that they should hold to the old usages, 
were inserted, we would not receive it." 

t Letter of Duke Ernest, Tuesday after St. Clement. 
2i 



joined by Gottingeii and Brunswick. Bruns- 
wick thought that it belonged sufficiently to 
the league, through its connexion with the 
Duke of Lüneburg;! but the allies were of 
opinion that they should have stronger grounds 
for sending assistance to the city in case of 
need, if it was a direct party to the conven- 
tion. An envoy from the raarkgrave at last 
removed all its scruples. 

Shortly after, Goslar and Eimbeck followed. 

So rapidly did the compact of the princes 
extend over both parts of Germany. It now 
included seven cities of Upper, and seven of 
Lower Germany. 

It was impossible longer to delay giving a 
constitution to such a uiuon. We know how 
urgently this was demanded by events in 
Switzerland, and the Oberländers were now 
fully prepared for it.§ 

A preliminary discussion was held in No- 
vember, 1531, at Nordhausen, and a definitive 
one at Frankfurt-am-Main in December. 

The first question was as to the supreme 
command of the league. 

It was an arrangement prompted as much 
by the nature of tilings as by habit and tradi- 
tion, that they should nominate a single head 
of the league, who should also command them 
in war. Saxony wished that one of the two 
Welfs, either the Lüneburger or the Gruben- 
hagener, should be chosen. There was a ge- 
neral wish to avoid the landgrave, who was 
accounted too rash and too intimately con- 
nected with the Swiss. 

But this was not practicable. The land- 
grave was far too powerful and warlike to 
suffer himself to be excluded from the com- 
mand of the league : and, since the defeat of 
the Swiss, nothing more was to be feared from 
Ills leaning to their side. 

But as the Elector of Saxony also did not 
choose to be thrown into the shade by the 
landgrave, it was agreed at the meeting at 
Nordhausen to elect two commanders, and 
that these two princes should be the men. 
Each of them was to bring up one half of the 
troops, and they were alternately to conduct 
the affairs of the whole body ; if the war was 
to be carried on in Saxony and Westphalia, the 
elector to have the command; if in Hessen 
and Germany, the landgrave. 

But it is not to be imagined that full powers 
were given to these two chiefs to act at their 
good pleasure : the question was discussed 
with equal earnestness, how the deliberations 
were to be held, and the votes divided; and 
what relation these should bear to the contri- 
butions. 

The first proposal on the side of the princes 

t Letter of the city to Ernest of Lüneburg, 2-3d March, 
1531. "Since we have settled with your princely grace 
concerning our natural relation as subjects, and have in- 
cluded therein our separate treaties with regard to the 
Christian matters undertaken in God's name." 

§ Melanchthon to Camerarius, 30th December. " Scis 
ejus periculi partem ad nos pertinere." A letter from [Jim 
(Saturday after St. Simon and St. Jude) announces that 
the greatest joy prevailed at Ferdinand's court; in the 
Sundgau, Breisgau, and Alsatia, the people had been 
warned to hold themselves ready for war; in the lands of 
the Abbot of Kempten they had been ordered when at- 
tacked to take up arms instantly and assemble. 



CHARACTER OF THE LEAGUE. 



Book VI. 



was to create five votes ; two for Saxony and 
Hessen, two for the cities, and the remaining 
one for the other princes and counts conjointly. 
The ordinary contingents, reckoned at two 
thousand horse, and ten thousand foot, were 
taxed at severity thousand gulden a month; 
of which the princes were to pay thirty thou- 
sand, and the cities forty. 

The objection to this plan is obvious at the 
first glance. The greater half of the votes, 
and the lesser of the contributions, were al- 
lotted to the princes. The cities did not ne- 
glect to propose a different scheme, in which 
perfect equality was observed. Each party 
was to contribute thirty-five thousand gulden, 
and each to have four votes. 

How was it to be^ however, if these votes 
were equally divided on any question 1 an in- 
convenience carefully avoided in all delibera- 
tive bodies. The cities proposed to give a 
casting vote to the electoral prince of Saxony, 
who would otherwise have no voice. But to 
this the landgrave would by no means con- 
sent. He replied, that he Avished his friend 
and brother all the prosperity in the world ; 
he should be glad to see John Frederic Roman 
king and emperor; but that, in this affair, they 
must maintain perfect equality, according to 
the original agreement. 

They therefore reverted to a project very 
similar to the first. Nine votes were created, 
of which four were divided between Saxony 
and Hessen, and four among the four cilies; 
the ninth was to be held in common by the 
remaining princes and lords. The only ad- 
vantage the cities gained was, that the contri- 
butions were more equally divided. Of these 
four votes, the Oberland towns had two, and 
the Lower Saxon the other two; and they 
took an equal share of the contributions upon 
themselves. Of the two Lower Saxon votes, 
Magdeburg and Bremen had the one, Llibek 
and the remaining towns the other. 

In this manner were the affairs of the 
league arranged, as soon as it was concluded. 
The constitution is merely the expression of 
the fact, and of the relations of the parties ; 
of the former, inasmuch as those on whose 
coalition all depended were now its recognised 
chiefs; of the latter, inasmuch as the legal in- 
fluence on its resolutions was determined by 
the relative force and the contributions of the 
members. 

After all that has been laid before the 
reader, it is unnecessary to observe, that the 
principle of reform, at once conservative and 
defensive, such as Luther conceived it, was 
here most perfectly and eminently repre- 
sented; but if I am not mistaken, it may be 
added, that this league, by thus combining 
the two great provinces of Upper and Lower 
Germany, which had hitherto always been 
separated, was of the highest value to the 
•unity of development of the German mind. 
There was now^ another centre besides the 
diets ; there was a unity not imposed by the 
command of the sovereign power, but arising 
spontaneously from the force of circumstances, 
and combining a political and military; with 



an intellectual character. Luther was the 
great author, who, intelligible to both parties, 
found access to both, and pre-eminently con- 
tributed to the foundation of a uniform na- 
tional culture. It was a union which extended 
to the uttermost boundaries of Germany on 
either side. Not only the' neighbouring Älag- 
deburg and central Strasburg, but biirgermeis- 
ters and town councillors from Riga sought aid 
and protection from the Elector of Saxony, on 
whom, under God, all their hopes were fixed. 
They came in the name of the evangehcal 
party in Dorpat and Reval, praying to be de- 
fended against the attempts of their arch- 
bishop, who threatened them with the execu- 
tion of the recess of Augsburg.* 

The league had likewise a great political 
import. All who had any thing to fear from 
Austria, or any thing to complain of in her past 
conduct; rallied round it; — the Duke of, Guel- 
dres and Juliers, from whom Ravenstein had 
been taken ; the King of Denmark, who was 
in daily dread of a fresh attack from Chrisliern 
II., aided by Austria; and las%, an election 
opposition headed by Bavaria. In February, 
1531, we find the Bavarian councillor. Weich- 
selfelder, in Torgau;t in August, Leonhard 
Eck visited Landgrave Philip at Giessen ; in 
October, a congress of all the States hostile to 
Ferdinand was held at Saalfeld, Here they 
mutually promised "by their true words as 
electors, princes and counts,} on tfeeir honour, 
truth and faith, not to consent to the election, 
j and, above all, to the administration, of Ferdi- 
I nand ; and in case they were attacked for the 
J same, to support each other." Some months 
! afterwards the form of these mutual succours 
i was agreed on.§ 

I It is^ curious to see in what light these things 
I appeared at a distance ; how, for example, 
I Henry VIII. expressed himself concerning 
them in a conversation with the Danish ara- 
I bassador, Peter Schwaben. The emperor, 
I Henry thought, ought to have yielded at Augs- 
j burg, on the few points on which they could 
I not agree, — but Campeggi probably hindered 
' him. '• The emperor is foolish," said he ; " he 
understands nothing of Latin. They should 
have taken me and the King of France as um- 
pires; we would have summoned the most 
learned men in all Europe, and would soon 
have decided the afiair." He then proceeded 
to speak of the election. ''Why do not the 
princes," said'he, "choose another king? — the 
Duke of Bavaria, for example, w-ho would be 
quite a fit man. They must not allow the 
emperor to deceive them as he has deceived 
the pope." "Sir," added he, as if alarmed 
at his "own frankness, "nobody must know 
that I have said this. I am an ally of the em- 



* Letter of the Council, Wednesday before Palm Sun- 
day, and also that of the Syndic Lehnniiiller, the Wed- 
nesday after the 29th March, and 5th Apfil, 1531. (W. A.) 

t The Bavarian councillors were expected at the second 
congress at Schmalkalden, as a letter from Philip to Dr. 
Leonh. Eck (undated, but without doubt of the 31st Janu- 
ary) shows. 

t Neudeckers Urkunden, p. 60. The counts of Mana- 
feld are those alluded to. 

§ May, 1532. Original document in Stumpf, No. v. p. 20. 



Chap. VI. 



OTTOMAN INVASION. 



399 



peror. In fact/' continued he after a pause, 
"it would be a disgrace to the emperor if he 
were forced to leave Germany without putting 
an end to these troubles. I see the time is 
come when either the emperor must make 
himself renowned, or the Elector of Saxony.*' 

Thus, then, things were come to such a 
pass, that a sagacious neighbouring sovereign 
could compare the elector's chances of renown 
and universal consideration with those of the 
emperor. 

We must not, how^ever, take this for more 
than it is worth; we are well aware that the 
king flattered his own secret hostility to the 
emperor with thoughts of this kind. 

But so much is clear notwithstanding :-^that 
the federative position which the aged elector 
acquired now, at the close of his life, Vt'as a 
very high and significant one. 

If the aggressive tendencies of the refor- 
mation in Switzerland had been crushed in the 
attempt to break down the iiitluences opposed 
to it, a similar calamity was not to be feared 
for the leagae, whose attitude was purely de- 
fensive. Even if the emperor had taken ad- 
vantage of the Swiss reverses and begun a 
great war, he would not have found it so easy, 
as perhaps Ferdinand thought, to suppress 
Protestantism, and to make himself absolute 
master of Germany. 

Moreover, circumstances had occurred which i 
rendered this utterly impossible. 



CHAPTER YI. 

OTTOMAN IXVASIOX. FIRST PEACE OF RELI- 
GION. 

1531, 1532. 

Destiny (if we may be allowed to use the 
word) had for a time left the emperor at 
liberty to put an end to these religious troubles 
in one way or another. For two years he had 
been at peace. 

But this period presents a singular spectacle. 
We behold those who threaten war and de- 
struction separate, and each betake him^self to 
his own affairs; while, on the contrary, those 
who are threat-ened adhere with unshaken 
pertinacity to their designs, and succeed in 
foundina: an effective politico-religious coali- 
tion. The check which reform had sustained 
in Switzerland was advantageous to its con- 
solidation in Germany. 

It always happens, and especially under cir- 
ca nnstances like those of German}', that the 
obvious necessity for common defence is a far 
better bond of union than the most elaborate 
plan of attack. 

The emperor did not neglect to urge the 
electors to more vigorous measures. Imme- 
diately after Ferdinand's election, they formed 
a league for the defence of it against all attacks 
whatsoever. In the spring of 1531, the em- 



peror proposed to connect v.dth this a more 
extensive coalition, for the purpose of pre- 
venting all attempts of the seceders injurious 
to thelrue faith.* To this, however, the elec- 
tors did not accede ] they thought that sufh- 
cient security was afforded by the rules ami 
recesses of the empire. We know that there 
were other points on which the States of the 
empire did not perfectly agree with the em- 
peror; the diplomatic correspondence of the 
time shows that demonstrations and profes- 
sions of friendship were traversed in every 
direction by under-currents of secret animosity. 

JMoreover, every attempt to reduce the Pro- 
testants was rendered impossible by the dan- 
ger wh^ch incessantly hung over Europe from 
the East. 

At length its most formidable foe once more 
arose in his might, Ilis recent attack on 
Vienna had rather irritated than intimidated 
him. 

Wq have now to contemplate, not only the 
warlike preparations of the Ottomans, but 
their effect on Germany. If even the dread 
of war was favourable to the Protestants, we 
may expect to find that its actual outbreak 
was much more so. 

OTTOMAN INVASION. 

In the year 1530, both Ferdinand and the 
empei'or entertained the idea of terminating 
the affair of Hungary by a treaty with the sub- 
lime Porte. As John Zapolya boasted that he 
paid no tribute, the court of Vienna hoped that 
the sultan might be gained over by the offer 
of a sum of money; and even flattered itself 
that it might be possible to recover the whole 
of Hungary, such as King Wladislaus had pos- 
sessed it. In this spirit were the proposals 
conceived which Ferdinand sent to Constanti- 
nople, in May, loSO.-j- 

In fact, he hoped nothing more from the 
war with the woiwode. A fresh attempt on 
Ofen had failed. The Hungarians of both par- 
ties were evidently weary of internal discord; 
they had even a project of proceeding to elect 
a third king, whom all might acknowledge. 
Ferdinand therefore consented to a truce with 
Zapolya. His ho'pes were turned towards Con- 
stantinople — hopes which were destined to be 
entirely crushed. 

It was well known in Constantmople. that a 
general enterprise against the Turks was in- 
cessantly talked of in Germany, Italy and 
Spain; "that the pope and the empire had 



* Original document in the Berlin Archives under the 
title: '• Keyser Carls Bedenken, wie die Election eines 
romischen Königes zu Cöiln geschehen v^nd auf König 
Ferdinand gericht, wider den Churfiirften von Sachsen 
und Andre so dieselbe gestritten, möge gehandhabt wer- 
den."— " Emperor Charles's Reflections how the Election 
of a King of , the Romans, which took place at Cologne, 
and fell upon King Ferdinand, is to be maintained gsainst 
the Elector of Saxony and others, who have contested it.'' 
There is in Brussels an extract from the elector's answer 
in the French language, in which the emperor's offer is 
described in the words ; Offrant derechef avec le roy son 
frere d'accomplir et fournir ä une notable et durable en- 
treprise. 

t Instructions to Lamberg and Jurischitz; Gevay, Ur- 
kunden und Actenstücke, Heft i. 



400 



LETTERS FROM FERDINAND TO CHARLES. 



Book VL 



granted money for it, and that the emperor 
hoped to render his name gloriou's by such a 
campaign. But it was also known that the 
money, though granted, was either not forth- 
coming, or could not be applied to its destina- 
tion ] that Christendom, spite of ail treaties of 
peace, was full of open or secret divisions' 
and the threat of uniting its forces against the 
Ottomans Avas treated with derision. "The 
King of Spain," it was said, "has encircled 
his brow with the diadem of the empire; but 
what then % is he better obeyed ? He is em- 
peror, who extends his dominion with the 
sword/' When the envoys appeared with the 
proposals above mentioned, the grand wezir 
fbrahim changed colour, and dissuaded them 
from even submitting such to the sultan :* for 
Hungary belonged not to the Janusch Krai (as 
he called the king-w'oiwode), but to the sul- 
tan, who therefore took no tribute from that 
country, but, on the contrary, gave succours 
to his servant and lieutenant who governed it. 
The sultan had twice conquered Hungary with 
the sword, with his own sweat and blood, and 
that of his warriors, and it belonged to him of 
right. Indeed, even Vienna, and all that Fer- 
dinand possessed in Germany, belonged to 
him, since he had invaded those countries in 
person, and had hunted there. Charles V. 
threatened to attack the Turks; he should not 
need to go far, they were making ready to ad- 
vance to meet hira. "I am the sultan," said 
the letter which Suleiman gave to the ambas- 
sador, "the great emperor, the highest and 
most excellent; I have reduced the Greek 
crown to subjection, the White and the Black 
Sea ; — with God's help and ray own labours, 
after the fashion of my father and grandfather, 
with my ow^n person and my sword, have I 
conquered for myself the kingdom and the 
King of Hungary." He rephed to the^Aus- 
trian proposition with the demand — made far 
more in earnest — that Ferdinand would sur- 
render all the fortresses which he still pos- 
sessed in a part of Hungary.! 

Suleiman lived only in the thought of mak- 
ing Constantinople once more the capital of 
the world ; he called Charles V. merely King 
of Spain ; he claimed the exclusive title of 
emperor (which the East called Caliph of 
Rum), and was determined to restore it to its 
full significancy. 

We see from a letter of Ferdinand's of the 
17th March, 1531, what a powerful impres- 
sion the insolent answer brought by his am- 
bassadors made upon him. He represents to 
his brother how contrary it is to all reason and 
honour to suffer a kingdom like Hungary, so 
great and noble and fertile, and so many in- 
nocent souls, all created in the image of the 
living God, to fall into the hands of the Turk- 
ish tyrant. It was also to be considered that 
this would lay open all Europe to him. The 
sultan would take possession on the one side 



* Report of the envoys and the letters of Suleiman and 
Ibrahim: Gevay, Urkunden und Actenstücke, Heft i. 

t From Suleiman's letter, Gevay, Urkunden und Acten- 
stücke, Heft i. p. 91. Pity that this is rather au extract, 
as well as No. vii., than a translation. 



of Bohemia and Moravia, on the other, of 
Inner Austria and Istria : from Signa he would 
not have far to go to the march of Ancona and 
Naples. -t 

In a succeeding letter, he conjures the em- 
peror not to defer the preparations for resist- 
ance, because the advance of the Ottomans 
was still doubtful; "For the danger is great," 
says he, "the time short, and my force insig- 
nificant or null."§ 

When it was seen that the sultan's projects 
were serious; that he really contemplated, 

a short delay, 
proü 



either immediately, or after 
marchin.o- on the German frontier, this 



pect naturally dictated the policy of the two 
brothers. 

It was a moment like that in the beginning 
of the tenth century, when the Hungarians 
first possessed themselves of their settlement; 
and pushed on from thence westward, plun- 
dering and laying waste by the way. • The 
West had indeed made enorm.ous progress, and 
had far better means of defence than it then, 
possessed ; but the enemy was also incompa- 
rably more powerful and more dangerous. 

On considering how he was to be encoun- 
tered, it became obvious that the greatest ob- 
stacle to an efficient defence was the divided 
state of Germany. " The succours of the em- 
pire," said Ferdinand in his first letter, "will 
come np very slowly. You must hold it for 
certain, that Luther's adherents, even if they 
are convinced of the necessity for their ai(.l, 
and inclined to grant it, will yet withhold it, 
because they fear that if the Turks are con- 
quered, and the peace with France, England 
and Italy continues, our arms will be turned 
against them ; they think that the victorious 
soldiery will not be satisfied with the blood 
they have shed, but will seek out more to 
slake their thirst." v 

We have already seen how great an influ- 
ence Ferdinand's counsels had on Charles V. 
They were, indeed, always well-timed and ju- 
dicious, and bear the stamp of resolution and 
promptitude. Ferdinand now had no hesita- 
tion in advising his brother to come to a peace- 
ful arrangement with the Protestants, in so far 
as that was possible, without prejudice to the 
essential points of the Cathohc faith. He said 
that their zeal must be allowed to consume 
itself, for the more water was thrown on it, the 
fiercer it burned. They must be concihated 
at a diet. They would willingly grant aid 
against the Turks, as soon as they saw them- 
selves secure in all that related to " their vain 
superstitions. "II 

As early as February, 1531, an attempt was 
made by the emperor, as was always the case 



X Gevay; i. 99. The same opinion appears again in 
the second part, but somewhat altered. 

§ 27th March. Vra. Magestad si es razon m cordura,de 
estar assi desapercebidoa y desunidos, alia defensa nece- 
saria debaxo desta snmbra de operation dudosa, cerca de 
lo qual suplico a V. Md, quiera mirar y tener proveydo lo 
que convenga porque elpeligro es muy grande y el tiempo 
breve, y mi pusanza muy poca o ninguna. (Br. A.) 

I( Assentandose esto avria mas disyjosition y menos 
ympedimento para resistir al Turco assi in los principes 
como en las otras personas ; a lo qual ajQdaran de mejor 
gana, estando assecurados dello que toca a sus vanas 
creencias. (Prima 27 Marzo.) 



Chap. VI. 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PORTE. 



401 



in Germany, as soon as any division assumed 
.the appearance of danger, through the inter- 
vention of the Palatinate and Mainz, to bring- 
about a reconciliation : but as the Protestants 
demanded, as a preliminary to all negotia- 
tions, that the proceedings of the Imperial 
Chamber should at least be stayed for a time, 
nothing came of it. The emperor declared 
that it would be difficult for him to undo any 
thing that had been determined by the Estates 
of the empire.* 

But Ferdinand now urgently pressed for this 
concession. On the 27 ih April, he sent the 
emperor an opinion of the council of war on 
the plan of defence against the Turks. Mean- 
while, in order to avert the danger arising 
from the coalitions and practices of the Lu- 
therans, he advised his brother no longer to 
resist their demands. 

The emperor therefore, in convoking a diet 
at Regensburg, directed his fiscal ^-to suspend 
the proceedings, ■. -hich he had been author- 
ised by the recess of Augsburg to set on foot 
in religious matters, till the approaching diet."t 
This rendered negotiation at least possible, 
and afforded a prospect of uniting the strength 
of the empire to meet any pressing 'emer- 
gency. 

This prospect was, however, as yet very re- 
mote. 

King Ferdinand, the author of these con- 
ciliatory measures, would sometimes have pre- 
ferred to come to an agreement with the 
Turks, even under the most unfavourable con- 
ditions. In the days in which the events in 
Switzerland had awakened all his zeal and 
ambition against the innovators, he determined 
to make immense concessions with regard to 
Hungary. In the instructions of the 5th No- 
vember, 1531, he desired his ambassadors, 
-whom he sent to Constantinople, to begin by 
refusing to cede any part of his Hungarian do- 
minions; but, in case the sultan should abso- 
lutely decline to treat on these terms, they 
were then to listen to his demands. They 
were to try at least to keep possession of the 
castles nearest to the German frontier, or to 
negotiate their surrender for the sum the woi- 
wode had formerly offered. But if this also 
could not be obtained, if the sultan should be 
inflexible, and insist on a free surrender of ail 
the castles to the woiwode, they should have 
full powers to consent even to that ; only with 
the reservation, that both these castles and 
the whole kingdom of Hungary should revert 
to Ferdinand at the death of the woiwode. 
So great were the concessions Ferdinand was 
prepared to make.t For so remote a contin- 



* Instructions how we two, Ludwig, Count Stolberg, 
and Wolf voa Affenstein, knight, are to treat with his 
imperial majesty ; Tuesday after Estomihi (23d February). 
Likewise: Summary note of what we have negotiated 
with his imperial majesty. (W. A.) 

t " For excellent and sincere reasons w^ commend thee 
earnestly, that thou wilt completely stay such proceedings 
on account of religion, as thou hast in hand, in virtue of 
our recess of Augsburg, between now and the next 
coming diet." Copy of a letter of the Elector of Mainz, 
25th July. 

X Instructio de iis quae— Leonardus Comes de Nogarolis 
et Josephus a Lamberg — apud sern^nm Turcarum impera- 
51 2i* 



gency as the death of his rival, he was willing 
to surrender all that yet belonged to him in 
Hungary. So high was the price he set upon 
peace with Turkey. He wished his brother 
and the pope to be included in the truce. If 
his brother broke it, it should be the same as 
if he broke it himself. And indeed Charles 
V. exhorted him to leave nothing untried, in 
order to conclude a treaty wi\h the Turks. 

But these offers were already vain. Before 
an ambassador had reached the Turkish fron- 
tier, news arrived of the vast warlike prepa- 
rations of the sultan by land and by sea. On 
the 26th April, 1532, Suleiman set out on the 
campaign that was to decide the struggle with 
his mightiest foe, the Emperor Charles, in 
whose person, as far as it was possible, the 
power of the West was represented. § 

A Venetian chronicle has left us a descrip- 
tion of this expedition, which reminds us of 
the pomp of the earliest eastern monarchs.|| 
The march was opened by one hundred and 
twenty pieces of artillery; then came eight 
thousand Janissaries, overjoyed at being led 
against the Germans, and followed by troops 
of camels loaded with an enormous quantity 
of baggage. After them came the Sipahis of 
the Porte, two thousand horse ; to whom was 
entrusted the holy standard, the Eagle of the 
Prophet, gorgeously adorned with gems and 
pearls, which had already waved at the con- 
quest of Rhodes. To this were attached the 
young boys who were exhibited as the tribute 
from subject Christians, and were educated at 
the Porte ; dressed in cloth of gold, with long 
locks like women, red hats with white plumes 
on their heads, and lances of exquisite Bä- 
mascus workmanship in their hands. Behind 
them was borne the sultan's crown, which 
had shortly before been brought to Constanti- 
nople by a Sanuto from St. Canziano at Venice, . 
at the cost of 120,000 ducats. Then followed 
the immediate retinue of the sultan, — a thou- 
sand men of gigantic stature, and of the greatest 
personal beauty that it was possible to find ; 
some leading hounds in a leash, others hold- 
ing hawks on their fist, all armed with bows 
and arrows. In the midst of them rode Sulei- 
man, in a garment of crimson velvet embroi- 
dered with gold, a snow-white turban deco- 
rated with precious stones, dagger and sabre 
at his side, and mounted on a chestnut horse. 
He was followed by the four wesirs, the most 
remarkable of whom was Ibrahim, who bore 
the title of chief counsellor of the sultan, vice- 
gerent of the whole empire of the same, and 
of all his slaves and barons ; after them came 
the remaining lords of the court, with their 
attendants. The whole wore an appearance 
of discipline and obedience, and moved on- 



torem nomine nostro agere debent, Gevay, ii. (1531.) 
Sicubi vero de hac quoque conditione fuerit desperatum, 
videlicet quod Turcus gratuito et sine pecunia castra ilia 
omnia Waywodse reddi voluerit, tum demum sic fortuna 
volente fiat per eosdem oratores nostros de iis omnibus 
promissio. 

§ Avviso venuto di Ragusi di un nuovo esercito messo 
da Solimano per ritornaruna secunda vojta alia citta di 
Vienna I'anno nuovo 1532, in der Chronica Yen., which 
Guazzo uses, but with great freedom. 

II Marchiando con gran solazzo verso Vienna. 



402 



ARMAMENT OF THE EMPIRE. 



Book VI. 



wards without the slightest tumult or dis- 
order. 

Such was the pomp and majesty with which 
the Sublime Porte rose up and advanced to 
take possession of the empire of the ^A'orld. 
From all sides the armed bands of its subjects 
hastened to join its standard. The army which 
crossed the frontier of Hungary in June was 
reckoned at two hundred and fifty thousand 
men. 

Such was the camp in w^hich Ferdinand's 
ambassadors at length arrived. But what ne- 
gotiations were likely to have power to stem 
this torrent 1 

I do not find that the envoys adhered very 
strictly to their instructions. They proceeded, 
however, so far as to promise- both the sultan 
and the wesir a yearly tribute for that part of 
Hungary which was still in Ferdinand's hands. 
On the wesir this made some impression ', but 
the feultan utterly rejected it. ^' For who would 
assure him." he said, "that while he was at 
peace w^ith Ferdinand, his brother, the King of 
Spain, would not attack him? But he would 
seek out that monarch, who, for three years 
past, had boasted of achieving great things. 
If the King of Spain has the courage," added 
he. "let him await me in the field. With 
God's grace, I shall come up with him, and 
then let God's will decide between us." 

The ambassadors were asked how long it 
took to reach Regensburg- they answered 
that, by the shortest way, a man must ride 
for a month. This long march the Ottomans 
seemed resolved to undertake. 

And in Regensburg-the States of the empire 
were just assembled to hold the long-deferred' 
diet J" on the 17th April, the proceedings had 
been opened. 

The emperor wished for an augmentation 
of the succours already granted him in Augs- 
burg. An opinion of the council of war had 
been given in, according to which ninety thou- 
sand men, of whom twenty thousand were to 
be light horse, were required.^ The emperor 
wished to have sixty thousand from the em- 
pire, promising; in that case, to furnish thirty 
thousand at his own expense. But it was quite 
contrary to all the precedents of the empire to 
increase a former grant. None of the dele- 
gates or envoys of the States were prepared 
for it ; and the subsidies already voted — forty 
thousand foot and eight thousand horse — were 
larger than any ever granted before. On the 
28th of May,' the emperor declared himself 
satisfied, and only urged that the troops might 
be assembled as rapidly and in as effective a 
state as possible. The place of meeting was 
not, as at first intended, Regensburg, but 
Vienna, — nearer to the enemy. The whole 
body of troops were to meet there on the 15th 
of August. For the first time, the military 



* They demanded 32,000 foot with long spears, 10,000 
with short arms, 8000 good marksmen, 500 arquebuses, 
and a few thousand men to serve the artillery. This was 
reckoned at 118 pieces; falcons, falconets, culverijies, 
nightingales, carronades, mortars, &c. — Opinion of the 
Council of- War. The Berlin archives contain the letters 
of Barfuss, concerning the first proceedings of the diet, in 
which we see that the opening of it took place on the 17th 
April, 



constitution of the ^empire was in real and 
active-operation. 

Even M'hile the diet was sitting, meetings 
of the circles were convoked, commanders 
appointed, and their pay provided, and the 
whole armament gradually put in a train.- 

But the thing on which the execution of all 
these decrees depended was, the result of the 
negotiations with the Protestants. 

What would be the consequence of their 
rejection was soon seen, when the emperor 
prepared to bring his own army into the field. 
He was particularly in want of fire-arms and 
of powder, and he was obliged to apply to the 
cities of Strasburg. Augsburg, Ulm, Nürnberg, 
Constance and Frankfurt, to come to his aid 
with theirs. They were all Protestants. t 

Even the Catholic States observed to the 
emperor that, before making war abroad, they 
must be secure of peace at home.t 

It may even be asserted tiiat the religious 
dissensions of the Germans were not among 
the feeblest of the motives that prompted 
Suleiman's undertaking. Whenever the am- 
bassadors in the Turkish camp said that the 
emperor enjoyed the dutiful attachment of 
his subjects, they were asked, whether he had 
made peace wnth Martin Luther. The arii- 
bassadors replied, that indeed disputes some- 
times arose in Christendom, but that they did 
not interfere with the general welfare; the 
peace in question would soon be concluded. § 

This was now to be seen. Let us turn our 
attention to the negotiations; momentous as 
is the crisis at which we are now arrived; 
these are interesting and important on other 
ai|^ m.ore lasting grounds. 

NEGOTIATIONS W^TH THE PROTESTANTS. 

When, in the summer of 1531, the negotia- 
tions were opened, the Catholics thought to 
resume them at the point where they hg.d 
tieen broken off at Augsburg. 

But it was immediately evident how wädely 
circumstances were altered. The Protest- 
ants no longer made, they received, petitions. 
They declared that it no longer seemed to 
them advisable to attempt to bring about a 
unity of religion ; they, for their parts, were 
determined to adhere to their protest and con- 
fession, and would render a further account 
of them before a Christian council. 

They had a corresponding answer ready for 
every other proposal. 

They w^ere requested no longer to deprive 
the clergy of '• their own." They replied, that 



t Fürstenberg to Frankfurt, 7th June. , 

t Denken Chf FF. und Stände, wo der eusserlich krieg 
statlichen sol yolnbracht werden, dass zuvor die hohe 
Notdurft erfordern wolle, anheym den Frieden zu halten, 

damit ein 3'der wiss, wie er neben dem andern sitz, 

dass auch in allen andern Artikeln vermög E. K. M. Aus- 
schreybens daneben furgeschritten, gehandelt,— einer mit 
dem andern beschlossen\verde.— The electors, princes, and 
states think, that if foreign war is to be carried on 
grandly, the first thing necessary will be, to keep the 
peace at home, so that every man may know how he sits 
next to his neighbour,— that also in all other articles in 
virtue of Y. I. M.'s summons, atFairs should be proceeded 
with, negotiated, and one with another concluded. 
§ Report of the ambassadors, p. 31. 



Chap. VI. 



NEGOTIATIONS IN NÜRNBERG. 



403 



if the bishops were allowed to retain their juris- 
.diclioii (for that was what was chiefly meant 
by ■•' their own"'), it would be putting ä sword 
into their hands, wherewith at any time to 
extirpate the true doctrine. 

Farther, the emperor renewed the request 
that the exercise of the ancient ritual, espe- 
cially the communion in one kind, should be 
permitted. Brück, the Chancellor of Saxony, 
replied that, in that case, the communion ni 
both kinds must be permitted throughout the 
empire; peace could not be established so 
long as the liberty with regard to the two most 
important sacraments was not perfectly equal 
throughout the nation. 

Lastly, the election was mentioned. Turk, 
the Cnancellor of Mainz, expressed his opinion 
that the opposition of the Protestant party was 
raised only with a view to promote their reli- 
gious interests. Dr. Brück replied, that he 
could assure him that his party had no fear 
whatever for their religion ; it had penetrated 
too deeply into the hearts of the people : every 
one riow knew^ how to discern right from 
wrong. The serious intention of the Protest- 
ants uas, that the king should either, allow 
the thing to come to a legal settlement, or 
content himself with ruling over those v»-ho 
had elected him.* 

Such are the most important points of these 
negotiations, which till huge bundles of docu- 
ments in various archives.! The elector pala- 
tine kept up a constant correspondence with 
the landgrave ; the Elector of Mainz with the 
Elector of Saxony; and both of them with 
each other, and with the other members of the 
Schmalkaldic league. Occasionally, imperial 
plenipotentiaries came to Weimar ; the Elec- 
tor of Mainz took the opportunity, during his 
journey between, Halle and Aschatfenburg, to 
speak with one or other of the most intluen- 
tial functionaries of Saxony; lastly, the two 
chancellors met in Bitterfeid, and drew up 
new proposals, Vv-hich they sent to Brussels. 
The emperor turned pale vv^hen this at%.ir, to 
which he had such a repugnance, was brought 
before him again ; but he did not refuse to 
hear it, ask-ed his brother's advice, and mode- 
rated or confirmed his propositions accord- 
ingly. 

So long as there remained the faintest pos- 
sibility of an accommodation with the Turks, 
we need not wonder that no progress was 
made in these affairs. In Schweinfurt, where 
the conferences were held in the beginning 
of the year 1532, not the smallest advance 
was made ; the mediators deemed it best to 
let the business of the election entirely drop; 
and in Nürnberg, whither the negotiations 
were transferred, in order to be nearer the 
emperor, the mediators at first only renewed j 



* Dr. Briick's Seport of what he negotiated with Dr. 
Turk ia Bitterfeld, Wednesday in the Christmas holidays 
('JTth December, 1.531). There was a second meeting, on 
Thursday after the Purificalioa B. V. M. (5th February), 
concerning which tliere is a similar report in the Weim. 
Arch. 

t In Weimar, Cassel, Magdeburg, Vienna. (See Bu- 
choltz, Bd. ix. Erhard, Ueberlieferungen, Bd. i.) 



I the old proposals, and even added some limi- 
{ tations.if: 

! It was not till positive intelligence was re- 
i ceived thai the sultan's progress could not be. 
arrested, and that he was advancing in greater 
force than ever, that the two parties began 
earnestly to endeavour to accommodate their 
differences. 

Not that they had the smallest idea of 
coming to a perfect agreement. The Protest- 
ants aspired to nothing more than to see the 
position they had taken up at least provision- 
ally recognised by the emperor. They de- 
manded the proclamation of a general peace, 
and the suspension of the proceedings of the 
Imperial Chamber, by which they felt them- 
selves aggrieved. 

But even these proved extremely difficult 
to obtain. 

The mediators had again used the expres- 
sion, '-'No one shall dispossess another of his 
own." No wonder if this provoked the oppo- 
sition of the Protestants. There was again no 
mention of any peace, except that between 
the several States; whereas the Protestants 
demanded that the peace '• between his im- 
perial majesty and themselves should be also 
proclaimed to all the States of the German 
nation." 

Another obstacle to an arrangement was, 
the description of the council. The Protest- 
ants had demanded "a council in which ques- 
tions should be terminated according to the 
pure word of God." This description was 
pronounced to be insidious, and not Catholic. 
But as •'• a general free council, such as was 
determined on at the diet of Nürnberg," were 
the words substituted, the Protestants had 
ample reason to be content, since they had 
always insisted on an adherence to the reso- 
lutions of that diet. 

But the difficulty arising from the proceed- 
ings of the Chamber was much greater. 

t Endliche Mittel und Fürschläg, worauf Kais. Mt uf 
d' Schwel nfurtiächen Handlung empfangenen Bericht — 
— zu handeln befohlen. — Final means and proposals 
whereupon his imperial majesty, on the receipt of the 
negotiations at Schweinfurt, has commanded us to treat. 
Monday after Boniface (10th June). It is an error in most 
editions of Luther's Works (e. g., Walch, xvii. p 2202), 
that the proposals were given in at Schweinfurt. The 
Protestants sent their answer on the 12th June. In Art. 
I. they missed the words, " who adopt in future into their 
doctrine the confession and apologia they have already 
made, which they acknowledge themselves bound by 
Christian duly to accept." Art. 2, concerning the council, 
they allege that the w^ords, " that it shall determine ac- 
cording to the pure word of God alone," are wanting. So 
it goes on, and it is evident that they did not in the least 
give way. On the ISth July, on the contrary, they prayed, 
''that as to outward things, not belonging to God's word 
and to conscience, a general, permanent, internal peace 
may be treated of, and that the same may be concluded." 
This turn of things was expressly confirmed by a letter 
from John Frederic to the count of Nuenar, Sunday after 
St. James (30 July, 1532), wherein he complains that ha 
has been detained eight weeks at Nürnberg, and then re- 
ports the negotiations. " His imperial majesty's mind is 
kept in such a state by the two electors, that nothing ad- 
vantageous could be transacted ; and we on our parts re- 
marked so many difficulties therein, that we could not 
treat on those articles with the approbation of God or 
with a good conscience. Hence we have at last entirely 
rejected the articles, which ought to have been conducive 
to unity, since such were the terms offered; and have dis- 
cussed laow a general peace should be brought about in 
the empire." (Weira. Arch.) 



404 



CONCESSIONS OF THE PROTESTANTS. 



Book VI. 



The idea of attacking the Protestants by pro- 
cess of law, was far more that of the majority 
than of the emperor. The tribunal itself was, 
as we have seen, an institution representing 
the States. We remember how much trouble 
it cost to set limits to the influence of the im- 
perial court over it. In the proceedings of 
that tribunal against the Protestants, resolved 
on at Augsburg, and already in full progress, 
the Catholic party beheld its most powerful 
weapon. And in these they obstinately per- 
sisted, notwithstanding all their occasional 
declarations of the necessity of a peace. In 
the draft of a recess which they iaid before 
the emperor on the 10th July, an article de- 
clares that, in matters of religion, the recess 
of Augsburg must be adhered to generally, 
and especially by the Imperial Chamber.*' 
The papal legate also refused to give his as- 
sent to an inhibition of the imperial fiscal in 
affairs of faith. 

Such were the perplexities in which the 
emperor was involved. In order to resist the 
Turks, the tranquillity of the empire was ab- 
solutely necessary. But the sole condition 
which could assure peace to the Protestants, 
the Catholics refused him the power to grant. t 

At length the imperial court came to this 
compromise: — in the public proclamation, to 
announce only the peace, but to give the Pro- 
testants a private assurance of the suspension 
of the legal proceedings. This, too, was not 
so complete as ihe Protestants wished. They 
had demanded a declaration, that the emperor 
would, neither through his lisca], nor through 
his chamber, nor in any other court of justice; 
and also, neither officially nor at the instiga- 
gation of any other person or persons, allow 
proceedings to be taken against Saxony or his 
kinsmen and allies^ The emperor was not to 
be induced to agree to so many express 
clauses. He only promised, that he would 
stay alL law proceedings instituted ''by his 
majesty's fiscal and others,"'! in matters of 
the faith against the Elector of Saxony and his 
associates, until the convocation of the council. 
This promise did not absolutely offend the 
majority, and yet might be interpreted in the 
sense of the Protestants, and as satisfying 
their principal demand. 

On the other hand, that party had deter- 
mined on a great concession, which is indeed 
iraphed in those words. Their original mean- 
ing had been that the assurance given them 
\should also avail for all those who might join 
iheir confession in future ; they had -even 
demanded freedom of preaching and of the 
Lord's Supper according to their ritual, for 

' * Letter from Planitz to Taubenheim, 11th July. 

t Declaration of the emperor, sent by Planitz to Saxony, 
Thursday after St. John the Baptist (27th June). "And 
since the above-mentioned States have seen good to aban- 
don all further means and negotiations for peace, an,d ad- 
here to the recess of Augsburg, his majesty requests with 
peculiar earnestness of the above-mentioned States, that 
they will consider what may be the consequences to the 
cause of the faith." 

X He could be uf ought to nothing beyond the addition 
of the words, "and others." In the original draft his 
majesty's fiscal only was mentioned. The negotiations 
remained wavering till the day of the final resolution, the 
Tuesday after S.-. Mary Magdalene. '* 



the subjects of foreign dominions. But this, 
again, it was impossible to obtain from the 
emperor. The principal motive which he 
used to overcome the objections of the legate, 
was, that he put a check to Protestantism by 
means of this treaty. § The second demand 
was, in fact, the same which the city cantons 
of Switzerland had made, — the same which 
had led to war in that country, and to such 
disastrous consequences. Luther himself said 
that it could not be complied with by their 
opponents; could it be hoped, for example, 
that Duke George would freely admit the 
evangehcal doctrine into Leipsig? Impos- 
sible ; — they, on their side, would not permit 
neighbouring princes to interfere in the inter- 
nal affairs of their country. Luther was, as 
we have seen, a faithful ally of the territorial 
power of the princes. His conception of the 
empire likewise prevented his approving such 
a demand. He said it was as if they, the 
Protestants, wanted to take advantage of the 
emperor; Jhat is to say, to usurp an influence 
over the conduct of public affairs, in conse- 
quence of the necessity for defence. He was 
rather comforted that "the emperor, the su- 
preme authority ordained of God, should so 
graciously offer to make peace, and give such 
clement and liberal commands for that end." 
"I esteem it no otherwise," says he, '-than 
that God held out his hand to us." ' That the 
progress of the evangelical faith was thus im- 
peded, disquieted him little; he said, "every- 
body must believe at his own peril ;" that is, 
must be -Sufficiently strong in his belief to en- 
counter v/hatever dangers it might subject 
him to. II Elector John was entirely of the 
same opinion; it was in harmony with the 
purely defensive attitude he had assumed 
from the first ; his ruling sentiment was, the 
necessity for a perfect justification of all he 
did by his own conscience. He did not suffer 
himself to be carried away by the brilliant 
extension of the league, at the head of which 
he stood, to swerve from the principles on 
which it was originally founded. He, too, 
thought, like Luther, that they ought not to 
give up the present good, the greatest on 
earth — peace, — for the sake of a contingent 
addition to their numbers. And accordingly 
he did not allow any limiting clause to be in- 
serted in the treaty, — he bound himself by no 
promise for the future, — except that those 
States alone should be admitted into it, who 
belonged to the league, including Markgrave 
George and Nürnberg; all the princes and 
States, in short, with whom we are already 
familiar, and who had been joined by Nord- 
hausen and Hamburg. The Landgrave of 
Hessen, who entertained the contrary opir 
nion, was at first not contented, but he after- 
wards acquiesced. IF 



§ Granvella urged the " inconvenient irremediable, sans 
quelque traite pour (?) infecter le reste de la chretient6, 
comme I'experience I'a evidemment demontre."— Bucholtz, 
ix. p. 32. 

|( Reflections of Luther and Justus Jonas. De Wette, 
iv. 339. In his somewhat later reflections he reminds his 
prince, in his relations with his neighbours, of the prin- 
ciple, quod tibi non vis fieri, alteri ne feceris. 

IT Opinion of his theologians, Neudecker Urkk. 199. 



Chap. VI. 



RECESS OF 1532. 



405 



It may be regarded as a peculiar favour of 
Providence, that the aged Elector of Saxony 
lived to witness these days of peace. We 
have seen above how much of the merit of 
founding the evangelical church was due to 
this simple-hearted man. He now enjoyed 
great consideration in the empire. Even a 
member of the imperial court (Count Nuenar) 
describes him as " the one father of the Ger- 
man land in things human and divine."* But 
his mind was too much imbued with the sen- 
timents of a prince of the empi/e, to be satis- 
fied so long as he was at variance with the 
emperor. It formed part of the fulfilment of 
his destiny, to have regained the friendship 
of his chief; to have lived to see the legality 
of the position he had taken up with regard 
to the supreme power, acknowledged, after it 
had been so strenuously denied; and thus to 
have made a most important step towards the 
permanence of the religious establishment of 
which he was the founder. In August, both 
the public declarations and the private assur- 
ances of the emperor appeared. Shortly after- 
wards, when the elector had been once more 
taking the pleasure of the chase, with his two 
daughters and the fugitive Electress of Bran- 
denburg, and had come back in a very cheer- 
ful mood, he was struck with sudden death 
by apoplexy. ^' He who can trust on God," 
says Luther, in the epitaph he wrote for his 
master and friend, ^-abides in security and 
peace." 

Meanwhile, however, the emperor, pressed 
by necessity, determined to make concessions 
to the Protestants, which had neither been 
suggested nor approved by the majority ; a 
line of conduct which altered his whole posi- 
tion. The experiment which he had made in 
Augsburg — to govern with the majority — he 
now relinquished; while the majority, seeing 
that they did not find in him the support they 
expected, raised such an opposition to him at 
the diet of Regensburg as he had never before 
experienced. The States made reproachful 
representations concerning his entire system 
of government ; — the delays of business ; the 
appointment of foreigners, even to places in 
the chancery ; the arrears of his share of the 
salaries of the Imperial Chamber; his arbi- 
trary conduct towards Wiirtenberg, Maastricht 
(which he was accordingly compelled to sepa- 
rate from Brabant and reinstate in its ancient 
liberties), and Utrecht. t Not only did he not 



* William von Nuenar to .John Frederic, 11th June (W. 
A.), " Dann wir haben lej'der keynen mynschen, den wir 
für ein vaTer des duytschen Vaterlandes in jijotlichen und 
menschlichen Sachen achten mögen, denn allein U. F. G. 
Herr Vater und U. F. G., wir wollen widder mit gfotlicher 
Hülfe um U. F. G. stan." «See. — " For unhappily we have 
no man v/hom we can reverence and respect as a father 
of the German fatherland in divine and human things, 
suve only Y. P. Grace's father, and Y. P. G.: we will 
again, with the divine help, stand around Y. P. Grace," 
<&c. 

t Letter from Fürstenbersr, 8th July. The emperor re- 
plied to a reproach of this kind, that the suggestion was 
wholly "untimely and inconsiderate, and, aslt appeared 
to H. iVT., not made with the knowledge of all the States; 
all in biting and sharp words." Fürstenberg finds the re- 
proaches very just ; but he was not pleased at them, be- 
cause they were likely to irritate the emperor, who had 
'eft his wife and child in order to attend to the business 
of the empire. 



dare to publish the assurances above men- 
tioned in favour of the Protestants, but he 
was compelled, in direct contradiction with 
them, to confirm the decrees "which had been 
passed at the recent visitation of the Imperial 
Chamber, wherein the execution of the recess 
of Augsburg v/as enjoined afresh. Nay, the 
majority even held out a sort of distant menace 
of the possibihty of a coalition of the two reli- 
gious parties against him. On reading in the 
recess of the empire, that the States vehe- 
niently pressed for a council, we are not at 
first particularly struck with the fact ; but if 
we weigh these words with greater attention, 
and mark their origin, we shall see its vast 
importance. In the summer of 1531, Bavaria 
and Hessen had jointly determined upon this 
point: at a meeting between Landgrave Philip 
and Dr. Leonhard von Eck, at Giessen, it had 
been determined that, if the pope deferred the 
council longer, they would urge the emperor 
to summon one of his own authority ; if the 
emperor also, from one cause or another, ne- 
glected to convoke it, an assembly of the 
States should be called to discuss the means 
of restoring the unity of religion and of putting 
a stop to crime. I It is obvious that the oppo- 
sition to the emperor was one means of unitnig 
two leaders of the hostile parties in this deter- 
mination; still the fact is very extraordinary^ 
It was, indeed, not with the emperor's good 
will that he promised, in the recess of Regens- 
burg, that if the general council was not con- 
voked by the pope within six months, and 
was not actually held within a year, he would 
summon an assembly of the empire, to delibe- 
rate on the evils that afiiicted the German na- 
tion generally, and on the means of removing 
them. He distinctly felt that this resolution 
was forced upon him, and might become dan- 
gerous. And, indeed, he avoided sum.moning 
another diet for eight yearS; from the fear that 
it should constitute itself a national assembly, 
and pass decrees on religious affairs entirely 
at variance with his own.§ 

Such was now the aspect of things in Ger- 
many. Not only did the two religious parties 
stand confronted in a hostile attitude, but new 
divisions had broken out in their own ranks. 
The Catholic majority was discontented with 
the emperor ; while the Landgrave of Hessen 
exchanged sarcastic, nay, insulting letters with 
the electoral prince, John Frederic of Saxony, 
who now filled the place of his father. || Hes- 
sen and Bavaria, on the other hand, had formed 
a closer political connexion ; but this could lead 
to no result, since the contrast between the two 
religious tendencies was nowhere so strongly 
exhibited as in the persons of these two 



X Correspondence in the Weim. Arch. ; e-'iitracts thert 
from, and article of the agreement of Giessen in the Ap- 
pendix. 

§ Declaration of the emperor to the pope, in the year 
1539. Rainaldus, x.xi. 104. Rem esse periculi pleiiam, 
alia indicere comitia, perpensa maxime sanctione ordi- 
num imperii, — ut Pp. Clemens de convocando concilio ro- 
garetur, quo non convocato Caesar iliud convocaret, — ac 
si huic muneri is deesset, ut concilium nationale coge- 
rent. 

11 There is a whole roll of these letters copied in the 
W.A. 



406 



SULEIMAN IN HUNGARY. 



Book VI. 



princes. The emperor and Saxony had framed 
an accommodation ; but it was easy to foresee 
what difficulties would attend its execution. 

The emperor no longer appeared, as at 
Augsburg, in the full vigour to be expected 
from his time of life. He was ill the whole 
summer; a hurt in the leg, which he got by a 
fall while hunting the wolf, took so danoerous 
a turn, that his physicians thought his thigh 
must be amputated, and one night the sacra- 
ments were administered to him. The injury 
M^as" aftei'wards renewed by the part he im- 
prudently took in a procession, and perhaps 
by excesses of another kind ; during the diet. 
he repaired to the baths of Abach in the hope 
of a cure, and was sometimes inaccessible 
even to his brother. When the States went to 
announce to him that the succours for the 
Turkish M-ar were granted, they found him in 
his bedroom, sitting on a wooden bench with- 
out cushions, in the plainest dress, with a 
green bough in his hand, with which he was 
brushing away the flies; '^ in his vest," says 
the Frankfurt ambassador, " with so lowly an 
air, that the meanest servant could not bear 
himself so humbly."* 

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TURKS. 

And this feeble and sickly emperor, — this 
empire torn by such deep-rooted dissensions, — 
were now to sustain the attack of the mighty 
chief of the Ottomans, at the head of his 
countless bands. How difi^erent was his ap- 
pearance ! When Ferdinand's ambassadors 
had audience of him, not far from Belgrade, 
they were first conducted far and wide through 
the camp, both of the foot and horse soldiers, 
splendidly accoutred ; then through the ranks 
of the Janissaries, who met them with a some- 
what insolent air, until they were received near 
the emperor's tent with trumpets and clarions, 
and at length were permitted to enter and to 
behold the lord of all these armies in his 
splendour, sitting on a golden throne: near 
him was a splendid crown,- and before him, 
on the pillars of the throne, two magnificent 
sabres in scabbards inlaid with mother-of- 
pearl, and a richly ornamented bow and 
quiver. The ambassadors valued the jewels 
they saw at 1,200,000 ducats. On the 20th 
July, the Turkish army crossed the Drave 
over twelve bridges of boats in the neighbour- 
hood of Essek. Suleiman marched through 
Hungary, as if it had been his own undis- 
puted territory. The castles which he passed 
sent out their keys to meet him. He punished 
the magnates who had deserted Zapolya ; his 
approach struck terror into the others, and 
many of those who had remained true to Fer- 
dinand, and now saw themselves abandoned, 
fell off from the house of Austria. 

Germany now began to make serious pre- 
parations for defence. 

The first who appeared in the field, even 
before the negotiations had come to an end, 

* Fürstenberg, Tuesday after Whitsuntide, and in other 
letters. Ferdinand to Maria, 3d April, 1532. Gevay, 



were the Niirnbergers. They were bound 
to furnish only one/company; but "for the 
honour of the empire and the weal of Christ- 
endom" they had equipped two; altogether 
eight hundred men, among whom two hundred 
w^ere armed with matchlocks and fifty with 
arquebuses. Meanwhile, they,~with some of 
their neighbours, recruited a hundred reiters 
in Brunswick (among whom we find a Kamp, 
a Biirsberg, and a Mimchhausen), who were 
hospitably received on their arrival in the city, 
furnished with beer,_^wine and oats, and on the 
21st of August, took their way against the 
enemy under Sebastian von Jessen and Martin 
Pfinzing. Besides this, Nürnberg gave the 
emperor fifteen pieces of heavy artillery, 175 
hundred-weight of powder, 1000 lafices for the 
infantry, 200 coats of armour for the heralds, 
and a large stock of flour. t Such were the 
munificent contributions of a single city, and 
all the others vied with Nürnberg. The im- 
perial deputy, who carried to Ulm the requi- 
sition to prepare for war, had not returned to 
his quarters, when he heard the sound of the 
drum, calling the people to arms. Augsburg 
instantly declared itself ready to send all its 
artillery to Vienna. It appears from a letter 
of the Frankfurt envoy, that the firmness with 
which the emperor had resisted the majority, 
had produced a great impression on the cities. t 
For a moment, the Protestants raised the ques- 
tion, whether it would not be expedient to 
keep together, and to fight under a captain of 
their own; but this suggestion was speedily 
dismissed; it would have involved a fresh 
division, and they chose rather to serve ac- 
cording to the order of the circles. Meet- 
ings were held in all the circles at which a 
captain was nominated, to whom each State 
in the circle delivered a list of the men it in- 
tended to furnish. It was his business to see 
that the complement was actually under arms, 
whom it admonished to be obedient to their 
appointed leader. He had also the right to 
fill all offices with the most capable men of 
the circle. The persons from whom he was 
to receive his pay were determined, and were 
in return to enjoy certain privileges. § In the 
circle of Lower Saxony, doubtless on account 
of the daily increasing religious dissensions^ it 
was found impossible to come to a unanimous 
choice of a captain; the emperor, therefore, 
in virtue of the right which in this case de- 
volved upon him, nominated the young Mark- 
grave Joachim of Brandenburg. At the be- 
ginning of August, the whole empire was in a 
state of warlike preparation. "Daily," says 
Cardinal Campeggi, in a letter of the 8th, 
" do we see the finest companies of horse and 



t Müllner's Annals : "all this was destined to the for- 
tification and provisioning of the city of Vienna." 

J "Es erwindet fürwahr nicht an Ks. Mt. und wird I. 
Mt. gnedig Gemüt und Herz auch von den Städten der- 
massen gespürt, dass sie I. Mt. mehr als ihre gebührliche 
Hülfe senden."—" There will truly be nothing wanting to 
your I. M., and your 1. Majesty's gracious mind and heart 
are so understood by the cities that they send more than 
their proper contingent." 

§ Proceedings of the meeting of the circle of the Upper 
Rhine, at which Philip von Dhun was appointed. Frank- 
furt Records. 



VI. 



SIEGE OF GÜNZ. 



407 



foot pass through Regensburg ; they go forth 
in high spirits, and doubt not of victory." 
Tlie emperor, too, was full of courage. He 
remarked, that he could only be the gainer in 
this war, whether he were the victor or the 
vanquished. Were he conquered, he would 
leave behind him an illustrious name, and 
secure his entrance into paradise; if he were 
victorious, he would not only gain favour in 
the sight of God, but perhaps extend the em- 
pire to its ancient limits, live glorious on earth, 
and bequeath a great name to posterity,* He 
appeared to wish nothing more earnestly than 
to meet his adversary face to face. 

Meanwhile a most glorious, not to say mar- 
vellous, feat of arms had already been achieved 
in Hungary. 

We are acquainted with the name of Nicho- 
las Jurischitz, one of the two ambassadors of 
King Ferdinand to the sultan, in 1530. 1531. 
At that time, when the envoys fomid all nego- 
tiations fruitless, they said they saw that Hun- 
gary was destined to be the grave both of 
Turks and Christians. Jurischitz now seemed 
resolved to prove the truth of this prediction. 
He was just about to leave the city and castle 
of Günz (where he filled the office of captain) 
to a lieutenant, and t(? join his sovereign with 
a small band of ten heavy and twenty light 
horsemen, when the approach of the Turks 
filled the town with crowds of fugitives. He 
determined to remain, to afford these unhappy 
people at least a momentary defence, and to 
arrest the progress of the great army for a few 
days. He never entertained a hope of making 
any successful resistance to such an enemy. 
'■'I had made up my mind," says he. " to cer- 
tain death." The Turks appeared in full 
force and began the siege in the customary 
manner ; planted their cannon on the nearest 
heights, dug mines and tried to enter by the 
breaches. Jurischitz had no other soldiers 
than his thirty reiters, the rest were all inhab- 
itants of 'the town, or fugitive peasants; they 
might amount to about seven hundred in all. 
Yet they drove back the Turkish storming 
parties eleven times, and made that dauntless 
resistance which nothing but the determina- 
tion rather to die than surrender, could have 
inspired. At length, however — as was inevita- 
ble—all was vain. The Turks had thrown up 
two great heaps of rubbish to the height of 
the wall; on one of these they planted their 
largest guns, which now commanded the walls, 
and under cover of their fire a broad way 
could be made from the other to the Vvall. 
The assault thus prepared was made on the 
28lh of August by Janissaries and horsemen; 
and it was impossible, as may easily be ima- 
gined, to m.ake any resistance to such a supe- 
riority both of numbers and position. The 
besieged were soon driven into their last en- 
trenchment, where they still maintained the 
fig-ht, though with failing strength; already 



* NiccoloTiepoIo, Relatione di 1533: 11 che diceva sem- 
pre. che si vedeva non solameiite pronto a q.uesta im- 
presa, ina quasi arder di desiderio che Ji venjsse occa- 
sione di sorta che potesse honestamente esponere la 
persona sua a cal fortuna. 



the Turkish banner floated from eight different 
points on the walls. Jurischitz expected no- 
thing but death. '-'I rejoice," said he, ••that 
God's grace hath appointed me so honourable 
an end.'" But he was reserved for a wondrous 
deliverance. The defenceless fugitives — wo- 
men, children and aged men — now beheld 
themselves given over to the fury of their ter- 
rible and barbarous foe. At the moment when 
he Mas rushing upon them they uttered a cry, 
in which the imploring appearto Heaven was 
blended with the shriek of despair; that 
piercing cry udiich nature forces unconsciously 
from the living creature when threatened with 
inevitable destruction. If this can be called 
a prayer, never was prayer more instantly 
heard. The conquering Ottomans recoiled 
with alarm from the terrific sound. The re- 
sistance they had encountered had long ap- 
peared to them almost miraculous, and they 
now thought they saw fresh troops issue from 
every house; they imagined they beheld m 
the air a knight in full harness, brandishing 
his sword at them with menacing gestures. 
They retreated. -The Almighty God," ex- 
cla^imed Jurischitz, "has visibly saved us.'-t 

We might liken this to the Delphic god who 
opposed the irruption of the Gauls into Greece j 
to the apparition which called aloud to Drusus, 
in the centre of Germany, '-'Thus far, and no 
farther;" or to other of those sudden turns of 
fortune which, at the mom^ent of their occur- 
rence, have impressed the minds of men with 
a sense of the presence of a higher Power 
(under whatever form they conceived it); — 
but we will not venture into these regions ; it 
is enough for us to say that dauntless valour 
and complete self-devotion were crowned with 
their usual success. 

Suleiman resolved to leave his brave enemy, 
who could not have held out one hour longer, 
under a guard, and to march onward. 

In the interval, however, the emperor had 
had time to collect his forces. He himself had 
raised 12.000 landskneqhts, who had mustered 
in the neighbourhood of Augsburg. Spanish 
grandees had come to win honour under the 
eye of their emperor, in the war against the 
infidels. The Duke of Ferrara had sent a 
hundred huomini d' armi. Other Italians ar- 
rived, under the conduct of the young Ippolito 
de' Medici, nephew of Pope Clement VII. 
King Ferdinand's hereditary domains had done 
their best, and no means were neglected to 
raise money; he had even applied to several 
Netherland nobles, and to devout rich women, 
urging that no one could better employ his 
wealth than in the defence of Christendom. |: 
But the militia of the empire formed ^the 
main strength of his army. The great muster 
took place in the Tulner field, near Vienna. 
The numbers cannot be precisely ascertained ; 
the most credible accounts vary from 76,000 
to 86,000 men. On one point, however, they 
are all agreed ; — that it was the finest army 

t Letter from Jurischitz in Gobel's Beiträgen, p. 303.— 
Also what Jovius heard from his own lips, Üb. xsx. p. 
105. Sepulveda, x. 17—23. 

I Letter from Ferdinand to Maria. Gevay, ii. 23. 



408 



SULEIMAN'S RETREAT. 



Book 



vfr 



that had been seen in Christendom for centu- 
ries. It combined the qualities which had 
won the great victories in Italy; German 
strength and discipline, Italian activity, and 
the dogged craftiness of the Spaniards. But 
the German ingredient was by far the largest. 

Suleiman had advanced in the expectation 
that the divisions which reigned in Christen- 
dom, and especially in Germany, would tie 
the emperor's hands and render a vigorous 
and effective resistance impossible. When he 
saw before him so numerous and well-appointed 
an army, he had not the courage (which he 
had so often vaunted) to seek them in the 
field. 

Despatching his Akindschi, 15,000 in num- 
ber, towards Austria, he himself marched into 
Styria and appeared before Gratz.^' The 
Akindschi were light troops, commanded by a 
chief, the crest of whose helmet was a vulture 
— the symbol of swiftness and rapacity. They 
were, however, driven by one band of Germans 
into the hands of another, and almost annihi- 
lated ; Gratz defended itself, and, in the mean 
time, tidings arrived that Doria had obtained 
signal successes over Zai-beg in the Ionian 
seas. Suleiman recognised the ascendancy 
of the star of his rival, and determined to 
withdraw from so perilous a struggle by a 
rapid retreat. f 

The emperor had, as we have observed, 
wished to give battle to the enemy \ for a de- 
cisive victory might have restored Hungary to 
his brother. But he was satisfied with this 
less brilhant result. " God's grace has granted 
us the glory and the happiness," he writes to 
the pope, "to have put the common enemy of 
Christendom to flight, and to have averted the 
mischief which he designed to inflict on us. "I 
He was fully sensible that this was not a mere 
momaentary advantage. It was a gain forever, 
that the fear of the warlike array of the Ger- 
mans, — the impression of their superior force, 
had rendered the sultan averse to engage in 
the struggle, and had determined him fo re- 
treat. 

Doria, too, had gained brilliant advantages 
for the emperor. He had driven the Ottoman 
squadron out of the Ionian seas, pursued them 
beyond Cerigo, and taken Coron, Patras and 
the Dardanelles in rapid succession. Large 
cannon with Arabic inscriptions were brought 
to Genoa, and placed in the Doria chapel on 
the Molo.§ 

The satisfaction of King Ferdinand was far 
less complete than that of his brother. He 
had really hoped to recover Hungary — Bel- 
grade not excepted, in the full tide of victory. 
But the troops thought they had done enough 
in having repulsed the enemy from the fron- 
tiers of Germany. The captains produced 
their instructions, in which no mention was 

* True description of the second expedition into Austria. 
From an old Nürnberg printed paper of 1539, in Göhei's 
Beiträgen, p. 309. The writing is taken from the cor- 
respondence of the Count Palatine. 

t Schartlins Lebensbeschreibung, p. 35. Hammer, iii. 
p. 118. 

X Sandoval, ii. 

§ Jovius, lib. xxxi. Historia del Guazzo, p. 124. 



made of the conquest of Hungary. The com- 
mander-in-chief. Count Palatine Frederic, re- 
fused to advance. The main cause of this 
was, that Ferdinand had lost the favour of the 
nation by the zeal he had evinced for the 
Papacy ; the people would make no conquests 
for him. They wished rather to see him 
weaker than stronger, as soon became evident. 



CHAPTER VII. 

IXFLUEXCE OF FRAXCE. RESTORATION OF WUß- 
TEN BERG. 

1533, 1534. 

It had appeared as if Latin Christendom, 
united under the emperor and the pope, were 
about to fall with all its weight upon the se- 
ceders from its body, and to annihilate them. 

Instead of this, however, it happened that 
one of its chiefs was compelled, in order to 
ward off the attack of the powerful foes who 
more immediately threatened himself and his 
house, to come to terms with the Protestants, 
and to grant them temporary immunity. The 
positive concession was not the only thing they 
gained • it was a no less important advantage 
to them to be thus associated in the great na- 
tional enterprise, and to contribute their full 
share to the defence of their common father- 
land. 

But meanwhile the intestine discords which 
we have noticed had broken out afresh among 
those from whom the Protestants had the most 
to fear. 

King Francis was unquestionably bound by 
treaties to assist the house of Austria against 
the Turks; but his pride forbade him to do 
this in the manner the emperor desired. 
Francis offered to attack the Turks in Egypt ; 
but the imperiahsts suspected that his real 
purpose was, to arm under this pretext, and 
then to fall on Genoa and Naples ; and they 
utterly refused his offer. Ii 

We have observed with what vehemence 
he rejected the proposal for a combined war 
against Switzerland. 

In the matter of the council, too, his answer 
was evasive. He was much more anxious for 
the favour of the pope, who sought to avoid, 
than for the friendship of the emperor, who 
wished to convoke it. IT 

For he never for a moment thought of re- 
garding the concessions which he had been 
forced to make in Cambray (especially the 
renunciation of all claim to Genoa and JNlilan), 
as definitive. He regarded these possessions 
as his own propert}*, of which he had no right 



|( Letter from A. de Burffo to Ferdinand. Rome, 2d 
March, 1531. Bucholtz, ix. 90. 

*ir Gregorio Casali au Grand Maistre, 5 Maggio, 1531, 
Le Grand Histoire du Divorce, iii. 542. ttuesta corle fin 
adesso e stata in gran timore del concilio, hora sono al- 
quanto assicurati, si per le ultime letieredell' imperatore, 
die sono state meno furiose delle altre, si anche per quelle 
si spera in voi altri. 



Jhap. Vir. 



SCHEMES OF CLEMENT VII. 



409 



, to rob his ohildreiij and he felt his honour 
^ ^ wounded as often as he thought he had lost 
them. 

An alhance with the pope seemed to him 
the only means for their recovery. 

From day to day new differences broke cut 
between the pope and the emperor. 

The emperor's earnest importunity for a 
council was very distressing to the court of 
Rome. It had been represented to him^ that 
while he demanded money from the pope, he 
deprived him of the means of raising it ; since 
not a man was to be found who would ad- 
vance a loan on ecclesiastical revenues, the 
reduction of which was expected from the 
council. Besides this, Clement VII. felt him- 
self offended that so little respect was shown 
to his recommendations ; that, in the granting 
of vacant benefices, less attention was paid to 
the interest of his nephew, Ippolito, than he 
had anticipated ; that Cardinal Colonna, a 
sworn enemy of the court of Rome, was left 
at full liberty to do as he pleased in Naples. 
But what chiefly inflamed the old resentment 
was, the emperor's decision in the affair of 
Ferrara. The emperor had promised the 
pope, that if he saw the right was not on the 
side of his holiness, he would pronounce no 
decision at all. Nevertheless, he nov\^ de- 
cided in favour of Ferrara. "This," says a 
confidant of the pope, '-has wounded his holi- 
ness's heart."— ^■' Would to God," exclaims 
the charge d'affaires of King Ferdinand, '-that 
the emperor had not pronounced that sen- 
tence !" He thougtit he observed that the 
imperial party at court and in the sacred col- 
■ lege had been weakened by it.* 

The King of France, on the other hand, had 
proposed to the pope the most honourable 
alliance that had ever been conferred on a 
papal house. He offered the hand of his son, 
Henry of Orleans, whose prospect of the throne 
of France was by no means remote (and who, 
in fact, subsequently occupied it), to the pope's 
niece, Catharine de Medici. 

The value attached to this connexion by the 
pope may be inferred from the treaty which 
he concluded on the 9th of June, 1531. 

The king's demands were by no means 
humble; above all, the creation of a princi- 
pality for the young couple, consisting of Pisa 
and Leghorn, Reggio, Modena, Rubiera, Par- 
ma, and Piacenza ; with these, Urbino, which 
had for a time belonged to Cauiarine's father 
— nay, even Milan and Genoa, were to be 
united. The pope was to promise his aid to 
reconquer these districts.! \ 

The pope entered earnestly into the nego- 
tiations. In the presence of the French am- 
bassadors. Cardinal Grammont and the Duke 
of Albany, he declared himself ready, as soon 
as the marriage should be concluded, to cede 
Pisa, Leghorn, Modena, Reggio, and Rubiera, 
to the young couple j and whenever he and 



* A. de Biirgo, 8th June, 1531, p. 99. 

t Articles secrets of the marriage treaty, signed, like 
that, on the 21th April. Among other demands was, 
"Ayde et secours audit futur epoux pour luy ayder ä re- 
couvrer I'etat et duche de Milan et la seigneurie de Gen- 
uas, qui luy appartiennent." 

52 2? 



the king sliould deem it practicable and expe- 
dient, Parma and Piacenza ; for which, how- 
ever, the king was to grant compensation to 
the church, to be determined by commission- 
ers appointed by both parties. He expressed 
himself very willing to contribute his share 
to the reconquest of Urbino. Concerning Ge- 
noa and Milan, he gave no decisive answer. 
But he declared that he found the secret 
articles, in which this demand was contained, 
generally reasonable and just, and desired 
their execution as soon as a good opportunity 
should present itself. t 

It is evident how close was the common in- 
terest thus established between the king and 
the pope, in the entire reconstitution of Italy, 
and how totally this interest was at variance 
with that of the emperor. 

It followed, of course, that the pope kept 
his engagements with France as secret as 
possible. 

In August, 1531, he once ventured to say to 
the Austrian minister plenipotentiary, that he 
held it to be absolutely necessary to do some- 
thing for the satisfaction of the King of France; 
he saw that the emperor would never give up 
Genoa and JMilan, but would it not be possible 
to hold out hopes to that effect, without really 
fulfilling them ?§ But the impression which 
even such a suggestion was calculated to 
make, was very unfavourable. At least the 
pope said to the French ambassador, in allu- 
sion to it, that he saw himself under the ne- 
cessity of concealing his good intentions to- 
wards France, and of begging for delay ; but 
that the French needed not for one moment 
to doubt of his dispositions. He several times 
admitted in confidence, that the emperor had 
pushed his advantages too far in the last 
treaty, and that it were to be wished that he 
would restore to the king his rightful pro- 
perty. In March, 1532, the ambassador was 
convinced that it was the pope's sincere de-^ 
sire that the king should rule in JMilan and^ 
the emperor in Naples; then he would believe 
that, placed between them, he might enjoy 
some power. Jl 

At the period we are come to, we no longer 
expect schemes like those which all this 
weighing of advantages, this leaning to France, 
which he sought to conceal, at length led the 
pope to contrive. 

In Älay, 1532, he sent a proposal to King 
Ferdinand'; to abandon what he possessed of 
Hungary to the woiwode, and to indemnify 
himself for the loss in Italy, and especially in 
the Venetian territory. He had utterly for- 
gotten the lessons which others had learned 
from the war of the Ligue of Cambray. The 
woiwode, vv^hom he (though in the secret tribu- 
nal of conscience) had relieved from the cen- 
sures which he had once pronounced against 

J N''« St. pere ayant vu les articles secrets les a troiives 
et trouve tres raisonnables. — MS. Bethiine, S541, f. 36. — 
I found the article and declaration in the King's Library 
at Paris. 

§ Burgo, 11th August, 101. 

II Despesches de I'eveque d'Auxerre, ambassadeur pour 
le roi Francois I. pres le Pape Clement, 11 Sept., 28 Oct., 
4 Janv., 20 'Mars. Bibl Royale. MS. Dupui«, nr. 260. 



410 



CONFERENCE IN BOLOGNA, 1532. 



Book: VI. 



him, in favour of the brothers of Austria, was 
now to ally himself with them against Venice. 
The King- of France was to do the same; and, 
as a recompense, was to have a part of the 
Milanese and a part of Piedmont. Francesco 
Sforza was to be created Duke of Cremona, 
and to be propitiated by a territory formed 
out of the Milanese and Venetian domains: — 
m short, a scheme exactly in the spirit of the 
restless policy of his immediate predecessor. 
The desire to see the King of France once 
more povverful in Italy, had clothed itself in 
the most singular forms in his mind.* 

Negotiations were actually set on foot for 
the furtherance of this project; nor did it ap- 
pear utterly out of the question to Ferdinand's 
pieu'i'otentiary, nor probably to Ferdinand 
himself; but in the meantime the Ottoman 
invasion approached and demanded exclusive 
attention, and, while he was so occupied, cir- 
cumstances altered. 

Th;' emperor instantly reappeared in Italy. 

It may be true, as has been affirmed, that 
want of money led him to ,disraiss his great 
army, and to leave his brother with an insuf- 
ficient force: another motive, however, doubt- 
less was, that it was become extremely urgent 
for him to hold personal communication with 
the pope. On the 5th December, he repaired 
to a fresh conference with him at Bologna. 

The affair of the council necessarily claimed 
precedence of all others. The emperor did 
not deceive himself as to the pope's desire to 
evade it.t But he probably hoped that his 
presence, and fresh representations of the 
state of things in Germany (especially the 
danger of a national assembly), Avould extort 
some concession from the'pope. The confer- 
ences began without delay : the pope created 
a congregation for them, consisting of Cardi- 
nals Farnese, Cesis, and Campeggi, and Alean- 
der. Archbishop of Brindisi, v»-ho held consisto- 
ries on the matter. The question was, whether 
a council should be defiiritively convoked, or 
Vv'hether an attempt should first be made to 
allay the pending quarrels between the Chris- 
tian princes. For these quarrels were a,lways 
alleged by the pope as the excuse for his pro- 
crastination. In the first consistory the cardi- 
nals declared for immediate convocation, on 
the ground that the attempt to effect the re- 
concihation alluded to was too remote and 
uncertain. But the pope deferred receiving 
the decision till the next sitting: and in this, 
on the 20th December, it fell out in accord- 
ance with his wishes. The majority declared, 
that until the reconciliation was effected, the 
council could not be held, nor any common 
measures be adopted against the Turks or the 
Lutherans.! The displeasure of the emperor 



* Andreas de Burgo to the CI. of Trent, 23d May, 1532, 
very circumstantial ; see letters of 29th August, and 14th 
September. 

t He wrote this to his brother as early as the 29th July 
1.531. Pkis va Von avant, plus I'on appercoit que ie pape 
n'y (for the council) a voulente et que le roy de France luy 
lie veult depiaire, pensant par ce nioyen le tenir gaigne. 
(Brussels Arch.) 

X This information is not given by Pallavicini, but it 
is authentic nevertheless. I took it from a despatch of 
the French ambassador, the Bishop of Auxerre, dated 24th 



may easily be imagined. An attempt was 
made to save appearances; declarations were 
published that the council should, at all events, 
be held, and deputies were sent to Germany 
to make a show of preparing for it ; but all 
this was, if I may use the expression, mere 
fencing. These missions had no other serious 
purpose than that of persuading the Germans 
to abandon the thought of the national coun- 
cil. This was the only point on which the 
emperor and the pope understood each other. § 

The maintenance of peace in Italy next came 
under discussion. The emperor thought he had 
to expect an attack of Francis I. on Genoa, and 
his scheme was, to prevent this by a coalition 
of all the Italian States for their mutual de- 
fence. But in this, too, he experienced but 
feeble support from the pope. In the pre- 
sence of the emperor, Clement spoke indeed 
in favour of such a coalition; but in secret he 
gave the Venetian ambassador to understand, 
that in what he had said there, he had merely 
expressed the opinion of the emperor, not his 
own ; and that he might cautiously intimate 
this to the republic. ii The Venetians declared 
that their relation to the Ottoman prevented 
their joining this coalition, which w^s formed 
solely to favour Andrea Doria. Another obsta- 
cle arose from the misunderstanding between 
the pope and Ferrara. With the utmost diffi- 
culty, Clement was brought to promise the duke 
security for eighteen months.! At length the 
treaty was concluded, and the contributions 
v.'hich each was to furnish in the event of a 
war, determined. But the negotiations them- 
selves suffice to show how little cohesive force 
the league possessed. They were, indeed, 
rather advantageous to Francis, inasm'uch as 
they afforded him a fair occasion for com- 
plaining of the hostility which the emperor 
betrayed in these precautions. 

If the emperor had hoped to loosen the ties 
between the pope and the king by a compact 
of this kind; he had fallen into a gross delu- 
sion. Against so honourable a family alliance 
as that proposed, no objections or representa- 
tions were likely to have any effect. 

In the following autumn the pope set out in 
person'to conduct his niece to France. At 
Marseilles he had a meeting with King Fran- 
cis, which was of incomparably more import- 
ance than his recent interview with the em- 
peror. 

Unfortunately, from the nature of the case 

December, 1532. " Sire, an premier consistoire, une partie 
des Cardiuaux opina, qu'il falloit pourvoir de faire ung 
concille tant pour obvier aux Lutheriens que au Turc, 
disant que la chose seroit trop longue de vouloir ä cette 
heure appoincter les princes Chretiens; ful par notre st. 
pere la chose remis ä correcture jusqu'au pronchain con- 
sistoire, qui fut vendredi dernier, auquel fut conrlu j)ar sa 
S"= et ä la pluralite des voix que sans accorder lesd. princes 
Chretiens ue se pouvoit faire iiy concille ny pourvoir au 
Turc ny auxd. Lutheriens." 

§ Extract from the Instructions to the nuncio, Ugo Ran« 
goni. Pallavicini, lib. iii. c. xiii. (V. i. p. 327.) 

II "Glue ce qu'il avoit diet present I'empereur, il Pavoit 
diet comme opinion de I'empereur, mais non pas coiunie 
la sienne, et qu'il le tist entendre saigement a la &'«." 
li'eveque d'Auxerre, 1. Janv. 1533. 

IT Compare Guicciardini (at that time vice-legate at 
Bologna, who was called to the conferences), lib. xx. 
p. 109 



Chap. VII. 



INFLUENCE ON GERMANY. 



411 



(the negotiations being all conducted orally), 
we have no authentic documents concerning 
them. The emperor received warning from 
Rome that it was not possible but that the 
pope and the king had some designs against 
him :* and the testimony both of the Floren- 
tine confidants of the pope, and of so acute 
and excellent an observer as the Venetian am- 
bassador, unanimously goes to prove that this 
was the case. 

Not only were French cardinals nominated 
at Marseilles; a much more important fact 
was. that the pope consented, at the king's 
request, to recal his nuncio in Switzerland, 
the Bishop of Veroh, who was thought to be 
well affected to the emperor.t 

Other circumstances soon show what had 
been concerted between the two sovereigns. 

The Duke of Orleans, husband of the pope's 
niece, laid claim to Urbino as the inheritance 
of his wife, and the papal nuncio in Germany 
did not conceal that the pope m.eant to support 
his claim. t He was, he said, certainly for- 
bidden by treaty to attempt any changes ; but 
it was impossible to call that a change, wdiich 
was merely a restitution. Urbino w^as a fief 
of the church, and it could not be believed 
that the emperor w'ould espouse the cause of 
any papal vassal against the church. I 

This matter, however, assumed a much 
greater importance when the king renewed 
his claims to Milan more energetically than 
ever. He demanded that Sforza should be 
provided for by a pension, and Milan instantly 
ceded to him.§ 

If we bear in mind that these were the 
stipulations of the marriage treaty, it will ap- 
pear extremely probable that the real subject 
of the conference at Marseilles was, the mode 
of carrying them into execution. And, indeed, 
it colild not be otherwise thaq most welcome 
to the pope to see his niece a powerful Italian 
princess. 

His near connexion with France freed him 
from any immediate fear of the emperor. We 
shall see how he tied the hands of that monarch, 
and indeed tried to change the whole direction 
of his policy, by complpng with his wishes in 
the English aöair. 

The question only remains, how he meant 
to bring him. to give way in Italian affairs, — 
whether by open force^ or by indirect means. H 

The Venetian ambassador affirms^ that the 



* Letter in Sando%-al, xx. §20: Que no se descuyasse, 
porque no era possible se no que el papa y el rey avian 
tratado alsun negocio contra el. The emperor himself 
mentions these things, " Q.ue Ton y vouclroit practiquer 
au prejudice des choses traitees entre ledit Sr Roy et nous." 
Papiers d'etat de Granvelle, ii. p. 73. 

t Sanchez, in Bucholtz, ix. 122. 

X Letter from the archbishop of Lunaen to Granvelle, 
15th February, 1534. The nuncio had said : " Scire se, ob 
id bellum futurum in Italia etpontificem auxilia daturum 
duel Aurelianensi contra quoscunque pro recuperatione 
dicti ducatus. 

§ Extracts in Raumer, Briefe aus Paris, i. 262. 

Ii The emperor himself aflerwards sav»' the affair in that 
light. After the breaking out of the landgrave's war, he 
charged his ambassador to declare to the king: Q,ue ces 
moien^ qu'il semble etre pour nous vouloir contraindre 
gout bien loin, etc. Papiers d'etat de Granvelle, ii. 109. 



pope declined the former, but gave his assent 
to the latter. 

The pohtical opposition to the house of Aus- 
tria (which had succeeded in imposing its will 
on Catholic Europe by force of arms) had 
been a little allayed, but it now revived, and 
resumed its former projects. The scheme 
of the king and the pope was, to make use of 
foreign hostihties to further their own ends. 

The Venetian ambassador mentions that a 
movement on the part of the Ottomans had 
even been talked of in Marseilles, but he will 
not positively affirm it :1[ on the' other hand, 
he asserts without the smallest doubt, that a 
general recourse to arms in Germany was 
under dehberation. Guicciardini too main- 
tains, that the king communicated to the pope 
his design of setting the German princes in 
motion against the emperor."^* 

I find nothing that can invalidate the credi- 
bility of these assertions, or can, on any rea- 
sonable grounds, be set against them^. 

For the connexions wliich the king at that 
time maintained with the German princes 
were solely of a political character. 

He especially abetted the opposition to the 
election of King Ferdinand. When, in May, 
1532, the opposing princes formed a closer 
union, and even agreed on a regular military 
constitution, Francis I. bound himself, in the 
event of war, to pay 100,000 gulden to the 
Dukes of Bavaria. The boldest and most 
extensive plans were occasionally put forth j 
for example, the one talked of, in February, ^ 
1533 — an invasion of Charles's territories by 
the French, simultaneously with an attack on 
those of Ferdinand by Zapolya.tt The Ger- 
man empire w-as incessantly traversed by 
agents of the king, the most of \vhom were 
Gervaise Wain, a native of jMemmingen, and 
Guillaurae du Beilay, in order to keep the 
opposiüon alive, and to knit closer all the 
threads that bound it together. 

But the affairs of Würtenberg soon became 
even more important than those of the elec- 
tion. 



The efforts to restore the Duke of Würten- 
berg to the throne may be dated from, the 
very day of his expulsion. Innumerable ne- 
gotiations and conferences had been set on 
foot for that purpose -Ii but all had been frus- 



TT It is certain, nevertheless. The pope himself, who 
wished to call the attention of the emperor to the subject, 
gave him the news. L'empereur au comle de Reus, 19 
aoiit, 1535. Pap. d'et. du C de Granvelle, ii. 341, que le 
roy de France luy avoit respondu en parlant de la desfen« 
sion et provision ä I'encontre diidit Turcq, que non seule- 
ment iceluy roy de France n'empescheroit sa venue contre 
la dite chrestiente, mais la procureroit. 

** Relatione di Francia di M. Marino Giustiniani, 1535 
Giudico, che Tintelligentia coi Turchi fusse medesima- 
mente deliberata in Marsiglia con demente Pontifice, 
comme fu ancora quella di Germania. Guicciardini, xx. 
Ill, haveiidogli (al papa) communicato il re di Francia 
molti di suoi consigli, e specialmente il disegno che ha- 
veva di conciliare contro Cesare alcuni di principi di 
Germania, massimamente il landsravio d'Hassia. See 
Sandoval, lib. xx. § 20. Hereupon they parted, completely 
satisfied with each other. 

ft Stumpf, Baierns politische Geschichte, i. 94. 

XX E. g. the negotiations between Landgrave Pliilip and 



412 



CHRISTOPHER OF WÜRTENBERG. 



Book VI.^ 



trated by the decided hostility of the Swabian 
league; and at the diet of Augsburg, Ferdi- 
nand received from his brother the investiture 
of Wiirtenberg in the most solemn manner. 

In the year 1532, however, an event occurred 
■which gave a fresh cogency to the claims of 
the sovereign house. 

After the expulsion of Duke Ulrich, his son 
Christopher, then only five years of age, was 
also carried out of Wiirtenberg. It was re- 
■ ported that, at the last house in w^hich he slept 
in his own country, the boy played with a 
lamb, and when he went away earnestly en- 
treated the host to take care of it, promising 
that when he came back he would reward him 
for his trouble. It was long, however, before 
this childish dream was fulfilled. The boy 
grew up in Insbruck and Neustadt, under Fer- 
dinand's guardianship. He was not very well 
taken care of, less perhaps from evil intention 
than from the general disorderly state of the 
afiairs of the court; he himself tells us that 
his condition excited pity ; sometimes he suf- 
fered absolute want, and once he was even in 
danger of being carried off by the Turks. 
Bu t early suffering is a better school for princes 
than the idleness and the flattery of a court ; 
fortune was, in the main, his true friend. She 
gave him, as a teacher, the learned and excel- 
lent Michael Tifernus, who attached himself 
to his charge with entire devotion. The his- 
tory of this man is extremely characteristic of 
his times. When a child, he was carried off 
/ by the Turks, whence, nobody knew; but at 
length they dropped him on the road. The 
poor little foundling was taken to Duino (Ty- 
bein) near Trieste, from which town he took 
his name : there he was brought up by charita- 
ble people, and afterwards sent to a college at 
Vienna, where his education was completed. 
He carefully watched over the safety of his 
docile and intelligent pupil. By degrees the 
lad was introduced at court, for there was no 
intention of breeding him in a manner un- 
seemly for a prince ; and in 1530, he was with 
the emperor in Augsburg. Here he inevitably 
learned his true position in the world ; for he 
became a centre of attraction to people who 
incessantly reminded him of his claims to 
sovereign power. How then could he see 
with indifference the banners of Wiirtenberg 
and Teck in Ferdinand's hand, at the cere- 
mony of the investiture 1 The feeling of his 
right grew with his growth, and strengthened 
with his strength; but he was obliged to re- 
press and conceal it. In this excited state of 
mind, he received notice that he was to ac- 
company the emperor, with whom he had will- 
ingly gone to the Netherlands, through Italy 
and Spain. It is very probable that he felt no 
inclination for this expedition ; especially when 
he remembered that, immediately after the 
expulsion of his father, there v/as an idea of 
sending him to Spain. Christopher was, more- 
over, determined not to abandon "his rights 
in Germany." He said plainly that he w^ould 

Duke Henry of Brunswick, in the year 1530, which have 
fcince been minutely discussed in the controversial writ- 
ings. 



have nothing to do with the journey to Spain. 
Accordingly, when the imperial court crossed 
the Alps to Italy, after the Turkish war in 1532, 
he contrived to escape with his tutor. They 
wandered away from the rest of the retinue un- 
observed, and took the road to Salzburg. Guided 
by peasants famihar with the mountain passes, 
they w^ere at a great distance before they were 
missed and followed. If all the circumstances 
related in the 16th century were true, their 
flight was accompanied with various perils; 
one of their horses fell ill, and in order to avoid 
being betrayed by its body, they determined 
to drown it in a lake ; and while the young 
prince fled on the remaining horse from his 
pursuers, Tifernus lay hidden in the long rushes 
on its margin.* In short, they disappeared 
from the court, and it was generally believed 
that they had fallen victims to bands of sol- 
diers or peasants in the mountains.! But they 
had reached a secure asylum, probably under 
the protection of the Dukes of Bavaria, whence 
the complaints of Christopher, and his demands 
for the restitution of his mheritance, were sud- 
denly proclaimed aloud to the world. t 

The re-appearance of a prince of the house 
of Wiirtenberg, with legitimate claims unim- 
paired by time ; of the ancient race and name, 
and possessed of the affections of his born 
subjects, was of itself a very important event. 
At that moment it was rendered doubly so by 
the circumstance, that the Dukes of Bavaria, 
to whom Christopher's father had been pecu- 
liarly odious, and whose coalition with the 
Swabian league had been the main instrument 
of his expulsion, now gave their support to his 
son. 

The Swabian league was indeed already on 
the eve of dissolution. One motive for this 
was, the long-existing one. — that the princes 
could not accustom themselves to subnilt to 
the council of the league, in w^hich prelates 
and cities enjoyed equal rights and equal in- 
fluence with themselves, and an adroit mem- 
ber sometimes guided the decision of the as- 
sembly at his pleasure. § In 1532, Hessen, 
Treves and the Palatinate formed a separate 
coalition, in which they promised each other 
not to agree to the renewal of the league. II 



* The ground-work of this story is in Gabelkofer, ex- 
tracted by Sattler and Pfister (DukeChristopher). Pfister 
says (p. 80) that Charles had bejrun to pay attention to 
Christopher in Vienna, and took him with him to a meet- 
ing he had with Hadrian VI. in Bologna. This is not 
true. Heyd, too, (Duke Ulrich, ii. 33'i,) seems to me to go 
too far, when he concludes from an expression of Christo- 
pher's, " that he had inquired into his affairs ever since 
the diet of Augsburg," that the young prince was not 
there. 

t Letter from Christopher to his mother, 18th October. 
Heyd, ii. 339. 

X The first letter of the 17th November. Sattler, ii. 229. 

§ Landgrave Philip says, in a subsequent letter (25th 
December, 154.5): " Befinden, wie es im schwäbischen 
Bund zugangen, dass Dr. Eck, so oft er gewollt, des Mehrer 
hat machen können, es sey gleich den andern Ständen 
gelegen oder ungelegen gewesen, welches auch verursacht 
das der schwäbische Pund darüber zerrissen worden." — 
" 1 find how it has gone on in the Swabian league, that 
Dr. Eck, as often as he pleased, was able to play the 
leader, vv'hether the other States liked it or not, which has 
also caused the rupture of the Swabian league." 

11 Friday after St. Bernard. The agreement is in the 
Archives of Treves at Coblenz. 



>. vir. 



DISSOLUTION OF THE SWABIAN LEAGUE 



413 



The cities, too, were dissatisfied ; especially 
at the rigorous Catholic proceedings of the 
league tribunal. Ulm. Augsburg and Nürn- 
berg united for their common protection. But 
the highest discontents were caused by the 
affairs of Würtenberg. In the year 1530, 
Wurtenberg shared all the privileges of Aus- 
tria, and was even left out of the matricula of 
the Imperial-Chamber. It seemed that it was 
to enjoy an exemption from all the burdens of 
the empire. And meanwhde the expenses of 
thie war, which the league had incurred in 
the conquests of 1519, were not yet paid.* 
The emperor and the king clearly saw how 
important it was for the possession of the 
country, to be able to call out the well- 
appointed veteran troops of the league ; their 
plenipotentiary, the Bishop of Augsburg, took 
all possible pains, in the year 1533, to hold it 
together. t But already the result appeared 
very dubious : under the existing circum- 
stances, no one would undertake the defence 
of Würtenberg for Ferdinand. Bavaria de- 
clared that he regarded the cause of Duke 
Christopher as his own. 

In December, 1533, a meeting of the league 
was held at Augsburg, for the definitive ad- 
justment of the affair. 

The poor, despoiled, and almost forgotten 
young prince now appeared v/ith a brilliant 
band of supporters; councillors from electoral 
Saxony, Brunswick, Lüneburg, Hessen, Mün- 
ster, Juliers, Mecklenburg, and Prussia. Fer- 
dinand's commissioners found themselves con- 
strained to treat with him, and to offer as 
compensation Cilli, Gorz, or Neuenbürg. The 
j'oung duke, however, would no longer listen 
to these proposals. He declared that the agree- 
ment upon which they were founded had never 
beeil fulfilled, and hence was at an end. J He 
conducted himself with prudence and circum- 
spection, taking care never to advert to the 
causes of his father's expulsion. He only 
steadily maintained, that unheard-of injustice 
had been done to his house, and to himself 
particularly; seeing that not one of the stipu- 
lations made and agreed to had been ob- 
served. He solemnly declared, however, that, 
in spite of this, he should never think of re- 
venging on the leagued States the injuries 
they had inflicted on his house. This assur- 
ance was repeated in his father's name by the 
Hessian envoys. The impression made by 
these circumstances rendered it impossible 
for the commissioners to advance a single 
step. When the meeting dispersed, it was 
obvious to every one that the great league on 
which the power of Austria ni Upper Ger- 
many mainly rested, was near its dissolution. § 

A French envoy was present at this assem- 



* Ferdinand to Charles, 27th April. V. Bid sab« la 
dicha liga no quire mas servir en esto hasta ser pasrados 
dello que per ello les fae prometido y esto al presente per 
■•li parte tengolo por impossible. 

f The instructions and statement are in the Brussels 
Archives. See Appendix. 

t See Complete Refutation of the Treaties; last day of 
July, 1533. Hortleder, i. iii. vii. 

§ Extract from Gabelkofer in Pfister, Duke Christopher 
I., 102— IIG; expressly remarked by Baut. (Heyd, ii. 424.) 

2k* 



bly. We are so fortunate a^ to possess the 
pathetic discourse which he pronounced in 
favour of Duke Christopher ;|| but the simple 
fact that so povverful a neighbouring monarch 
espoused the cause of the young prince, pro- 
duced a greater effect than all his eloquence. 

This happened at the same time that the 
king and the pope were together in Mar- 
seilles. As soon* as the pope left that city, 
the king, secure of a good understanding with 
Rome, hastened to take advantage of favour- 
ing circumstances for a decisive movement. 

In Januar}', 1534, he contracted a still closer 
alliance with the German princes as to the 
affair of the election. He engaged, in case it 
should lead to a war, to take upon himself a 
third part of the costs. For the present, he 
paid the 100,000 crowns of the sum he had 
promised, which wei'e deposited with the 
Dukes of Bavaria. 

He felt that his objects would be more im- 
mediately furthered by supporting the claims 
of Würtenberg, upon whicti affair he imme- 
diately entered. 

Landgrave Philip, personally attached to 
Duke Ulrich of Würtenberg, and hostile on 
various grounds to the house of Austria, had 
long determined to undertake the restoration, 
of the exiled house at the first favourable op- 
portunity. This had been one principal aim 
of his whole policy during many years. Cir- 
cumstances now favoured his designs. He 
wanted nothing but money, in order to strike 
the blow as quickly as possible, and without 
any obstructing engagements with other Ger- 
man princes. 

The alliance between King Francis and 
Landgrave Philip was mainly negotiated by 
Count William of Fürstenberg, one of those 
partisan leaders \vho attached themselves first 
to one side and then to another. After serv- 
ing the house of Austria in the year 1528, he 
had now thrown himself into the party of 
France. 

From Marseilles, the king proceeded to the 
eastern frontier of his kingdom, under the con- 
duct of Count Fürstenberg. IT Landgrave Philip 
also came from Cassel, and passed through 
Zweibrücken; on the 18th we find him at St. 
Nicholas on the Meurthe. 

A meeting between him and the king im- 
mediately took place in Barleduc. All the 
pending questions were here discussed ; the 
council and the election ; the interests of Hes- 
sen and Nassau ; and those of the Netherlands 
and Gueidres, The king professed himself on 
every point a friend of German independence, 
and, in general, of the Protestant princes ;** 



11 " The prince would be an exile ; in foreijjn lands men 
would point at him and say, that is he who once — who 

now — who without any f"ault of his" he did not 

finish the sentence, because lie read, as he said, in tho 
eyes of the assembly, that they felt his meaning. Dis- 
cours de M. de Langey, in the Appendix to the Memoiies 
of Bellay. Coll. univ. torn, xviii. p. 33G. He was, more- 
over, commissioned (p. 274), " d'essayer tous moyens pos^ 
sibles ä faire que cette ligue de Suabe ne se renovast, 
mais que de tous points eile se dissolust." 

IT Letter from Philip to Fürstenberg. Munch, Fürsten- 
berg, ii. p. 37. 

** Letter of the landgrave to the elector, Rommel, iii. 
p. 54, which is remarkable, as w ell for what he says, as 



414 



GERMAN POLICY. 



Book VI. 



the main question, however, — that on which 
all depended, — was the design upon Würten- 
berg. The iandgrave, who had no want of 
troops or munitiong of w^ar, demanded, in the 
first place, money to put them in motion. 
The king, expressly bonnd by the treaty of 
Cambray not to take part with the enemies of 
the emperor, among whom was the Duke of 
Würtenberg, §crup]ed thus »formally to agree 
to send subsidies for his assistance, in open 
violation of that treaty. They hit upon the 
/expedient of disguising the payment of the 
sum of 125,000 crown dollars, which Francis 
engaged to supply, under a contract for the 
sale of Mompelgard; the duke reserving to 
himself the right of re-emption. In a sub- 
joined agreement, the king declared that he 
gave the duke 75,000 dollars as a present. 
On the 27th of January, the treaty was con- 
cluded ;* the landgrave set out on his return 
without delay, and on the 8th of February was 
again in Cassel. He now lost not a moment 
in making his preparations. He hesitated, as 
may be supposed, to confide his secret to 
paper ; but so numerous were the messages 
with which he despatched his confidential 
councillors, that sometimes he had not one of 
them left at home ; to the Elector of Treves 
and the- elector palatine he went in person. t 
He also took part in the compact concerning 
the election; but when he sent the ratification 
of it to the king, he added that he should not 
wait for the Dukes of Bavaria; he was already 
preparing to go to work by himself.t The 
king was delighted at the prospects which 
were thus opened to him. On Easter Mon- 
da}-^, 1534, he said to an agent of the woivv'ode, 
who was Vv'ith him, that the Swabian league 
was dissolved ] that he had sent money to 
Germany, and had many friends there, and 
allies already in arms ; that he, ' Zapolya, 
would soon be able to dictate a peace. § 

Ohe danger the landgrave had to avert be- 
fore he openly took arms. The electors who 
had chosen Ferdinand, would perhaps fear that 
a successful campaign against him might, in 
the end. prove ruinous to themselves. It ap- 
peared very possible that they would be in- 
duced by this consideration to take up the 
king's cause ; and indeed a diet of electors 
was already fixed to be held at Gelnhausen. 
Unquestionably the chief motive of Philip's 
journey was, to tranquillise the electors of 
Treves and the Palatinate. So far, he said, 
from thinking of a war on account of the elec- 
tion, the basis for a final accommodation of 
that matter would now be laid. Bavaria pro- 
mised that, if Wiirtenburg was restored to the 

for what he does not say. Accordinar to this, the king 
only offered to negotiate between Ulrich and Ferdinand. 

* Notices hereupon in Rommel, ii. p. 298; it were much 
to be wished that the treaty itself were printed. 

t Tenement que luy memc en personne a ete contrainct 
d'aller devers Tarcheveque de Treves et le comte palatin. 
Lettre du chancelier du landgrave a Langey. MS. Be- 
thune, 8816, f 55. 

X Sommes d6jä pres de conduire le tout en effet. Cassel, 
9 Mars. MS. Bethune, 8493. 

§ From the interrogations »jf Casali and Corsini, who 
were arrested and examined in Hungary, 1535. In the 
Brussels Archives. 



hereditary house, it would make no further 
opposition to the election ; hereupon Branden- 
burg, Cologne and the Palatinate, promised 
not to obstruct the landgrave in his undertak- 
ing. Treves even consented to contribute 
succours. II 

King Ferdinand suddenly found himself in 
a state of complete isolation. 

The emperor was at a distance, the King of 
France hostile, the pope (as afterwards more 
clearly appeared) extremely doubtful. The 
old hostility w^hich had formed the bond of 
the Swabian league had expired ; Duke Ul- 
rich solemnly confirmed the assurances of the 
landgrave, that the cities had nothing to fear 
from him. Neither the engagements entered 
into by the electors at the king's election, nor 
their religious differences, now operated in 
his favour. The clergy were as much his 
enemies as the laity. 1 

For no German prince could see with ap- 
probation an ancient German sovereign house 
thus despoiled of its inheritance. 

The Wittenberg theologians and his own 
subjects warned the landgrave that he would 
bring Hessen into danger; he replied, half jest- 
ingly, " I will not ruin you this time." He took 
a wider view of the state of things than they 
did, and felt himself sure of his cause. 

He had to contend only with Ferdinand, — 
nay, only with Ferdinand's Wiirtenburg forces ; 
and for these he felt himself fully a match. 

Whilst he himself was mainly occupied in 
collecting a magnificent body of cavalry — the 
arm in v;hich, in the 16th century, Low'er 
Germany surpassed the rest of Europe — Count 
William of Fiirstenberg, with the aid of Stras- 
burg, assembled twenty-four companies of 
foot on the Upper Rhine and in Alsatia, where 
the best landsknechts remained all the win- 
ter, waiting to be called into the. field. They 
v.-ere fromPomerania and Mecklenburg, Bruns- 
Vvick and Eichsfeld, the Westphalian bishop- 
rics, and the archbishopric of Cologne; while 
the heart of them was formed by Philip's own 
Hessian vassals, without question the mihtia 
most frequently called out in all Germany at 
that time; and now not very willing to answer 
the call. The two bodies met at Pfungstadt, 
in the Odenwald. On Tuesday, the 5th May, 
the news arrived that the enemy had also 
collected a fine army in Stuttgart, and would 
doubtless appear in the open field. All were 
in the highest spirits, and eager for the fight. 
On Wednesday the 6th, just after midnight, 
they broke up their quarters. The landgrave, 
on horseback, with his lance in his hand, re- 
viewed the troops. 'In their van were the 
w^agons with munitions and stores, driven by 
six thousand peasants, all men capable of 
bearing arms. Next came a company of light 
horse, and then the artillery, followed by the 
great squadron of heavy-armed reiters, under 
the chief standard, borne by the hereditary 



II Letter of Philip, in Stumpf, Appendix, No. 14. See 
another of his letters to Dr. Eck, mentioned by Stumpf in 
the text, p. 153. 

TT Wolfgang Brand ner had already represented the mat- 
ter very justly to the king, in July, 1533. Bucholtz, ix.76. 



Chap. VII. 



BATTLE OF LAUFEN. 



415 



grand marshal of Hessen ; after them the foot 
soldiersj both those brought up by the land- 
grave, and the OberlanderSj to whom Duke 
George of Wurtenberg sent a very consider-, 
able reinforcement. There were about 20.000 
foot and 4000 horse; an army which, though 
far from being the largest that had been seen. 
even ni those days, was yet, for a single prince 
of the empire, and one not even belonging to 
the first class, numerous beyond all expecta- 
tion, excellently equipped, and perfectly pro- 
vided with all things necessary for war. Care 
had been taken to enlist as many officers as 
possible of the evangelical faith, which was 
that of the majority of the common men. It 
was the first army of a politico-religious oppo- 
sition to the house of Austria, on the part of 
Germany and of Europe, that had appeared 
in the field. 

On the other side, the Austrian government 
in Wurtenberg had been arming. Convents 
of monks and nuns, cathedral and rural chap- 
ters had raised contributions, and the cities 
had paid a war-tax.* The old commanders 
of the Italian campaigns, Curt of Bemmelberg, 
Caspar Frundsberg, Marx of Eberstein, and 
ThamiSjt surnamed Herastede, had collected 
bands of landsknechts: we meet again the 
well-known names of the adversaries of' Hes- 
sen in Siclfingen's wars, — Hilch von Lorch, 
Sickingen's sons, and Dietrich Spät, The king 
himself did not appear ; his place was filled by 
Philip of the Palatinate, heatenant of Wiirten- 
burg,^ — the same, who had distinguished him- 
self at the defence of Vienna, Although the 
troops were not equal to those of the land- 
grave in number (they might amount to about 
10,000 men, including a considerable number 
of Bohemians), they had courage enough to 
wait for him on his way, in the open field at 
Laufen on the Neckar. They did not even 
take the trouble to obstruct his passage over 
the river. 

The first engagement took place on the 12lh 
of May. The king's troops sustained the as- 
sault tolerably well. Not only, however, was 
the count palatine, their leader, wounded, but 
tjie landgrave's superiority became so mani- 
fest, that they saw they had no chance of 
making any successful resistance. In the 
night, Dietrich Spät set out to bring up more 
cavalry. Early in the morning of the follow- 
ing day, the array itself sought to take up a 
more secure position. 

But it was not likely that the fiery landgrave 
would sufi'er them to accomplish this. In an 
instant, he was in motion. He would listen to 
no objections : he saw well what an advantage 
it would be for him, with his superior cavalry 
and his good artillery, to fall upon the enemy 
when dislodged from his position. It was by 
such a movement, that the bands of armed 
peasants had formerly been routed. The Aus- 
trian army had, indeed, experienced lands- 
knechts and brave officers: but the want of 
horses brought them into the same perilous 



situation as that which had proved fatal to 
the peasants. By a charge of cavalry on their 
flank. Landgrave Philip detained the enemy 
in a vineyard till -his artillery could come 
up. He then hastened back to bring up the 
infantry for a decisive attack. But before 
they could come up, the cavalry and artillery 
had already combined their efibrts with such 
dfect, that the enemy fell into complete dis- 
order, and retreated across the Bidembach.' 
The few reiters that remained escaped to the 
Asperg; the foot soldiers were dispersed, and 
many perished in the Neckar.? The land- 
grave himself ^^■a3 astonished that leaders of 
such reputation had made so little resistance. 

A field of battle is, in general, the place on 
which the collective forces of two opposite 
states of moral culture come into collision, and 
try their respective strength. Landgrave Philip 
had the most fortunate combination of Euro- 
pean circumstances, the secret or declared 
good wishes of all Germany, and a host of 
religious sympathies, on his side. Ferdinand 
had only himself to trust to; he defended a 
dubious right and unpopular ideas, and he 
had proved the weaker in the land he pos- 
sessed. 

But this battle is also deserving of all atten- 
tion on account^of its consequences. It de- 
cided the fate of one of the most important 
German principalities. The country fell at 
once into the power of the conquerors. Duke 
Ulrich re-appeared after his long absence ; the 
citizens, after ratifying the treaty of Tübingen, 
did hoiTiage to him for his capital city of Stutt- 
gart, in a meadow on the road^ to Canstadt; 
the other towns and villages followed their 
example. Nor did the castles hold out for 
Ferdinand. Either their commanders were 
in their hearts inclined to the returning princes 
of the land ; or they feared for their estates, 
which had already fallen into the hands of the 
conquerors; or they yielded to force. Even 
the Asperg surrendered on the 8th of June. 

Thus was Wurtenberg once more in the 
hands of a Wurtenberg sovereign. Duke Ul- 
rich'S enemies had given him, in derision, the 
nickname of broom-maker; the other side 
now retorted the jest, and said that he was 
come to sweep all the spiders' webs from out 
the land. The people were delighted to see 
once more the hunting-horn;§ after which-they 



* Spanish report in tlie Appendix, 
t This is doubtless the Von Thönis.in the song in Heyd, 
Battle of Lau. en, p. 88. 



X Neue Zeitung von des Landgrafen zu Hessen Kriegs- 
handlang, bei Hortleder, I. vol. iii. c. 12, is neither graphic 
nor correct, especially as to time. Philip's letter to his 
councillors (Ilomniel, ii. 319) gives the best account. The 
other reports, however, are still more useless than the 
Neue Zeitung. Jovius makes out that the count palatine 
was wounded on the day of battle ; probably merely for 
the sake of effect (lib. xxxii. p. 128). Nicolaus Asclepius 
Barbatus insists upon the circumstance that the landgrave 
attacked, " ea manu quce hostium numero vix responde- 
ret." It is clear that he could not attack with all his 
troops at once ; but he had a most decided advantage in 
point of numbers. 'J'ehlinger gives a kind of general de- 
scription of " equitum fremitus, armorum crepitus strepi- 
tusque," of no value whatever. Von Heyd"s careful 
monograph. Die Schlacht von Laufen, Stuttgart, 1834, 
contains a fragment of another letter by Philip, coinciding 
with the first, and a very good passage from Gabelkofer 
(Beil. iii. v.), which confirm the statement inade above, — 
besides some new landsknecht songs, very interesting and 
valuable. 

§ A badge of the house of Wurtenberg.— Transl. 



416 



CONDUCT ÖP THE POPE. 



Book VI. 



had so long yearned; and proclaimed in their 
songs the happiness of the country that had 
recovered its native prince. Politically, it was 
of great moment that a prince, who might be 
regarded as the most complete representative 
of the opposition to Austria, was now called 
to play a part in the centre of Upper Germany. 
His well-known sentiments left no doubt from 
the first, as to what his conduct would be in 
religious affairs. 

The behaviour of Pope Clement VII. on this 
occasion was very remarkable. The ambas- 
sador of King Ferdinand implored his assist- 
ance in this imminent danger, which, he said, 
might also become extremely formidable to 
the Church and to Italy. The pope brought 
tne matter before the next consistory ; he re- 
peated the ambassador's words, and even 
heightened his expressions ; but as to the as- 
sistance to be rendered to the king, he did not 
so much as make a suggestion. Hereupon a 
letter arrived from Ferdinand himself to the 
pope, and the affair was again brought before 
the consistory. But the pope chose this mo- 
ment to revive the emperor's demands with 
regard to a council, which were so intensely 
odious to the Curia; the consequence was, 
that, though the subsidies already granted to 
the emperor and the king were paid, the pro- 
posal for further aid was sent back for the con- 
sideration of a congregation. The pope said, 
the king lay ill of a disease which no slight 
tinctures or syrups could cure, — nothing less 
than a violent medicine. Accordingly, the 
congregation decided that, as it could not grant 
the king a large subsidy, it was better to grant 
him none. To the great vexation of the am- 
bassador, the news had arrived, that the land- 
grave on his entry into Wiirtenberg had at- 
tempted no hostile measure against the 
churches; whereupon the pope declared that 
the war was a private one, in which he w^ould 
not interfere; if the enemy should attack the 
Church, it would then be time enough for him 
to think of subsidies. The ambassador re- 
marked, with all the vivacity consistent with 
his respect for the pope, how important the 
affair was ; how dear it might cost the Holy 
See, nay, the city of Rome and all Italy. But 
the pope too was excited and almost angry ; 
he asked, where then was the emperor ? and 
why he had not provided against these disas- 
ters '? he (the pope) had long ago called his 
attention to the conduct that was to be ex- 
pected from the landgrave.* In short, the 

* Bericht desköniirl. Gesandten Sancliez an Ferdinand, 
.1.5 Juni, 1534. (July is probably an error of the copyist.) 
Bucholtz, ix. 247. All that surprises me is, that Bucholtz 
fancies liiixiself to have disproved the assumption 1 have 
here made, that the pope was informed beforehand of the 
landgrav.e's intention to take up arms. He has under- 
lined all the civil speeches wliich the pope made to the 
nuncio, in order to keep hiui quiet; as if any vveij,'ht was 
to be attached to such things, and the historian were not 
to judge from actions. But Sanchez was by no means so 
devout a believer in the pope as our Bucholtz. He ac- 
quaints his master with the coarse which things are 
taking, "ut melius M^ Vra. istorum mentes et cogitationes 
intelligat,quibus technis parent isti rem longius differre." 
He su.spects: "suborta mihi fuit suspectio. Stem g. non 
satis efficaci fervore procedere ;" he is indignant at the 
excuses that are made : "dolore et indignatione assensus 
replicui, cum tamen reverentia debita;" and ends byco»- 



pope was not to be moved to take any part in 
the affair-^not the shghtest. He would wait 
till he heard of the ruin of the Church before 
he would do any thing to prevent it ; at present, 
he regarded the matter merely from apolitical 
point of view. The German princes — as, for 
example, Duke George of Saxony — reproached 
the pope with being in an understanding with 
the king, to keep Germany in a state of con- 
fusion, in order not to be forced to convoke a 
council. t 

Such a state of things seemed to open the 
most brilliant prospects to the King of France. 

On the 18th of June, the victors had reached 
Taugendorf, on the Austrian frontier. " My 
friends," said Francis, '-have conquered Wiir- ' 
tenberg, — only onw-ards I more!" Meanwhile 
Barbarossa too had appeared at sea, plundered 
the Neapolitan coast far and wide, and then 
fallen upon Tunis, which he captured. He 
assumed a most threatening attitude towards 
Spain, as we shall have occasion to show here- 
after. Francis I. thought that the emperor, 
oppressed by the various dangers which me- 
naced his house, would yield to his demands. 
He demanded Genoa, Montferrat, and a part 
of Milan, immediately. t The schemes with 
regard to Urbino began to be agitated. 

In Germany a flame seemed to be kindled 
which would not easily be quenched. 

As soon as the emperor received the news 
of his brother's defeat, he despatched a mes- 
senger with a considerable sum of money, with 
which to bring an army into the field to chas- 
tise the landgrave. § Nothing could better 
have suited the views of his enemies. 

But in Germany, people were not inclined to 
allow things to go to such lengths, either on 
the one side or the other. 

The aggressors did not feel themselves 
strong enough to carry on a protracted war, 
and least of all would they fight for a foreign 
interest. 

If Francis I. had intended to turn the ani- 
mosities of the Germans to his own account, 
they, on their part, had designed to use the 
French for the attainment of their own ends : 
that was all. 



vincinghimself that nothing will he done : " opinor papam 
daturum nobis -bona verba." If I may venture to offer 
another conjecture with respect to this affair, [ would 
suggest thatKing Francis T. had really promised the pope 
that the landgrave's enterprise should have no conse- 
quences which might affect the church ; a condition always 
made by tlie kings of France, when they supported the 
Protestants during the Thirty Years' War. 

That such a promise could not have been kept, espe- 
cially in times of such vehement zeal, is obvious. 

t L'empereur au comte de Nassau, 29th Aout : Papiers 
d'etat du C Granve!le,ii. 171: Se sent indignez les elect- 
eurs, princes et autres . . . ä I'occasion de la responce 
faite par le due Georges de Saxen au nunce de pape la ou 
il le touche (le roi) grandement avec le dit st. pere de non 
chercher autre chose que d'entrelenir la diteGermanye en 
trouble et s'entendre avec le dit st. pere pour empescher le 
concille. 

J This appears from the instructions of the emperor to 
the count of Nassau, 12th August, 1534, from which Von 
Raumer has given extracts in his Briefe aus Paris, i. 2G2. 
Since then printed in the Pap. d'etat du C Granvelle, 
ii. 15. 

§ We have a minute report on this subject by the Bishop 
of Lunden, who went from one Rhenish court to an( ther, 
in order to negotiate the matter; 1st August, 1534. Br. 
Archives. 



Chap. VIII. 



PEACE OF CADAN. 



417 



It was certainly agreed in the treaty con- 
cerning the affairs of the election, that neitlier 
parly should conclude a peace without the 
other; but; as Phihp of Hessen observed, the 
war in question had not then broken out.* He 
had taken care to prevent this before he took 
up arms. The Dukes of Bavaria had remained 
quiet ; the French deposit lay unemployed in 
their coffers. 

The whole question was, whether King 
Ferdinand could resolve to give up Würten- 
berg. 

He, too, was placed in a very doubtful' posi- 
tion. Should he, in order to recover what he 
had lost, imperil all that he possessed by a 
better and more unquestionable right 1 He 
was told that if he was not ready for battle in 
a few dayS; all would be lost. His councillors, 
Rogendorf. Hofmann, and the Bishop of Trent, 
joined in the opinion that he had better deter- 
mine to give up Wtirtenberg. 

A meeting of German princes was already 
opened at Annaberg, on this and other busi- 
ness. 

In order to take part personally in the pro- 
ceedings, King Ferdinand repaired to Cadan, 
a httle place in the neighbourhood, between 
Annaberg and Saatz. 

He did not, indeed, consent to renounce 
Würtenberg, absolutely and forever; for, he 
said, he had been most solemnly invested with 
the fief in the presence of the assembled diet 
— his brother had grasped the banner with his 
own hand ; he could not. and would not. suffer 
himself to be despoiled of his right. But he 
consented that Duke Ulrich should take pos- 
session of Würtenberg as a sub-fief of Austria, 
though with seat and voice in the empire. t 
With this, Landgrave Philip, and at length 
Duke Ulrich himself, was satisfied. 

In return, the Elector of Saxony now de- 
clared himself ready to acknowledge Ferdi- 
nand as King of the Romans. He did not con- 
fess that he had been in the wrong; on the 
contrary, he demanded that a clause should be 
annexed to the Golden Bull, laying down such 
directions for future cases, as might amount to 
a sanction of his conduct in the present case.j 
But this reservation did not prevent him from 
going to Cadan on the 27th of June, nor from 
paying to his former adversary all the honour 
due to a King of the Romans. His adherents, 
too, to whom this opposition alone had given 

* " Alldiweil man der wale sachen halben nicht krieget." 
"All this nhile there is no war on account of the election 
business." Philip's instructions to his envoys to the 
king, Rommel, iii. 65. 

t Letter of George von Carlowitz, in Sattler, iii. Urk, p. 
104. 

J " Das kiinftislich, wann bei leben ains Rom. Kaisers 
oder königs ain Rom. König soll erwelt, alle Churfürsten 
zuvor samen beschaiden werden, davon zu reden, obur- 
Sachen senug^am vorhanden und dem Reich furderlichfey 
ainen Rom. König — zu erwehlen, und wann sie sich da 
verainigt, das alsdann und nicht eher der Churfürst zur 
königlichen wähl erfordert werde." — " That in future, 
when in the lifetime of a Roman emperor or king, a king 
of the Romans is to be elected, all electors should be con- 
voked beforehand to consult about it, whether there be 
causes sufficient, and whether it be profitable to the em- 
pire to elect a Roman king; and when they are there as- 
sembled, that then, and not before, each elector should be 
called upon to elect a king." Mainziscli-sächsisches Be- 
denken, ibid. 101. 
53 



a legitimate ground for refusing allegiance to 
Ferdinand, could now no longer withhold it. 
By degrees all acquiesced. 

The ambassador of Charles had just com- 
menced his negotiations on the Rhine against 
the landgrave, when this intelligence arrived 
and caused him to suspend them. 

Whilst King Francis was daily hoping to 
hear of further hostilities in Germany, peace 
was already concluded. From this quarter, at 
least, he could expect nothing more, calculated 
to forward his Italian schemes. 

On the contrarj', it was evident that the 
landgrave's enterprise, though its success.was 
to be entirely attributed to a concurrence of 
European circumstances, would nevertheless 
produce no effect on political relations in gene- 
ral : its results were bounded by the frontiers 
of Germany; and there they were by no 
means exclusively political, as had been anti- 
cipated, but were also of the greatest import- 
ance to rehgion. Some other stipulations were 
made at Cadan, which eventually contributed 
greatly to the permanence and stability of 
Protestantism. But they belong to another 
cycle of events, which we shall contemplate 
hereafter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION DURING THE 
YEARS 1532—1534. 

It is evident that an event like the peace 
of Nürnberg must inevitably contribute, in a 
very high degree, to confirm and develope the 
principle of the reformation, in those countries 
where it had been established in consequence 
of the recess of 1526. 

The Protestants had not suffered the epis- 
copal jurisdictions to be re-imposed upon 
them; they thought themselves guarantied, 
by the emperor's promise, from further pro- 
ceedings on the part of the Imperial Chamber; . 
and at the same time from the immediate 
hostilities of the majority of the States of the 
empire. 

Hereupon, the Saxon diet, assembled at 
Weimar towards the end of 1532, no longer 
hesitated to ordain the resumption of the visit- 
ation of the churches, which had naturally 
been interrupted at a lime when every thing 
was in suspense.^' 

The mass, which in some places had been 
adhered to, was now entirely prohibited : the 
few convents that still existed w;ere ordered 
to adopt the evangelical doctrme, and were 
forbidden to receive novices. A universal se- 
questration of conventual lands w^as organised, 
with the co-operation of the States. Their 
design was to apply the proceeds to some of 
the most pressing wants of the country, espe- 



6 Extracts from the Reports of Visitations, Seckendorf, 
iii. § 25. Add. iii. The instruction is dated 19th Decem- 
ber. 1532. 



419 



OEGANISATION OF THE 



cially to pay off the public debt; for which 
they had hkewise just granted a tax. But as 
they expressed themselves very humbly on 
this subject, and even held out a prospect of 
re-payment, if necessary,*' the elector insisted 
with the greater earnestness on the necessity 
of keeping in view the original purpose of the 
endowments. The first care was for the pa- 
rish churches. The idea had originally been, 
that the parish churches might be provided 
for out of the small foundations, confranities, 
endowments for masses for souls, and, where 
these were insufficient, new rates, levied upon 
the communes. But this proved wholly im- 
practicable. The communes — burghers and 
peasants, as well as nobles — were vainly re- 
minded how much their masses and indul- 
gences had heretofore cost them; they an- 
swered, that times were altered.^ It was 
therefore necessary to apply to the parishes 
a large portion of the conventual property ; 
which, at first, while many monks were still 
to be maintained, and ah expensive adminis- 
tration to be kept on foot out of it, yielded no 
very large revenue. t It is scarcely credible 
in what a state they were found. But at 
length the end was accomplished. "With 
great care, trouble, and labour," says Myco- 
nius, himself one of the Visitators, " we 
brought it to pass that every parish should 
have its teacher, and its allotted income; 
every town its schools, and all that belongs 
to a church. "t The visitation now' extended 
to the domains of the princes of Heuss and 
Schwarzburg. The clergy there showed less 
refractoriness than ignorance and immorality ; 
it was impossible to retain them, however 
willing they were to remain: they were almost 
all replaced by disciples of the Wittenberg- 
school. This metropolis of Protestantism was 
now rather better provided for.§ The old 
order of things was utterly overthrown, and 
Wittenberg stood at the head of the new 
church. From her had emanated the doc- 



* " Zu einer Fiirstreckung und Mithülfe, jedoch der- 
gestalt (lass solchs der Nntturft und Gelejienheit nach 
wieder ergänzt vvorde." " For a loan and aid, but in sucii 
wise that the same be restored according to need and oc- 
casion." Transactions of the diet at Jena, F.rhardi, 15.?3. 

I As an example we will cite the yarisli of Unipferstedt. 
The decree of the visitors was as follows: " Als wir — 
— befunden das die pfarhe zu Unipferstedt und Wigendorf 
zur Unterhaltung eines pfarjiers vast zu wenig hett, so 
haben wir verordent, nachdem das Dorf Unipferstedt dem 
Closter Oberweyniar an alle myttel und eygenthiinilich 
zugethan sejn soll, das einem iden pfarrer zu Unipferstedt 
von gedachtes Closters zu Oberweyniar Gutern zugelegt 
iind gegeben werden soll eines yeden Jahres ein Acker 
Holz samt dem Closterholz zu Drostet, ein Acker oder an- 
derthalb ungefährlich Wisewachs zu Neuendorf und ein 
halb weimarisch maiter kornsvon Adam Rosten zu Wei- 
mar, von beiden Dörfern die Decimation." — "Seeing that 

we have found that the parish of Umpferstedt and 

Wigendorf hath two little for the support of a priest, we 
do hereby order and direct that, seeing the village of 
Umpferstedt is claimed as pertaining and subject to the 
convent of Oberweymar, every priest at Umpferstedt shall 
duly receive from the property of the said convent of 
Obervveymar each year one acre of wood, over and above 
the convent wood at Drostet, an acre or an acre and a 
half, more or less, of forage from Neuendorf, and half a 
Weimar measure of grain from Adam Rosten at Weimar, 
besides tithes from both villages." 

X Lommatzsch, Narratio de Myconio, p. 55. 

§ Its whole revenue amounted to 281] g. 11 grs. ; to this 
,1900 g. more' were added. Hitherto Luther's^ salary had 
been 200 g. : it was now increased to 300 g. 



EVANGELICAL CHURCH. Book VL 

>. ( 

trines which had already begun to be rendered 
imperative on the preachers ;|| and ordination 
was conferred by the spiritual members of 
her university. 

This system was also adopted almost un- 
changed in Jessen, where the original sketch 
of a constitution of the church, founded on 
the idea of the commune, as conceived by 
Zwingli, had long been abandoned. Visita- 
tions were held ; the parishes were put upon 
a better footing, as the landgrave boasted, 
than they had ever been ; superintendents 
were appointed, and divine service was con- 
ducted after the manner of Whtenberg. The 
chief difference was, that the church in Hes- 
sen was far richer than in electoral Thuringia 
and Saxony, which rendered it practicable to 
make some large endowments. In the year 
1532, the convents of Wetter and Kaufungen, 
with revenues which had been estimated as 
equal to a small count's fee, were consecrated 
to the portioning of noble young ladies in mar- 
riage. In the year 1533, the houses of Haina 
and Merxhausen, and, shortly after, those of 
Hofheim and Gronau, were converted into 
national hospitals. Ten monasteries in the 
upper and lower principalities were gradually 
incorporated into the university of Marburg, 
and a part of the revenue of five others de- 
voted to the same purpose. A theological 
seminary was established, supported by con- 
tributions from the sovereign, and all the 
(Bürgerschaften) town corporations of the 
country.*!! 

In Lüneburg, the jurisdictions of Bremen, 
Verden, Magdebuig and Hildesheim had al- 
ready been separated. They were now en- 
tirely abolished, and the supreme §.uperin- 
tendency over all these distiicts was confided 
to Urbanus Rhegius. He deemed it his duty 
to remain in this laborious and not very secure 
post, although he was invited to return to the 
Oberland, of which he was a native. His 
sovereign. Duke Ernest, was his zealous sup- 
porter. We frequently see him, accompanied 
by his /chancellor and one of the preachers, 
visiting the monasteries in person, and recom- 
mending the cause of reform: and, indeed, 
most of the monks, as well as the prioresses, 
with their nuns, went over to the evangelical 
faith. Sometimes the priors or canons had a 
common interest with the duke ; for example, 
in Bardewik, which the Arclxbishop of Bremen 
wanted to incorporate with Verden. Gradu- 
ally the Saxon forms predominated here as 
in Hessen. An annual church visitation was 
held.** 

In Franconian Brandenburg, too, the monas- 
teries were successfully put under the civil 
administration. There were still monks in 
many places, but some of them had taken 
wives — even here and there an abbot, ft But 
no fresh elections of abbots or abbesses were 

11 [{^napp, Narratio de lusto lona, p. 17. 

IT Extracts from the Reports. Rommel, i. p. 191, and 
note. 

** Schreiben des Urbanus Rhegius an die Augspurger, 
14 Juli, 1535, bei Walch, xvii. 2507; See Schlegel, ii. 51, 
95, 211. 

tt Report by Cornelius Ettenius, p. 498. 



Chap. VIII. 



TRIUMPH OF THE SECULAR PRINCIPLE. 



419 



allowed: in some cases we find administra^ 
■trixes, as, for example, Dorothea of Hirsch- 
hard, in the chapter for noble maidens at Bir- 
kenfeld. An order of chancery was drawn up, 
according to which, the surplus of the reve- 
nues of the monasteries was to be thrown into 
a common fund, and reserved for any cases 
of need occurring to the state generally. All 
the proceeds of other foundations and bene- 
fices that might become vacant, were to be 
apphed to the maintenance of parish churches 
and schools. In the year 1533, an ecclesias- 
tical ordinance was drawn up, in concert with 
Nürnbero-. for the governance of churches and 
convents.* 

All, as we perceive, was yet in its infancy, 
and nearly formless ; a regular and stable 
ecclesiastical constitution was as yet out of 
the question. Thus much only is evident, — 
that the secular authorities generally obtained 
great advantages over the spiritual. 

A portion of the ecclesiastical revenues fell 
into the -hands, either of the sovereign, or of 
the nobility, or of the community at large. 
In all the reformed countries a clergy, indebt- 
ed for its position and importance to the zeal 
and efforts of the civil power, was substituted 
for one whose rights were exclusively derived 
from episcopal ordination. 

We find a proof how little the laity were 
inclined to submit to any domination on the 
part of the new clergy, in the ecclesiastical 
ordinance of Nürnberg and Brandenburg, just 
alluded to. 

The clergy of those districts wished for the 
re-introduction of the power of excommuni- 
cation, for which 'those of Nürnberg formally 
petitioned; those of Brandenburg were at least 
not opposed to it, and indeed in their report 
they adduced arguments in favour of that in- 
stitution. But they could not prevail. The 
laity would not submit to this despotism, and, 
in the publication of the ordinance, the para- 
graph treating of it was expunged.! 

Wittenberg itself was opposed to it. Luther 
said.-t that public sentence of excommunica- 
tion ought to be preceded by previous inquiry, 
and followed by a universal avoidance of the 
excommunicated : now the former could not 
easily be conducted ; the latter would cause 
great confusion, especially in large towns. He 
clearly saw that it was not the province of 
religion to maintain public order by any coer- 
cive measures whatsoever, which properly 
belong to the state alone. The church of 
Wittenberg contented itself with refusing the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper to notorious 
sinners, without attempting to interfere with 
the civil relations of society. The preachers 
condemned vice in the pulpit, and admonished 
the authorities not to tolerate it. 

Nor did the spiritual power achieve any 
greater conquests elsewhere. In the year 



* Lang, ii. 42. 

t Considerations of the Clerjjy of the jMargravate con- 
cernins: Church Discipline. Strobel, Miscellaneen, ii. p. 
14?. Even so recently as in 1741, the worthy [lausmann 
did not venture to tell what he knew of this matter. 
Hausmann in Spengler, pp. 55, 297. 

1 Bedenken bei, D. W. iv. p. 389. 



1533, a provincial synod was established in 
Strasburg, which included various secular ele- 
ments, together with the spiritual; a commis- 
sion of the council (which, indeed, had pre- 
cedence), the wardens of the city churches, 
the doctors and teachers of the liberal arts. 
In the articles which it adopted, the office of 
preventing blasphemy and open scandal was 
specially committed to the civil authorities ;^ 
whereas the council never would consent to 
the introduction of church discipline, pro- 
perly so called. In affairs of faith, they said, 
nothing was to be effected by commands; 
as they could not possibly be enforced, the 
publication of them could only be attended 
with loss of consideration. The blameless 
life and conversation of the clergy (each of 
whom was to be seriously admonished in pri- 
vate), the good example of the higher classes, 
and exhortations to the lower by the masters 
of the guilds, appeared to them the oidy prac- 
ticable means to the attainment of the object. i| 

The church was regarded as an institution, 
for the propagation of religion — not so, much 
outward as inward. Every thing approaching 
to papacy was avoided. To free themselves 
from the coercive power of the spiritual body 
— the exercise of, which was most oppressive, 
while its relaxation was most destructive to 
morality — was the chief aim of the whole 
movement. And if the people would no longer 
endure the influence and the spiritual tyranny 
of the prelates, neither were they disposed to 
confer analogous powers on the inferior clergy 
who had abandoned the hierarchical system. 
The demand for a more rigid church discipline 
was immediately met by the conviction, that 
the Christian principle ought to act upon the 
will, by penetrating the heart; not to subdue 
the former by force, nor to alienate the latter 
by coercion. 

While, however, the reformers w^ere busied 
with these arrangements and considerations, 
and thought themselves perfectly secured by 
the concessions of Nürnberg, it proved that 
this was not entirely the case : the higher 
clergy of the Catholic church were far too 
powerfully represented in the constitution of 
the empire, and too expressly supported by 
the laws of the empire, so easily to abandon 
their cause. 

The emperor, indeed, issued an injunction, 
to the Imperial Chamber from Mantua (6th 
November, 1532), to stop all hostile proceed- 
ings concerning religious matters till his fur- 
ther commands. H 

A great number of prosecutions of that kind 
were already begun. Accusations were laid 
by the higher clergy against Strasburg, Con- 
stance, Reutlingen, Magdeburg, Bremen and 

§ The sixteen articles of the synod of 1533. Röhrich, 
ii. 2Ö3, and especially Art. 15. 
II Declaration of the council of 1534, id. p. 41, 
^ Harj)precht, v. 295. Saxon delegates vi'ere sent thither 
to carry on the business. Schreiben von Planitz, Mantua, 
7th Dec. They received through Held this answer: "Und 
so weit die Forderungen am Kammergericht und zu Roth- 
weil belangen thut, wiiszte sich I. Mt. wohl zu erinnern 
des Vertrags," &c. — " So far as the demands made on the 
ImperialChamber and at Rothwill are concerned, his imp. 
majesty was mindful of the treaty," &c. 



420 



DISPUTES WITH THE IMPERIAL CHAMBER. 



Book VI. 



Nürnberg, as well as against some sovereign 
princes; among whom were Ernest of Lüne- 
burg and George of Brandenburg. Most of 
the confiscated property was reclaimed ; and 
occasionally the interest due to a chapter, or 
an endowment in a town was withheld \ or an 
attempt was made to remove married priests ; 
or to place zealous Catholic priests in a Pro- 
testant city, against the will of its inhabitants. 

The Protestants thought they were perma- 
nently protected by the emperor's injunction. 
The Imperial Chamber, however, was not of 
that opinion. 

The Chamber was bound to the observance 
of the recess of Augsburg ; it M-ell knew that 
the majority had committed the war against 
Protestantism to its hands; and no man, or 
body of men, will ever willingly surrender 
functions which confer power. On the other 
side, could it venture to disobey an injunction 
of the emperor, from whom its authority was 
derived, and in whose name its judgments 
■were pronounced % 

In this dilemma, the Imperial Chamber de- 
vised the expedient of declaring that the pend- 
ing trials were not affairs of religion, but 
breaches of the public peace, and acts of spo- 
liation ; and that the offence charged was. 
transgressions of the recess of the empire. 

The first case in which this distinction was 
taken, was in the course of the proceedings 
concerning the claim of the city of Strasburg 
to the revenues and jewels of the chapter of 
Arbogast. The city advocate. Dr. Herter. said, 
that was indeed the suit against Strasburg, an 
aiiair in which all Protestants vrere civilly in- 
terested, but that it also concerned religion, 
and therefore could not be proceeded in, con- 
formably with the emperor's recent proclama- 
tion. The bishop's advocate replied, that his 
gracious master had nothing to do with the 
Protestant body; that the business regarded 
things wholly distinct from religion. The Pro- 
testants said, that a peace of the kind under- 
stood by the Chamber could be of no value to 
them, nor would his imperial majesty have 
troubled himself to ordain such a one ; the 
truce included persons, property, and co-de- 
pendencies. Nevertheless, they could obtain 
nothing further from the court, than a resolu- 
lution to ask the emperor for an explanation 
of his words. 

The emperor was still in Bologna, as it were 
the guest of the pope, and in daily communi- 
cation with his holiness, when this question 
was laid before him.. He dared not offer a 
fresh offence to the pope, already vacillating ; 
nor dared he offend the majority of the States. 
And yet he could not revoke his truce. He 
gave an answer as dark as the response of an 
oracle. '• The words of our injunction," says 
he, '• extend only to affairs of religion ; what, 
however, affairs of religion are, does not ad- 
mit of any better explanation than that which 
the affairs ' themselves afford."* Probably 
Held, an old assessor of the Imperial Cham- 
ber, who had accompanied the emperor to 

* 26th Jan. 1533. Harpprecht, v. 300. 



Bologna, was the inventor of this interpreta- 
tion. Obscure as it is, it leaves no doubt of 
its tendency. The government wished to con- 
firm the Chamber in the course it had taken. 

A commission which visited the tribunal in 
May, 1533, also admonished the members of 
it afresh to maintain the recess of Augsburg, 
especially in regard to religion. t 

Fortified by this double admonition, the Im- 
perial Chamber now knew no moderation. 
The plaints were received and reproduced ; 
the objection raised by the defendants, that 
the Chamber was not the proper tribunal for 
religious matters, made no impression ; the 
accusers charged them with an offence against 
the imperial authority, the inevitable conse- 
quence of which was sentence of ban. 

Had the Protestants submitted to this, their 
union would have been totally useless. 

They first addressed themselves (according 
to a resolution of their meeting at Schmalkal- 
den, in July, 1533) to the elector palatine and 
the Elector of Mainz, who had negotiated the 
peace, and who now took part, by their coun- 
cillors, in the recess of visitation. The electors 
declared that they could not take this matter 
upon themselves. Hereupon the Protestants 
appealed to the court itself. As a proof that 
the pending trials turned upon affairs of reli- 
gion, they cited the traditional maxim of the 
church of Rome, — that every thing relating to 
a benefice is to be considered a spiritual mat- 
ter. Their sole purpose, they said, in con- 
cluding the peace, was to guard themselves 
from the complaints and accusations of the 
clergy, — that in consequence of the change of 
doctrine they were robbed of their usufructs. 
But besides this, they had been expressly 
promised that the proceedings at Strasburg 
should be stopped. They pressed for a dis- 
tinct explanation, whether the Imperial Charh- 
ber v.-ould stay the proceedings in comphance 
with the emperor's commands, or not. The 
direct answers of the Chamber were obscure 
and evasive; the indirect — its actions — were 
perfectly clear. In November, 1533, the guild- 
masters and council of Strasburg were declared 
guilty. The city advocate again objected, 
that it was no longer an affair concerning Stras- 
burg alone, but all Protestants; upon which 
the bishop's advocate asked the judge of the 
Imperial Chamber, Count von Beichlingen, 
whether his grace would allow his sentence, 
given doubtless after mature reflection, to be 
impeached in so unfair a manner. Judge and 
court, after a short delay, declared, that if 
within fourteen days nobody should come to 
terras on behalf of the city of Strasburg, judg- 
ment would be executed on the demand of the 
bishop's advocate. 

At the same time difficulties were vexa- 
tiously thrown in the way of the Protestant 
procurator. Helfmann, because he persisted in 
taking the oath to God alone, and not to the 
saints also. 



t " Dem Abschied von Augsburg, sonderlich der christ- 
lichen Religion und Glaubens halber, nachzukommen und 
stracks zu geleben."—" To follow the decree of Augsburg, 
especially touching the Christian religion, and to live 
strictly according to it." 



Chap. VIII. 



PEACE OF CADAN. 



42i 



The Protestants saw that the concessions 
they had obtained in the treaty of Nürnberg 
were, under these circumstances, of no avail 
to them. ]Mean\vhile they were far from 
abandoning their claims: on the 30th July, 
1534. they proceeded to a formal recusation 
of the acts of the Imperial Chamber. 

The Council of Regency was abohshed ; the 
emperor at a distance; King Ferdinand not 
yet secure of the allegiance of his subjects, 
and the administrative powers which the em- 
peror had committed to him, very imperfectly 
recognised. To all these elements of disorder 
was now added, that the authority of the tri- 
bunal which was the sole remaining represent- 
ative of the unity of the empire, was repugned 
by a large portion of the States. 

It is obvious how much these troubles tended 
to heighten the discontent which the rapid 
success of Landgrave Philip in his Wurten- 
berg campaign had already seriously aggra- 
vated. 

They were accordingly among the most im- 
portant subjects of discussion at Annaberg and 
Cadan. 

One main inducement for the Elector of 
Saxony to give way as to the election was, that 
King Ferdinand, from whom liitherto nothing 
could be expected but a hostile influence on the 
Chamber, now bound himself, '-seeing that a 
misunderstanding had arisen concerning the 
peace of Xilrnberg," to bring about an abandon- 
ment of the proceedings commenced against 
those included in that treaty. These words must 
be well weighed. The admission that a misun- 
derstanding had arisen ; the promise of a com- 
plete stop to proceedings, were clearly intended 
to silence, as far as it lay in the king's power, 
the cavils of the Imperial Chamber. So the 
Protestants understood it.* We do not know 
the injunction which the king hereupon issued 
to the Imperial Chamber; but it is the fact, 
that we find no complaint of any further pro- 
ceedings of that tribunal. 

The benefit of the truce extended, of course, 
only to those who were included by name in 
the peace of Nürnberg. But another point 
was determined at Cadan which tended ma- 
terially to the spread of Protestantism. 

King Ferdinand had at first not only wished 
to bind the Duke of Wurtenberg by the terms 
of the peace, to receive his country as a fief 
held of him. but also, to attempt no alteration 
in religious matters ] and an article was ac- 
tually proposed, stipulating that the duke 
should leave everybody as he had found him 
in the matter of relis'ion.t But if Ferdinand 



obstinately persisted, as we have seen, in the 
former demand, the elector was equally in- 
flexible in rejecting the latter. It was impos- 
sible, he said, that he could ever consent that 
the word of God should not be preached ac- 
cording to his own confession and that of his 
deceased father ] he could not obstruct the free 
course of the Gospel ; he would not, even were 
the duke willing; rather would he withdraw 
his opposition to the election ; the article in 
question must absolutely be erased.? Upon 
this the duke received the joyful intelligence 
that he was to rem.ain unshackled as to reli- 
gion, and have power to take measures for 
Christian order in concert with his subjects. § 
The only restrictions imposed on him were in 
regard to those who, being possessed of certain 
regalia, were not properly- to be considered his 
subjects. 

These, then, are the decisions which render 
the peace of Cadan so important to the cause 
of Protestantism. It is clear that no such 
result was contemplated in the attempt on 
Wurtenberg; that the Protestant theologians 
hoped nothing, the pope feared nothing, from 
it. But, concluded by one of the chiefs of the 
evangelical party, in favour of a prince who 
during his banishment had imbibed similar 
sentiments, and ratified under conditions like 
those we have described, this peace could not 
fail to bring about a total alteration of the reli- 
gious state of Wurtenberg. 

The form which the reforniation here as- 
sumed was also to a certain extent prescribed 
by the course of events. 

Had the duke's restoration been brought 
about sooner by^ one of those political combi- 
nations which Zwingli contemplated, it is 
probable that his views of church government 
would also have gained an ascendancy in the 
duchy. 

But now, the war having been conducted by 
Hessen, and the peace brought about by Sax- 
ony, after the defeat of the Swiss and the ap- 
proximation of the Oberländers to the Saxon 
confession, that result was not to be expected. 
On the contrary, the duke adopted the form of 
expression in use since that approximation ; 
he announced that he would tolerate no one 
who preached any other doctrine than that of 
the true body^ and blood of Christ in the Lord's 
Supper. An article of the peace of Cadan 
was expressly directed against the Sacra- 
' menters.ll 

J At the same time he invited Ambrosius 
! Blaurer, one of the most eminent Oberland 



* Saxon memorial to the congress at Vienna, ]535. The 
pretext of the- Imperial Chamber, that it did not listen to 
any religious affairs, was, according to this, obviated by 
the treaty : " Indem das sich K. Mt. verpflichtet hat, obwol 
uf beruften nürnbergischen Frieden etwas Missverstand, 
—welcher Missverstand eben des Kamniergerichts Gegen- 
fürwenduns gewest,— fürgefalien, soll er doch aufgehoben 
seyn." — "Inasmuch as his imperial majesty has bound 
himself, although a certain misunderstanding has occurred 
concerning the above-mentioned treaty 'of Nürnberg," 
(which misunderstanding was neither more nor less than 
this pretext of the Imperial Chamber^) " that it should be 
removed." 

t That is, without doubt, the meaning of the somewhat 
obscure words ; " Das Herzog Ulrich einen jedera in dem 
2i 



Fürstenthumb Wirtenberg der Religionsachen halber in 
dem Wesen wie sie bis uf sein Einnehmen (gewesen), 
verfolgen, und zugestellt werden." — >' That Duke Ulrich 
should allow all men in the duchy of Wirtemberg to con- 
tinue and be established in the state in which they were, 
as to religious matters, up to the time of his restoration." 

X We know these negotiations from a letter of the 
Elector of Saxony to the king. Sattler, ill. p. 1-23. On 
the margin, by the side of this article, is written : " Sol 
aussen pleiben." — " Must be left out." / 

§ Through Hans von Dölzk ; Letter from Ulrich, ibid. 
124. 

|! Letter to Blaurer, 22d December, 1534. The addition, 
"Wie Euch denn selber alles wohl wissen ist,"— "As all 
is known to yourself," shows that Ulrich, from the first, 
held the same language. 



422 



EEFORMATION IN WURTENBERG. 



Book VI. 



theologians and an intimate friend of Butzer's, 
together with the Marburg professor Erard 
Schnepf, a decided follower of Luther, to or- 
ganise the church of Wilrlenberg. They be- 
gan by agreeing on a formula satisfactory to 
both. Their agreement is a symptom of the 
gradual consolidation of the unity of ihe Ger- 
man evangelical church."* 

Thereupon Blaurer undertook the reforma- 
tion of the country above, and Schnepf that 
of the country below, the Staig.t The priests 
were no longer convoked according to the rural 
chapters, as heretofore, but according to the 
secular division of the country into bailiwicks j 
and after the main points of the evangelical 
doctrine had been expounded to them, were 
asked to state what the government had to 
expect from them. Spite of all the exertions 
of the Austrian government for the mainte- 
nance of the religious edicts, there were still 
a considerable number even of the priests who 
joined the evangelical party at the first invi- 
tation. In the bailiwick of Tübingen there 
W'ere seven ; the remaining twelve asked for 
time to consider.? Under these circumstances 
the ritual was altered without difhculty. In 
many places the mass was voluntarily aban- 
doned; in others, it was discontinued accord- 
ing 1o order. Schnepf instituted a form of the 
Lord's Supper with which the Oberländers were 
satisfied. 

The monasteries were next taken in hand. 
Duke Ulrich made no secret of '' his intention 
of applying their property to the payment of 
the public debt, and the relief of the people 
from intolerable burdens." As he had been 
so long out of the country, and had taken 
upon him Ferdinand's debts to the Swabian 
league, it is not to be wondered at that he 
found himself in pecuniary difficulties, for 
W'hich this was the only remedy.'^ 

He did not suflTer himself to be restrained 
by the limitations laid down in the peace of 
Cadan. The Austrian government had led 



* They both confessed, Corpus et sanguinem Christi 
vere,i. e-siibstaritialiter et essentiaüter, nou autem quan- 
titative aiit qualitative vel localiter, prcesentia esse et 
exhiheri in ccena; a formula, the scholastic fashion of 
which scandalised many of the evangelical party. 

t In Schnurrer's Erläuterungen der W. K. und Ref. 
Gesch. it is stated as a fact, (p. 127,) that many whom 
Schnepf sent away as doubtful, went a few miles further 
and were accepted by Blaurer. Schnurrer refers for this 
to Füssli's EpistolBB Reformatorum, p. 99. There is a let- 
ter of Haller to Builinger. in which the former relates 
what he had heard from Thomas Blaurer in August, 1534, 
— consequently at the very beginning of the difference 
l.etween the two parlies; quam male conveniat Wirtem- 
bergeiisibiis ministris(as the Schnepfians are full of sneers 
at enthusiasts), et dum quibusdam de Schnepfio periculum 
sit, cum ad ministeriuni apti sint, quum prima prope sit 
interrogatio de eucharistoe causa, si Lutheranus fuerit, 
quantumvis alioquin doctus, admittatur, sin minus, reji- 
ciatur et ab Ambrosio recipiatur. It is clear that Thomas 
Blaurer speaks of it only as a danger,— a possibility. Jac. 
Sturm was of the same opinion: " Schriepf schuhe die 
unsern, werde die in Anstellung der Kirche meiden."— 
"Schnepf is shy of our people, and will avoid them in 
his appointments to the church." But it remains to be 
proved whether circumstances really turned out as Schnur- 
rer sets forth. 

J Bericht Ambrosii Blaurers was er mit den Pfaffen Tü- 
binger Umts ausgerichtet. (Report of Ambrose Blaurer 
what he effected with the priests of the Tübinger baili- 
wick.) Sattler, iii. App. No. 16. 
. § Schnurrer Erläuterungen, p. 149, No. 1. 



the way; it had asserted the rights of the 
state over endowments of doubtful sovereignty, 
and could not make much objection if its suc- 
cessor did the same. 

The whole country was thus in a short time 
transformed. Duke Ulrich had the merit of 
devoting particular attention to the university. 
We find many distinguished names among the 
teachers; the system of stipends adopted in 
Hessen was introduced with increased eff'ect 
into Würtenberg. Tübingen gradually became 
one of the most distinguished nurseries of 
Protestant learning. 

Würtenberg was a conquest of Protestantism 
based on the old hereditary rights of German 
princes ; a conquest of double value, inasmuch 
as it was achieved in precisely that region 
where the Swabian league had hithertq ob- 
structed the progress of the evangelical faith. || 
Throughout the Oberland this now acquired 
fresh activity; in Alsatia, where the influence 
of Strasburg had not been impaired ; in the 
neighbouring dynastic domains ; Markgrave 
Bernhard of Baden, Count Philip IV. of Ha- 
nau, Louis of Falkenstein, William of Für- 
stenberg (the joint leader in the Würtenberg 
war), gradually reformed the church in their 
territories, as did also numerous imperial cities. 
Scarcely, could the news of the battle of Lau- 
fen be known, when Michael Kress, the parish 
priest of Weissenburg in the Wasgau, discon- 
tinued the mass (June, 1534); the council con- 
curred with him, and warned the discontented 
servants of the chapter to quit the town with- 
out delay. The greatest impression, however, 
was made by the conversion of Augsburg. 
The reformed doctrine had long been gaining 
ground there, but the old opinions had still 
powerful supporters, among whom were the 
Fuggers ; and had any thing been attempted 
against the bishop and chapter, the law or the 
Swabian league would have hastened to their 
assistance. It is obvious, however, that a 
state of things in which the minds of men 
were daily embittered by conflicting or hostile 
preaching, was not tenable in a community 
that pretended to some poHtical weight in the 
empire; these points of difl^erence now con- 
stituted the most important part of public 
affairs. The evangelical party, which had 
long been the majority, now took courage, 
under the political influences of those times, 
to assert their rights.l A disputation was 
proposed to the clergy. As they either en- 
tirely refused to enter into it, or would do so 
only under conditions which the city ,could 
not accede to, the greater and lesser council, 
wäth the bürgermeister Wolf Rehlinger at their 
head, passed a resolution, that no more papisti- 
cal preaching should be allowed; no mass 
tolerated, except in the church immediately 
belonging to the bishop. This happened on 
the 22d July. Hereupon most of the chapels 
were closed, a part of the clergy left the city, 

11 Gassarus, in Mencken, i. p. 1798: this took place "Non 
sine totius Suevise pfafforum monachorumque consterna- 
tione." ( 

IT Gassarus, passim. Statten, 335. Zapf, Leben Stadions, 

p. 83. 



Chap. YIII. 



REFORMATION IN ANHALT. 



423 



while another rallied the more closely round 
the bishop and the chapter. 

Analogous motives regarding the internal 
affairs of the city led, about the same time, 
to the formal conversion of Frankfurt ; though 
^vilhout so marked an influence of political 
causes.* 

We need not adduce any more facts to 
show that the new religion, though certainly 
favoured by the course of poliiical affairs, pos- 
sessed great independent force and activity ; 
it had prepared the very events which contri- 
buted to its emancipation. 

It was sometimes sufficiently strong to main- 
tain itself in complete contradiction to what 
the political situation of the country seemed 
to require ; as, for example, in Anhalt. 

Fur what could be more perilous for the 
majority of the Anhalt princes (in whose 
nauio one of them — Prince John — had sub- 
scribad the recess of Augsburg), than to re- 
tract, in direct opposition to those powerful 
neigiiüours whose favour was absolutely essen- 
tial to them, — Duke George of Saxony, the 
Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, and the 
Archbishop Albert? One of the brothers, 
Prince George, was an ecclesiastic, and al- j 
ready prebendary of Llagdeburg and Merse- i 
burg cathedrals; his prospects seemed bound j 
up with the existence of the Catholic church. 
Yet it was he who contributed the most to 
the change. He declared that, near as he 
lived to the birth-place of Lutheranism, he 
liatl been deceived as to its true character ; it 
had been represented to him in the most un- 
favourable light possible ; he had been told 
that good works were forbidden by it, good 
ordinances subverted, and license given for 
all unchristian practices. But he had con- 
vinced himself of the contrary. He had found 
that the Holy Scriptures were taught conform- 
ably with the ancient Romish churcli.t He 
gradually became so zealous, and so persua- 
vsive in his exhortations to his brothers, that a 
Dominican friar having indulged in violent 
language against the use of the sacrament in 
both kinds, on Holy Thursday of the year 
1532, in the pulpit at Dessau, they displaced 
him, and appointed in his stead Nicholas 
Hausmann, a friend of Luther. Duke George 
of Saxony instantly threatened them with the 
emperor's displeasure ; he predicted the utter 
failure of their attempts, and the ruin of 
Prince George's prospects in the church ; but 
he made no impression upon them, either by 
repr&sentations of this kind, or by his doc- 
' trinai arguments.? They went on fearlessly. 
The circumstance, that a member of the 

* Kirchner, Geschichte von Frankfurt, ii. 84. I shall 
revert to both these cities. 

t Letter from Georire to the emperor, in Fürst Georgs 
Schriften und Predigten (Prince George's Writings and 
Sernioiis), p. 3o3. 

J" Letter of Prince Joachim to George, Fürst Georgs 
Schriften und Predigleu, p. 384. Luther rejoices at this 
conunenccment, " Etiantsi id factum non sit sine gravi 
periculo, magnis principibus coiUrariuni suarientibus, in- 
EUpor etiam minantibus." Letter to the tiiree brothers, 
J'l'hn, Joacliini, and George, in Lindner's Mittheilungen 
aus der Anhaltischen Geschichte (Communications from 
the History of Anhalt), part ii., which contains some 
letters wailtins in De Wette, 



reigning house also held a high office in the 
diocese, was of great importance. As arch- 
deacon and prebendary of the church ofSMag- 
deburg. Prince George deemed himself en- 
titled to exercise a regular spiritual authority 
in his dominions. In virtue of this combined 
spiritual and temporal power, he convoked 
the clergy of the Anhalt country on the 16th 
March, 1534^ and admonished them in future 
to administer the Lord's Supper in both kinds. § 
The archbishop cardinal was dissatisfied, as 
may be imagined; but Prince George insisted 
that the spiritual jurisdiction belonged in the 
first place to him, as archdeacon ; while the 
archiepiscopal supeiintendence remained with, 
the cardinal. Spite of all opposition, he gra- 
dually filled the benefices south of the Elbe 
with disciples of Luther. But when the re- 
form was about to begin in the country on 
the other side, within the jurisdiction of the 
Bishop of Brandenburg, matters were altered. 
At first. Prince George requested the bishop 
to ordahi whatever priests he might send him.^ 
But as the latter naturally refused to admit 
married priests into the Catholic church. 
Prince George no longer hesitated to send his 
candidates to Wittenberg, where Luther e'xa- 
mxined them, and, if he found them attached 
to pure and sound doctrine, gave them a cer- 
tificate, and ordained them. 

It was fortunate that things anywhere took 
so peaceful a course. 

In other parts, as, for example, in Pomera- 
nia, there were the most violent intestine 
struggles. Indeed, there had always been 
peculiar exasperation between parties in that 
country. In some of the towns there had 
been iconoclastic riots, and v.'ith what hatred 
the adherents of popery requited them, may 
be seen in the satirical songs which are ex- 
tant. ' The nobility and clergy of the \vhole 
country were leagued against the towns. The 
two princes, George and Barnim, quarrelled. 
Even in 1531, the Protestants had feared that 
George would take an active share in the war 
which threatened them. But Barnim — -the 
same who had taken part in the Leipzig dis- 
putation — sent word to the league, that what 
his brother built up, he would pull down ^f 
that he had wdshed for a division of the pro- 
vinces and a separate government, in order 
that he might be able to support the religious 
reforms. At this moment, however, Duke 
George died, and his son PhiMp, young, eager 
for instruction, and rather at variance with 
his Catholic step-mother, was more easy to 
gain over. It is probable that Barnim and 
Philip, at an interview at Cammin, in August, 
1534, agreed to undertake in their dominions 
v.diat had already been effected in so many 
others. At a diet at Treptow, in the follow- 
ing December, they laid before the meeting a 
project of a reformation, which was, in fact, 
founded on a proposition of the towns, and, 

§ Instructions to the envoys of John and Joachim of 
Anhalt to the archbishop. (Dessau Archives.) 

TT Proceedings at Schmalkalden, Judica, 153L He de- 
clined joining the Schnialkaldic league, '- because the do- 
mains were still undivided between him and his brothers." 



424 



REFORMATION IN WESTPIIALIA—SOEST. 



Book VI. 



with some trifling alterations, joyfully ac- 
cepted by thenri. The excellent Pomeranian, 
Doctor Bugenhagen, was invited to midertake 
a visitation of the churches in the manner of 
Wittenberg. But the nobles and clergy raised 
a most violent opposition. The Bishop of 
Cammin, who had been entreated to direct 
the changes, utterly refused ; the Abbot of 
Altencamp produced a mandate of the Impe- 
rial Chamber, forbidding the dukes to make 
any innovation. The knights were made to 
believe that a league was in agitation between 
the princes and the tow^ns, which could only 
turn out to their injury; and therefore refused 
to take the smallest share in the reforms."* 

This was, indeed, the state of a great part 
of Lower Germany. Duke Henry of Mecklen- 
burg, who, in 1534, took the sacrament in both 
kinds, was opposed by his brother Albert, to- 
gether with the greater part of the country. 
The resistance which the change still expe- 
rienced in Holstein, appears in a letter of 
Landgrave Philip to Duke Christian, as to the 
means of gaining over the nobility. Almost 
everyw^here we find the chapters and the 
equestrian order (Ritterschaften) in array 
against the reforming tendencies of the cities. 
In Westphalia, especially^ the most violent 
contest had broken out. 

The course and progress of things in the 
cities of Westphalia were the same as in 
those of Saxony. Lutheran hymns were sung 
by boys in the streets, by men and women in 
the houses, first in an evening, and then by 
day: and Lutheran preachers arose. Here 
and there a convent voluntarily broke up, as 
at Hervord, while the priories of monks and 
nuns which remained adopted the reforma- 
tion. t The priest of Lemgo, who had been a 
steady adherent of John Eck, was at length 
convinced by the writings of his antagonists, 
and travelled to Brunswick in order to inspect 
the nature and mode of the change ; he re- 
turned an evangelical preacher, and intro- 
duced reform into the town. The old bur- 
germeister Florken, who had been a great ad- 
mirer of the hierarchical system, and held it 
to he the only legitimate form of Christianity, 
was obliged to yield to the innovators, who 
confuted the scholastic doctrines out of the 
Epistle to the Romans.;' 

There w^ere, however, but two or three 
places in which the movement was so peace- 
fully carried forward ; elsewhere, it gave oc- 
casion to scenes of violence and blood, espe- 
cially in Soest and Paderborn. 

In the former city, the biirgermeister and 
councillors had been compelled, against their 
will, to sanction the Lutheran preaching, and 



* Letter of Abbot Johann Hüls (8th June), and llie Po- 
meranian Order of Knights (25th October, 1535), in Me- 
deni, Gesch. ;der Einführung der ev. Lehre in Pommern, 
197, 231. 

t " Wolte," .says Luther, "dassdie Klöster alle so ernst- 
lich GcAtes Wort v.'olten beten und halten." — " Would 
that the con^'ents all would so earnestly pray (i. e., read 
with devotion), and keep God's word." 

% The other biirgermeister who then resigned was An- 
dreas Kleinsorg, grandfather of Gerhard von Kleinsorgen, 
who wrote a history of the Westphalian church, of a 
Catholic tendency. 



to adopt the Confession of Augsburg, and an 
evangelical form of church government. § But 
since they remained in ofRce, it was impossi- 
ble to avoid continual irritation between them 
and the leaders of the evangelical party in 
the commune. There was a tanner, named 
Schlachtorp, who was peculiarly odious to 
them ; and thinking to re-establish their tot- 
tering authority, at least in civil matters, they 
seized on the pretext of an excess of which 
he and two or three others, heated w^ith wine, 
had been guilty, to arrest him, bring him to 
judgment, and condemn him and his com- 
panions to death. Nobody was prepared for 
such a sentence — for their only crime in fact 
was some insulting and irritating language — 
Schlachtorp least of all, for otherwise he could 
easily have made his escape. No representa- 
tion as to the trifling nature of the offence, no 
intercession, was of any avail ; the day of exe- 
cution was fixed. In order to protect them in 
this act, the council entrusted the most loyal 
of the citizens, who were still in part Catholic, 
wMth arm.s. We must accompany the victim 
to the scaffold. When he reached it. he turned 
to the multitude of his fellow-citizens of his 
own opinions, who were assembled in great 
numbers, though unarmed, and after protest- 
ing that he died for the cause of religion 
alone, he began to sing the hymn. — '-Mit 
Fried und Freud fahr ich dahin." (With peace 
and joy I go hence.) The whole multitude 
joined in. They were convinced that the un- 
fortunate man was a victim to arbitrary power • 
but the council wielded the sword of justice, 
and they did not think themselves justified in 
interposing. The executioner asked which of 
the condemned w^ould die first. Schlachtorp 
craved that honour, sat down upon the chair, 
suffered his shirt to be pulled off, and pre- 
sented his neck to the stroke. As fortune 
would have it, the executioner did not take 
good aim, and the stroke, instead of falling on 
his neck, fell on his back ; so that Schlachtorp 
and the chair in which he was seated were 
overturned, and, though fearfully wounded, he 
was still living. The other executioner came 
forward, raised him up, and placed his neck 
in a position to receive a second stroke. But 
meantime Schlachtorp had recovered his con- 
sciousness; he thought he had given justice 
her due, and was absolved from all further 
obligations: though his hands were bound, by 
a rapid turn he snatched the sword, already 
again uplifted, from the executioner's hand, 
and grasped it w^ith a strength redoubled by 
the mortal peril, till he had torn the cords from 
his hands with his teeth ; when he brandished 
the weapon, crimsoned with his own blood, 
around him with such force, that neither of 
the executioners dared to approach him. All 
this was the work of a moment. But in that 
moment the sympathy of the people, which 
had been repressed with such difficulty, burst 
forth. The magistrates ordered the execu- 
tioners to desist; the crowd carried Schlach- 



§ The Catholic clergy were commanded "ut honesta 

vivereni ^abolita superslitione tantum." Most of them 

quitted the city. 



Chap. VIII. 



REFORMATION IN V/ESTPHALIA— PADERBORN. 



425 



torp, holding the captured sword in his hand, 
in triumph to his house, where, on the follow- 
ing day, he died from loss of blood and violent 
agitation. Never was there such a funeral 
seen as his. Men and women, old and young, 
evangelical and Catholic, accompanied the 
body, all pressmg to see the sword of justice 
which was laid on the coffin. This incident 
raised the ferment of all spirits and the exas- 
peration against the council to such a pitch, 
that the latter thought itself every moment 
menaced with violence and tumult, and at 
length deemed it best to leave the town (July, 
1533). A new council was then appointed, 
and the evangelical organisation completed. 

The events which occurred at Paderborn 
also lead us to the foot of the scaffold, though 
not to witness so terrible a catastrophe. Here, 
too, the common people had, by violence and 
intimidation, obtained liberty of preaching, and 
had already delivered over several churches 
to Protestant preachers; no negotiation of the 
Landdroste,^ no orders of the diet, had availed 
to reclaim them. Sach was the state of things 
when the newly elected administrator of the 
chapter, Hermann of Cologne, rode into the 
town at the head of the leading men of the 
land and an armed retinue, to receive their 
homage, Hermann was by nature no zealot 
(we shall meet him hereafter on a totally dif- 
ferent path) ; but the representations of the 
canons and the council, joined to some re- 
sentment at the disregard shown to his author- 
ity, at length moved him to a violent step. 
He once more, and, as he said, in order to take 
a gracious leave, invited the citizens to the 
garden of the monastery of Abdinkhoven; on 
their arrival, they were surrounded with armed 
soldiers; the leaders of the evangelical party 
w^ere seized and thrown into pnson. They^ 
were accused of a design to deliver up the 
city to the Landgrave of Hessen, pat to the 
torture, and sentenced to death in presence 
of the assembled people, and in sight of the 
scaffold, already strewn with the sand that 
was to drink their blood. But things w^ere 
not allowed to pass here as in Soest. The 
first executioner declared that they were in- 
nocent men, and that he would rather die 
himself, than put them to death. An aged 
man was heard to call out of the crowd, into 
which he had crawled, leaning on his staff', 
that he was as guilty as the condemned, and 
that he demanded to be executed with them : 
at the same m.oment. the women and young- 
maidens of the town rushed out of an adjoin- 
ing house with disordered garments and di- 
shevelled hair, and implored, weeping, mercy 
for the prisoners.! The tears came into the 
eyes of Elector Hermann (one of the house of 
Wied), who, as we have said, loved not deeds 
of violence ; and as he saw that his temporal 
lords were also moved, he granted the con- 
demned men their lives. But their doctrines 
were effectually put do^^^^. Those inclined to 
them were kept under strict supervision, and 

* A sort of magistrate; high bailiff. — Transl. 
t Hainelmann Hist, renov. evangelii, 1328; here, my 
chief authority. 

64 2l* 



fined at the pleasure of the authorities. A 
recess was drawn up, by which the new 
doctrines were forbidden under the severest 
penalties. I 

Such were the conflicting powers in West- 
phalia: on the one side, spiritual princes, 
cathedral chapters, knightly orders and city 
authorities, closely bound together; on the 
other, bodies of citizens vehemently excited, 
and inflamed by zealous preachers ; the one 
class not less wilful and violent than the other. 
The former scrupled not to employ their juris- 
dictional and magisterial powers with the ex- 
tremest se^verity to suppress the new opinions ; 
the other, obedient so long as the strict letter 
of the law was concerned, were ripe for revolt 
at any moment when that appeared to be in 
the least degree violated. The spiritual go- 
vernment, which held together the higher 
classes by the bonds of a common interest, 
was attacked by the lower, who rejected its 
authority, with all the violence of incipient 
rebellion. 

Nowhere, however, did these conflicting 
elements come into fiercer collision, than in 
the centre of spiritual organisation ; in that 
place where the word used to denote the con- 
vent founded on the banks of the Aa, at the 
time of the first introduction of Christianity, 
had superseded the ancient name of the place 
and the district, and had become the name of 
the town and the country — in IMünster. 

Bernhard Rottman, a Lutheran preacher, 
who had already been driven away, fixed 
himself again at the church of St. Maurice in 
the suburbs, and became so popular, that at 
length the bishop, urged by the clergy of the 
city, sent him a safe-conduct, and desired him 
to go. The .consequence of this, however, 
was, that his followers in the city itself re- 
ceived him; they first built him a wooden 
pulpit in a churchyard, but soon after — rather 
by the threat, than the actual application of 
force — opened to him the church of St. Lam- 
bert.«} A committee of the citizens was next 
appointed to defend the new doctrines against 
the clergy and the council. Other Lutheran 
preachers appeared, and a disputation was 
held, the object of which was, to show the 
abuses of the established mode of worship. 
As they found no able defender, the senti- 
ments of the people gained influence over the 
council (which, consistent with the ancient 
constitution of the country, was open to popu- 
lar influences), and at length obtained a ma- 
jority. They then proceeded without delay 
to a final arrangement. At a solemn meeting 
at the Schauhaus, all the parish churches w^ere 
delivered up to the newly come preachers, by 
the council, aldermen (oldemanner) and guild- 
masters. The clergy, together with the mi- 



ll "We will that now and henceforth no strange man 
or woman, serving-man or maid, who come out of such 
towns or villages as are attached to the new doctrine, or 
are accused of the same, be received as servants in our 
city of Paderborn," 1532, lüth October. Kleinsorgea, \i. 
364. 

§ So the oldest and simplest report relates. " Dorpius 
Wahrhaftige Historie, wie das Evangelium zu Münster 
angegangen ;" " True history how the gospel was assailed 
at Münster." 



426 



REFORMATION' IN WESTPHALIA— MUNSTER. 



Book VI. 



nority of the councH, quitted thp city. The 
religious revolution was, as so often happened 
in those times, connected wilh civil changes. 

But those who had been expelled were less 
inclined in Münster than elsewhere to despair 
of their cause : they found natural allies in 
the knights (Ritterschaft) and the chapter. 
Here, too, advantage was taken of the acces- 
sion of a new bishop, Francis von Waldeck, to 
excite the whole country against the city. All 
communication with it was cut off, its rents 
and the interest of its mone3^s were withheld, 
and the citizens themselves taken prisoners 
wherever they were caught. The condition 
attached to the removal of these oppressive 
measures was, the restoration of the old reli- 
gion. 

The evangelical party, however, who thought 
themselves in the right, were not disposed to 
yield. If force were appealed to, they felt 
themselves strong enough to resist- and the 
best opportunity soon offered for striking a 
blow w-hich must decide the contest. 

The bishop had just ridden with the Stales 
to receive homage at Telgte, a mile from 
Münster. The injunction to the citizens, to 
conform again to the ancient faith, was issued 
from this place, on the Christ mas- day of 1532. 
They instantly resolved what course to pursue. 
During the following night they marched upon 
Telgte, nine hundred strong; partly brave citi- 
zens, partly tried soldiers, armed with match- 
locks and two or three small cannon, laid on 
four-wheeled wagons. Fortune favoured them 
so far that the bishop's mounted posts did not 
fall in with them. They arrived at Telgte in the 
gray of the morning, broke in the gates, look pos- 
session of the streets, and found their way into 
the houses where their enemies were quietly 
sleeping. They look them nearly all prisoners ; 
the princes, councillors, the highest members 
of the ^cathedral chapter, and of the equestrian 
order, together with their own councillors who 
had quitted the town; the prince himself, by 
good luck, was gone ; they suffered the depu- 
ties of the small towns to depart, but they 
carried all the rest — all their opponents — back 
to Münster on carts.* At about eleven o'clock 
the train, announced by the joyous beat of the 
drum, re-entered the city in triumph. 

The people thus for the present attained 
their end. The bishop could not make a regu- 
lar attack upon them ; for even had he had 
the means, he would have been restrained by 
fear of the vengeance the citizens might take 
on the prisoners in their hands. The anxious 
families of these prisoners now endeavoured 
to put an end to the hostilities they themselves 
had excited. I By the mediation of Hessen, a 



'* Instructions and Report of Tlianne von Hardt, Mar- 
shal of Münster, in the Cleves Records, Düsseldorf Ar- 
chives. Neeotiations and attack as already related: 
"Alsdann etlicl) unser gewaltigen Herren von Münster, 
desgleichen rede, verordente, eins Domcapitels und der 
Ritterschap, ok souiige ander des Adels, ok somige von 
den Stedten gefenglich (renummen." — " Then certain of 
our powerful lords of^Münster, the council of the same, 
the delegates from the chapter of the cathedral and the 
order of knights, and some of the nobles and some of the 
citizens were taken prisoners." 
t Letter of Bishop Francis (after confirmation), 17th 



peace was at length concluded in February, 
1533 ; according to the terms of which, liberty 
to follow the Confession of Augsburg, both as 
to ceremonies and preaching, was guarantied 
to the city for its six parish churches; while, 
on the other hand, the citizens were to permit 
the exiles to return, and allow the ancient 
ritual to subsist for the bishop, chapter and 
monastery. The landgrave as mediator, the 
bishop and chapter, the delegates of the Order 
of knights (among whom were a Raesfeld, 
two Drostes, and a Büren), and the councillors 
of the cities, signed the treaty of peace. All 
seemed now set at rest. The bishop appeared 
in the city, and received the homage ; an 
evangelical church ordinance was published, 
in w^hich a provision was made for the poor, 
and negotiations were opened for joining the 
Schmalkaldic league. 

Had these things remained, says Kersen- 
broik, the clergy of Münster would have fallen 
under a yoke never again to be thrown off. 
We may add, that had these things remained, 
Protestantism would now be the prevalent re- 
ligion of town -and country in Westphalia. 
The neighbouring communes, Warendorf, 
Beckum, Aalen, Coesfeld, already imitated 
the example of Münster. The bishop him- 
self, who was not more fixed in his opinions 
than Hermann of Cologne, would at length 
have been borne \\\\\\ the stream, and Münster 
would have decided the fate of Westphaha. 

But a signal example was to be given to the 
world, of the dangers inevitably attending a 
change in long-established things. 

The principle of the reformation was once 
more in living progress ; it was spreading vic- 
toriously through all Germany; but for that 
very reason, its effect on the actions, the v/ants 
and the passions of men admitted neither of 
restraint nor calculation. It is truß that the 
Protestants had at length acquired a regularly 
constituted organ, whose legality and compati- 
bility with the condition and welfare of the 
empire had obtained recognition, though at 
first an unwilling and partial one; but even to 
this the innovators could not entirely adhere. 
The members of the Schmalkaldic league, in 
whose favour the peace had been made, were 
specified by name ; and these did not yet ven- 
ture to unite wdth others. The new opinions 
were compelled to make their way by their 
own strength ; and it naturally followed that 
they struck into paths deviating from the con- 
stituted evangelical church. 

At an earlier period of the reformation, the 
movement in the towns of Lower Saxony was 
Avith difficulty arrested at the results of its first 
successes, or appeased by the mere freedom 
of divine worship according to the new ritual. 
In Magdeburg, community of goods had been 
preached under some lingering influences of 



Jan. 153.3, "sind wir durch etzliche Grafen auch ein treffli- 
chen Adel und Verwandte, sunderlich den von Buern und 
Mengersheim umb Erlösung derselben die also in unserni 
Dienst niedergelacht, sehr heftig angesoicht."— " We are 
very vehemently solicited by certain counts, also excel- 
lent nobles and kinsmen, especially by them of Biiern 
and Mengersheim, for the liberation of those who have 
thus succumbed in our service." 



Chap. IX. 



DISORDERS IN MUNSTER. 



427 



the peasants' war ', and it required as deter- 
mined a will .as that of Amsdorf, who was 
chosen superintendent of the church of Mag- 
deburg, to assert and maintain the pacific in- 
tentions of Luther. In Brunswick, an niclina- 
tion to Zwingli's views showed itself soon after 
the creation of the Lutheran church-establish- 
ment, even among the preachers who had 
assisted in constructing it; they rejected the 
organ and singing in parts, and especially cei'- 
tani hymns sung during the communion, ex- 
pressive of the Lutheran view of that institu- 
tion ; but the council of the city, and espe- 
cially the syndic Levin of Emden, declared 
themselves'against every innovation, and would 
not suffer any thing at variance with the re- 
ceived ordinances of the church to be devised ; 
doubtless they feared that it would not be easy 
to set limits to a new movement. We observe 
similar appearances in Goslar. They arose in 
part from the Zwinglians who had been driven 
out of Brunswick; but here, too, Amsdorf 
watched over the integrity of the Wittenbeig 
ordinances, and their opponents were driven 
away. 

Movements of a kindred nature, but far 
more violent, now took place in Münster. The 
preachers who had arisen during the conflict 
(of whom the most zealous, Rottmann, now 
held the office of superintendent) not only 
betrayed a leaning to the Zwinglian view of 
the Lord's Supper, but what (considering the 
manner in which opinions were at that time 
implicated) was much more important, — a 
wide departure even from Zwingli in relation 
to the other sacrament. Rottmann rejected_ 
infant baptism. All the lovers of peace in 
Münster, all who were satisfied with what 
they had obtained, were alarmed; the coun- 
cil, democratically as it was constituted, op- 
posed him ; a disputation was held, the result 
of which was, a formal declaration against 
Rottmann. Th« university of I\Iarburg too 
gave in an opinion against him, and certain 
Hessian theologians came to support the coun- 
cil in its resistance to the innovators. With 
all this, however, the new council, which had 
still to contend with the tendencies of the 
Catholic party, was not strong enough to haye 
recourse to energetic measures. Rottmann and 
his followers remained in the town, and their 
secret influence was the greater, the more it 
was openly controlled. They were not in- 
clined to submit to a secular authority, owing 
its existence to a religious movement which 
had been headed by themselves. 

In this state of things they fell upon the 
thought of publicly introducing in Münster an 
element of the general moral and intellectual 
confusion to which they had already been 
somewhat inclined — Anabaptism. This has 
frequently crossed our path in the course of 
our history ; and we have seen how, expelled 
and persecuted by every legitimate authority, 
it yet always exercised a resistless power 
over the minds of men. 

The importance of its admission into Mün- 
ster was by no means confined to that city. 
It was an event of universal signiiicancy. 



The principle of reform, now embodied in 
a regular system, again saw tendencies rise 
around it, by,, which it was, in its turn, threat- 
ened with destruction. 

If, on the one side, it had established itself 
on impregnable foundations against the as- 
saults of the ancient church, it was destined 
to encounter, from the opposite quarter, dan- 
gers which at some moments seemed to 
threaten its very existence. ' 

The arena for the free struggles of the in- 
tellect was now thrown open ; it was soon to 
appear that conquests on that field are neither 
easy to wm, nor to maintain, 



CHAPTER IX. 

ANABAPTISTS IN MUNSTER. CURSORY AND GE- 
NERAL VIEW or ANABAPTISM. 

At a moment when the great ecclesiastical 
institutions Vvhich for centuries had held all 
consciences enthralled by ordinances more or 
less arbitrary, was shaken, partially over- 
thrown and robbed of its influence, it was 
not probable that the minds of men could be 
brought again to concur in one positive set of 
opinions. 

The wonder is less that this could not be 
completely effected, than that it was actually 
accomplished to so great an extent. 

At the moment before us, however, antago- 
nist principles were about once more to come 
into violent collision. 

We saw the resistance that Zwingli, as well 
as Luther, had to encounter from a third party, 
which rejected infant baptism. We observed 
at the same time, that this rejection formed 
by no means the exclusive point of dissent ; 
but was merely the badge of a party which, 
differed on innumerable other points, and ex- 
hibited infinite shades and varieties. 

It were well worth while to explore this 
eccentric state of opinion; to collect the strange 
writings in which it found utterance, and to 
trace out their inward connexion. 

So far as I can gain a general view of the 
matter, it appears to me that there were, in 
regard to doctrine, two distinct lines of opi- 
nion, diverging from the same point. 

The dogma of justification occupied the at- 
tention of the Anabaptists, as well as of their 
cotemporaries, and gradually led them to the 
discussion of the questions of the two natures 
in Christ, and the powers and qualities of the 
soul. They all adhered to the belief of the 
freedom of the will (and in that respect were 
opposed to Luther); but they differed in the 
conclusions they drew from it. 

The one party thought the question a very 
simple one. They held that man could un- 
questionably earn salvation by virtuous con- 
duct and by his own efforts ; that Christ was 
rather our teacher and father than our re- 
deemer. This opinion was particularly ox- 



428 



GARDENER-BRETHREN OF SALZBURG. 



Book VL 



poimded by Hans Denk, a very distinguished 
young man; — learned, coifscientious and mo- 
dest; at least he acknowledged, what'scarcely 
any other of his associates M'ould grant, that 
it was possible he might err. The basis of his 
doctrine is, that God is love : which, he said, 
flesh and blood could never have understood, 
had it not been embodied in certain human 
beings, who might be called divine men, or 
the children of God. But in one of them, love 
was supremely exemplified ; — in Jesus of Na- 
zareth. He had never stumbled in the path 
marked out by God ; He had never lost his 
unity with God ; He was a saviour of his 
people ; for he was the forerunner of all those 
who should be saved. This was the meaning 
of the words, that all should be; saved by 
Christ.* 

Intimately connected with Hans Denk was 
Ludwig Hätzer; they translated a part of the 
prophets into German together. Hatzer, how- 
ever, was not only hcentious in his life, but 
pushed his doctrines to their extremest conse- 
quences. He was the first man of that time 
who denied the divinity of Christ. We are 
not able to say how he arrived at this opinion, 
nor by what arguments he maintained it; the 
book he wrote upon it was never printed, and 
Ambrosius Blaurer burned the last manuscript 
copy. 

Hans Kautz, of Bockenheim, near Worms, 
put forth similar doctrines. He maintained 
that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was our Saviour, 
inasmuch as he left footsteps, by treading in 
which we might attain to salvation ; w^hoever 
taugh 
idol.t 

It is difficult to believe how widely these 
opinions were diffused. We find them in 
Salzburg, without being able to trace how 
they got there. They were professed by a 
community of poor people who rejected all 
divine worship, lived together in solitary 
places, and established confraternities by vo- 
luntary contributions; they called themselves 
Gardener-brethren {Gärtnerbrüder). They be- 
lieved that the desire to do good was inherent 
in man, and that if he fulfilled the law, it was 
enough; for that Gpd drew us to himself by 
that necessity of acting justly, which He had 
imposed on us: that Christ was by no means 
the fulfiller of the law, but a teacher of Chris- 
tian life;:|: — doctrines of no very profound, 

* Passages from his Buch von der Liebe (Book of Love)t 
Arnold, i. 1305. He was not consistent in his opinions. 
CEkolampadius (Epp. Zw. et CEc. p. 169), maintains that 
he retracted shortly before his death. "Etiamsi nee ilia 
purgatissima erant." See Vadian to Zwick, in Fiissli, 
IJeitrage, v. 397. 

( Röhrich Gesch. der Ref. in Elsass. 1. 338. Zwingli re- 
fers to him in the Elenchus contra Catabaptistas, in which 
he says, Apud Vangiones Denckii et Hetzeri cum Cutiis 
(lescio quibus nihil obscure plenara perlitationem per 
Christum negant, quod nihil aliud est quam novum lesta- 
inentum conculcare." 

X Newe Zeyttung von den widdenteufern und yhrerSect, 
J528. — New Journal of the Anabaptists ^and their Sect, 
1528. Appended are 13 articles, " welche sie sur warhaftig 
halten," "which they hold for true;" e.g., "Es sey ein 
inniges ziehen des Vaters damit er uns zu yhm ziehe, das 
spy wenn man lere recht thun von aussen." — " Sie mögen 
Guts thun von yhnen selbst wie sie erschaffen." — "That 
there is an inward attraction of the Father, whereby he 



but of a perfectly innocuous character. Never- 
theless, they drew down upon these poor 
people the most terrific punishment. Some 
of them being discovered at a meeting in the 
house of a parish priest, had, without hesita- 
tion, given the names of the absent members 
of their society. Hereupon, they were all 
delivered up to justice. Those of weaker 
faith, who allowed themselves to be persuaded 
to recant, were first beheaded and then burnt. 
Those who refused to recant, were consigned 
alive to the flames. "They lived long," says 
a cotemporaneous'Uccount, "and called aloud 
upon God, so that it was most piteous to hear." 
In other places they were brought together 
into the house where they had frequently held 
their meetings and preached to ane another, 
fastened in, and the house set fire to. " They 
cried out most lamentably together, and at 
length gave up the ghost : God help them and 
us all !" 

There was a beautiful girl of sixteen, who 
could by no means be induced to recant ; — for 
indeed the soul is at that age stronger and 
more capable of the highest flights of devoted- 
ness to a great moral sentiment, than at a more 
advanced period of life; — it is certain that she 
was guilty of the things wherepf she was ac- 
cused, but in all other respects she had the 
consciousness and the expression of the purest 
innocence. Everybody supphcated for her 
life. The executioner took her in his arras, 
carried her to a place near where horses were 
watered, and held her under the water till she 
was drowned; he then drew out the hfeless 
body and committed it to the flames. § 

The other party, of whom mention was 
made, was led to totally different conclusions 
on the same questions of redemption and jus- 
tification. They assumed a fundamental sepa- 
ration between flesh and spirit. Instead of 
holding that man is able of his own strength 
to do that which is right, and is saved by 
righteousness, and that this is the doctrine 
preached by Christ, they maintained, that the 
flesh alone sinned, and that the spirit was not 
affected by its acts, since it did not participate 
in the fall : that the whole man was rendered 
as free by the restoration, as before the fall, 
or even more so. Inasmuch as they ascribed 
this restoration to Christ, they taught that his 
humanity was of a peculiar nature, that he 
took nothing of his mother at his birth, but in 
him the pure word was made flesh, for* the 
flesh of Adam was accursed. These views 
were also very widely disseminated ; there 
are Anabaptist hymns in which they are dis- 
tinctly expressed.il It is not improbable that 



may draw us to himself: that is, if we teach men to do 
rightly from without {i. e. in outward acts). " 'I'hey may 
do good of themselves, as they are created to do." 

§ Newe Zeyttung. In Zauner's Salzburger Chronik, v. 
119, there are some further notices concerning these 
priests, &c., although the anecdote above was unknown 
to him. 

|( The song, for example, which is inserted in the history 
and traditions of Münster, (Münsterischen Geschichte und 
Sagen,) p. 291. The prisoner is there asked whether Chrjst 
be of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary. 
" Das hab ich nie gelesen, hab ich vor ihnen bekannt, 

Wie soll der von Erde wesen den Gott uns hat gesandt." 



Chap. IX. 



ANABAPTIST DOCTRINES. 



429 



Caspar Schwenkfeld, who also rejected the 
church, as then constituted, and infant bap- 
tism, and denied that the body of Christ was 
created, contributed greatly to their develop- 
ment.* Melchior Hoffmann, who busied him- 
self so much with these points, was certainly 
instigated by him. Hoffmann declared him- 
self at first for unconditional election by 
grace ; but he afterwards maintained that 
every man might be made partaker of grace; 
those only were lost without hope of mercy, 
who, having been once enlightened, fell off 
again from the truth. He proposed to unite 
all in whom any sign of grace manifested 
itself, into one congregation by second bap- 
tism.! 

Many and still greater diversities showed 
themselves among the Anabaptists in respect 
of conduct and practice. 

Some regarded infant baptism as useless, 
others as an abon^ination; some demanded the 
strictest community of goods, others went no 
further than the duty of mutual help. Some 
segregated themselves as much as possible, 
and held it to be unchristian to celebrate the 
Sabbath; others declared it culpable to follow 
after singularities. Sebastian Frank, v\dio 
knew them well, and was even thought to 
belong to them, gives a long list (^ divergen- 
cies which he had observed among them.i: 

It was impossible that they should not come 
into collision with the civil power in various 
ways. 

This was obviously the case with those who 
refused to perform military service, or to take 
an oath. They esteemed it a crime to take 
away life under any circumstances whatso- 
ever, and regarded an oath as sinful and for- 
bidden. This could not possibly be allowed 
in the cities, the defence of which was still 
entirely confided to the citizens themselves ; 
nor in those, like Strasburg, where the Vvdiole 
allegiance was connected with the oath of 
citizenship (Bürgereid), which was taken on 
the yearly swearing day (Schwörtag). 

As we advance, we find others who thought 
themselves called upon to reform the institu- 
tion of marriage, on the plea that none was 
valid, save such as was concluded in the spirit. 
One of this class of reformers was the tanner, 
Claus Frei, who had deserted his wife, and 
rambled about the world with another wo- 
man, whom he called " his only true spiritual 
wedded sister. "§ 

All, however, agreed in declaring the church 
government, formed by the combined author- 
ity of the magistrate and the priest, insupport- 



" 'I'hat have I never read, as I confess'd before j^'ou, 

How should He have been of earth, whom God hath sent 
to us." 

* Biillinger, writing to Vadian, says of Schwenkfeld, 
" Hoffmanni dogma de carne Christi coelitusdelata primus 
iiivenit, etsi jam dissimuiat." Butzer accuses him of the 
whole of the Anabaptist doctrines. Epp. Ref p. 112. 

t Extract from his Exposition of the 12th Chapter of 
Daniel, in Krohn's Geschichte der Wiederläufer (only cou- 
cerning Melch. Hofimann), p. 90. 

t Die dritt Chronika Von den Päpsten und geistlichen 
Händeln. (The third Chronicle of the Popes and religious 
quarrels), p. 165. 

§ Rofarich, ii. 93, 101. 



able; and maintained that if everybody were 
allowed to preach, there would be no such 
thing as schism. They declared that the in- 
stitutions framed by the evangelical leaders 
were nothing else than a new kind of papacy. 

They were persuaded, too, that these could 
not last long. One of the most essential points 
of their creed is, the apocalyptic expectation 
of a speedy and total revolution and a com- 
plete victory, which Münzer and Storch had 
fostered. Following their example, the later 
leaders had also indulged in the most mag- 
nificent visions, each on his own behalf, and 
had contrived to procure belief in them, at 
least among his imm^ediate friends and fol- 
lowers. 

Hubmayr likened Nicolspurg, where one of 
the house of Lichtenstein hospitably enter- 
tained him, to Emraaus; -''for it began to be 
night, and the last days were at hand." 

Melchior Hoffmann, a travelling tanner, al- 
ready mentioned, whom we meet with in Alsa- 
tia, in Stockholm, in Livonia, in Kiel a,nd in 
East Friesland, — one while intimately con- 
nected with powerful princes, and another^ 
pining in prison, — at length returned to Stras- 
burg. This city, he declared, was destined to 
be the seat of the New Jerusalem, whence, 
according to the Apocalypse (c. xiv.), a hun- 
dred and forty-four thousand virgin apostles 
were to issue forth, to gather all the elect of 
God into the fold. 

By degrees, the idea of introducing such a 
state of things by force was agitated. 

Hans Hut imagined he could prove out of 
Moses and the Prophets, that the Anabaptists 
were destined, as children of God, like the 
Israelites of old, to root out the ungodly, to 
which God himself could call them.|j 

In the Würtenberg territory, a man named 
Zuberhans, who was taken prisoner in the 
year 1528, confessed that he and other true 
believers had determined to begin the work 
on the following Easter; seven hundred of 
them were to meet at Reutlingen, and to pro- 
ceed immediately to overthrow the govern- 
ment of Würtenberg, to put the priests to 
death, and to effect a complete revolution. IT 

Melchior Hoffman did Hot threaten to use 
the sword himself, but he was persuaded that 
recourse must be had to it. He had been for 
a time in personal communication with Fre- 
deric I., King of Denmark, and he declared 
him to be one of the two sovereigns by whom, 
when the times should be come (for they had 
not yet arrived), all the first-born of Egypt 
should be slain, till the true gospel should 
possess the earth, and the marriage of the 
Lamb be accomphshed. But all his disciples 
had not his moderation. Some of them were 
of opinion that the times were actually come, 
and that they were themselves destined to 
wield the sword. Thus these opinions very 
quickly rose from the more strange than dan- 
gerous peculiarities of the Quietists {Stillen im 
Lande), to the furious violence of fanatical 
world-reformers. 



II Sebast. Frank, p. 169. 
IT Sattler, Herzöge, ii.p. 174. 



430 



ANABAPTIST DOCTRINES. 



Book VI. 



Every part of Germany was traversed by 
wandering apostles of these various sects ; no 
one knew whence they came, or whither they 
were going. Their first salutation was, The 
peace of the Lord be with you ! and with this 
they connected the doctrine of a fraternal 
community of all things. They then went on 
to discourse of the corruption of the world, 
which God was about to chastise; and re- 
marked that the power He had given to the 
Turks might be regarded as a beginning of 
that chastisement. They next turned to the 
expectation, then very v/idely diffused, of 
an impending mystical transformation of all 
things. Rumours had come from the East of 
the birth of Antichrist, which had already 
taken place at Babylon amidst signs and won- 
ders : some even said he was grown up and 
worshipped as a god.^' In the West, the suc- 
cesses of the emperor, Charles V., had ex- 
cited the most extravagant hopes. He was to 
conquer Jerusalem, and to issue a command- 
ment to put to death every man on earth who 
did not adore the cross; he would then be 
crowned by an angel of God, and die in the 
arms of Christ. f In some places people se- 
riously expected the end of the world, the day 
and hour of which was fixed. To dreams of 
this sort, the Anabaptists attached their pro- 
phecies. They declared that the messengers 
of God who were to seal the elect of God with 
the sign of the covenant, were already abroad 
in the world. When the time was come, those 
who were sealed were to be gathered together 
from the four ends of the earth ; and then 
would Christ their king come among them, 
v,nd deliver the sword into their hand. The 
ungodly were to be utterly swept away; but 
to the elect a new life was appointed, without 
laws, or authorities, or marriage, in the enjoy- 
ment of overflowing abundance. I 

It is evident that the Anabaptists proceeded 
upon principles which leaned on the one side 
to mysticism, and on the other to rationalism; 
but they always concurred in the feeling of 
the necessity for the strictest union, and in 
the arrogance of an elect people ; these, comx- 
bined; led to views, at once transcendent and 
sensual, of the mission of a Messiah. There 
was no novelty in what they promulgated. 
These were, in fact, only the same promises 
which the Talmud held out to true believers 
among the Jews: — that, at the end of days, 
all the peoples of the earth should be de- 
stroyed, or should become the servants of the 
elect, who should live in glory, and feast on 
Behemoth and Leviathan. But such was the 

* A letter published iiflhe year ]532 by the Rhodisern ; 
in Corrodi's Geschichte des Chiliasmus, iii. p. 20. His 
mother's name was Rachuma (the Merciful). On the 
night in which he was born (5th March), the sun shone, 
and disappeared the following day. It rained pearls, 
which typified the people that had bound themselves by 
oath to follow him. 

t Antonius Pontus, Hariadertus Barbarossa, in Matthaji 
Analecta veteris ;evi, i. p. 1, mentions it, " ut vulgatissi- 
mum ita antiquissimum verbum divinum." 

J Der Wiedertäufer lere und geheimniss aus h. Schrift 
widerleght, durch Justum Meninm. (The Doctrine and 
Mystery of the Anabaptists confuted out of the Holy 
Scripture, by Justus Menius.) In Luther's Works, Wit- 
tenberg edition, ii. 262. 



universal ferm.entation in the minds of mei:i, 
that they produced a certain efiTeci. They 
addressed themselves not, as before, to pea- 
sants, but to artisans. The dark and. dingy 
workshop, where continuous toil still leaves 
the spirit free for a certain degree of medita- 
tion, was suddenly illumined by these notions 
of a near and blessed futurity; — a dream too 
intoxicating not to find believers. 

The German governments of both confes- 
sions delayed not t,o put in force against them 
all the severity which they were bound by the 
constitutions of the empire to employ. 

The Protestants were for a while perplexed : 
the constitutions of the empire had been de- 
clared, at the meetings at Schmalkalden, too 
severe ;§ and they at length came to the reso- 
lution not to punish men for their belief, but 
only for the crime of promulgating insurrec- 
tionary doctrines. There is a little book ex- 
tant, printed at Wittenberg, in which this dis- 
tinction is more fully expanded ; the Berlin 
copy of it contains notes m the margin, writ- 
ten by an Anabaptist, in which he persists in 
affirming that the Anabaptists have nothing to 
do with the insurrectionary disorders. || But 
the very difficulty was, to separate tendencies 
so intimately blended. In Saxony, the govern- 
ment adhered steadily to the principle of 
examining the doctrines taught by each man, 
and dealing with him accordingly .H Land- 
grave Philip, on the other hand, always leaned 
to milder measures; he contented himself 
with keeping Anabaptists, who openly pro- 
fessed revolutionary opinions, in prison. The 
Oberland governments, supported by his ex- 
ample, declared they would not stain their 
hands with the blood of these poor people; 
and in Strasburg, children were permitted to 
attain the age of seven, before their parents 
were compelled to have them baptized.** 

In the Cathohc countries, on the contrary, 
vrhere heresy was even more severely pun- 
ished than revolt, executions took place in 
mass. The Gardener-brethren were treated 
with the same rigour as at Munich; ^-sonie 
were deprived of their limbs, others beheaded, 
others cast into the Isar, and others burned 
alive at the stake." Similar punishments 
were inflicted at Passau, where thirty perished 
in dungeons. tt There are circumstantial ac- 
counts of the deaths of George Wagner at 
Munich, Hatzer at Constance, and Hubmayr 
at Vienna, who all perished in the flames. 
How terrible is the cry uttered by Jacob Hut- 
ter, when the Anabaptists, who had sought 
refuge under the protection of the nobles of 
Moravia, were driven forth again ! ''We are 



§ " Zu geschwinde" — " too hasty." Recess of the Meet- 
ing at Frankfurt. Trinity, 1531. 

\l Das weltliche Oberkeit den Weidertäuffern mit leib- 
licher Strafe ?u wehren schuldig sey, Etlicher Bedenken 
zu Witenberg, l.'SSG. Tlie secular authorities are bound 
to put down the Anabaptists by corporal punishment. 
Some Reflections at Wittenberg, 1536. In the notes the 
Maulchristen (Mouth-Christians) are particularly attack- 
ed ; the evangelical doctrine is not censured. 

TT Melanchthon, in Luther's Letters, by Lindner, p. 24. 

** Sattler, iii. 44. Röhrich. 

ft Winter, Geschichte der baierschen Wiedertäufer, 
p. 35. 



Chap. IX. 



BERNHARD ROTTMANN. 



431 



in the desert, on a wild heath, under the bare 
heavens!" Yet even there toleration was 
denied them.* 

But with all these persecutions the govern- 
nients did not attain their end, — least of all, 
indeed, where they were the most inhuman, 
as in the Netherlands. Here, the Lutheran 
opinions had, from the first, found very general 
acceptance • violently as they were repressed, 
we Und a confession, dated in the year 1531, 
th~at if coercion were withdrawn, all the people 
would receive them. It was this forcible re- 
pression of the principles of the reformation 
which prepared the soil for the doctrines of 
the Anabaptists. Jan Matthys, a baker at 
Leyden and a disciple of Hoffmann, combined 
with tlie fanatical and mystical views of reli- 
gion of his master, ihe notion that the restora- 
tion of all things was at hand, and must be 
brought about by the sword. He declared 
himself to be the Enoch who was to announce 
the things to come ; formally established him- 
self as a prophet, and sent twelve apostles to 
the six neighbouring provinces, who made 
numerous proselytes, and sealed them with 
the mark of the covenant of the Anabaptists. 
We may trace the progress of Jan Bockelsolm 
from Leyden to Briel, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, 
Enkhuysen and Alkmar ; baptizing wherever 
he went, and establishing small associations 
often, twelve, and fifteen true believers, who, 
in their turn, propagated his doctrines. In 
Holland, generally, we find a very powerful 
xAnabaptist party, which started up suddenly in 
all directions, and sought to conquer a Held for 
the further development of its forces. 

It happened that affairs were now in such 
a state in Münster, that people were well in- 
clined to receive them. The apostles of Jan 
Matthys, Avho made their appearance there, 
gained access not only to, the artisans, but 
also to those very preachers v.ho had been 
nourished with the marrow of the evangelical 
doctrine. 

PvISS OF THE ANABAPTISTS IN MÜNSTER. 

This was not the first example of such lean- 
ings; Capito of Strasburg betrayed them for a 
time, though in him they yielded to raaturer 
reflection. 

The motives, however, which led Bernhard 
Rottmann to give himself up to them without 
reserve, were, if we may believe a report ori- 
ginating with Älelanchthon, of a very personal 
nature. 

There lived ill Münster a certain Syndic 
Wiggers, from Leipzig, a worthy and honour- 
able man, but married to a woman of very 
equivocal conduct. Her husband's house and 
garden were daily thronged with her pas- 
sionate admirers, among whom was Bernhard 
Rottmann ] an attachment of the most violent 
nature was soon formed between them, and 
at the death of her husband, which occurred 
soon after, it was commonly reported that she 

* Missive from Jacob Hutter to the Governor of Mo- 
ravia. Annales Anabaptistici, p. 75. 



had poisoned him.t Rottmann immediately 
married her. There is no need to substantiate 
all the rumours that were circulated, in order 
to explain the coldness and aversion with 
which every man of decency and honour re- 
garded Rottmann,. The consequence of this 
was, that he strove to re-establish his reputa- 
tion by excessive severity of manners. He 
began to discourse on the corruption of the 
world, and the necessity for works of charity, 
and expressed himself dissatisfied with the 
state of things brought about by the Lutheran 
reformation. In dogma, too, he continually 
receded further from the reformers; vrhether 
from the influence of the secret emissaries of 
the Anabaptists, or from the suggestions of his 
own mind, we are not able to discover. After 
having altered the ceremony of the Lord's 
Supper,? he began, as we have said, to im- 
pugn the lawfulness of infant baptism, xis 
soon as the number of the Anabaptists became 
considerable, he openly joined them. Rott- 
mann and his colleagues had just fallen into 
violent disputes with the council. They had 
at first been compelled to give way and to 
quit the town. What better allies could they 
have found than the new prophets, v\-hose pre- 
dictions and doctrines exercised so great and 
Vv'ide an influence? The Lutheran system 
ascribed great power to the civil government 
— even to the magistracy of a city; — for the 
recognition of the independence of the secular 
element in the state was of its very essence. 
On the other hand, Anabaptism was decidedly 
hostile to it ; its own aspirations after an ex- 
clusive despotism were incompatible with any 
other authority. Nothing could be more wel- 
come to the preachers of LJünster, in the 
struggle they were carrying on. One of them 
assigns as the motive for the cordiality with 
which they had received the prophets, that 
he might predict (•• vorwittige"' is his expres- 
sion) that God the Lord would purge the 
whole country of Münster, and drive the un- 
godly out of it.§ 

The important coincide'nce was, that the 
growing Anabaptism of Holland happened to 
find its way into Münster at a point of time 
vv hen the politico-religious movement had, as 
yet, no definite aim ; and a half-suppressed 



"t Lnconim communium collectanea a Johanne Maniio 
excerpia. p. 483. Habebat conjugem niirahilem, quce cojpit 
insanire amore Rotmanni, qnapropter et viruni veneno 
interemil. In Kersenbrnik this is not stated witli such 
certainty. On the other hand, a still severer version of 
the same story is to be found in the Postilla Melanch- 
thoniana. Extracted in Stobel Von der Verdiensten Me- 
lanchthuns nm die Jieil. Schrift, (Of the services rendered 
by Melanchthon to the Boly Scriptures,) 1773, p. 89. 

1 Dorpius, Wahrhafftige Historie wie das Evangelium 
zu Münster angefangen. (True history how ttie gospel 
began (to be preached) in Münster.) Sheet C. "Brach 
seme! in ein grosse breite Schüssel, gos v.ein darauff, und 
nachdem er die Wort des Herrn vom naclumal dazu ges- 
prochen hatt, hies er die so des Sacraments begerten zu- 
greiffen und essen : davon ist er Stuten Beruhard genannt 
worden, denn semel heisst auf ire^prach Stuten."' — " He 
broke white bread into a larse wide dish, poured wine 
thereon, and after he had spoken the words of the Lord at 
the Last Supper, he told those who desired the sacrament 
to take and eat ; hence he was called Stuten Bernhard, 
for white bread is called Stuten in their tongue." 

§ Confession of the Anabaptist preacher Dionysius von 
Diest, surnamed Vynne, in Nieserts Münsterischer Ur- 
kundensammlung, i. p. 48. 



RISE OF ANABAPTISM IN MUNSTER. 



Book VI. 



party was rousing itself for fresh struggles 
with the existing order of things. The leaders 
of this party seized upon it, partly from con- 
viction, partly as means to their own ends; 
and it was thus adopted by a numerous com- 
munity, amidst whom it could expand all its 
forces. 

At the end of the year 1533, Münster was 
filled with Anabaptists. On, the festival of the 
Three Kings, in 1534, the prophet Jan Matthys 
appeared with his fanatical apostle, Jan Bock- 
elson of Leyden. A considerable burgher of 
the city, Bernhard Knipperdolling, who, being 
formally expelled from Münster, had con- 
nected himself with the Anabaptists in Stock- 
holm, received them into his house. The two 
Dutchmen, with their remarkable dress, their 
enthusiastic deportment, their daring, and yet, 
to the people of those parts, attractive man- 
ners, made a great impression in Münster. 
Religious opinion was still in a state of violent 
oscillation, and on the M'atch for novelty. It 
was tobe expected that women, and especially 
nuns, would be easily carried away by doc- 
trines which proclaimed the coming of a life 
of holy sensuality. Seven nuns of the con- 
vent of St. vEgidius were baptized at once, and 
their example was soon followed by those of 
Overrat. The citizens' wives next went by 
stealth to the meetings of the Baptists, and 
brought their jewels aß the first fruits of their 
devotion. Their husbands began by being in- 
dignant, and ended by being converted. After 
the preachers of the city had themselves re- 
ceived baptism, they administered it. Rott- 
mann taught these new doctrines with all the 
talent and all the zeal which he had before 
devoted to the cause of the reformation. It 
was the same voice which had seduced men 
from the church of Rome, — the voice which 
no one could withstand. People said he car- 
ried a philtre about hira, by which he bound 
all whom' he baptized forever to himself. 

He was soon strong enough tobe able to set 
the council; which had thought to control him, 
at defiance! Women reproached the bürger- 
meister for favouring a Hessian preacher, who 
could not even speak the language of Münster ; 
nuns spoke with scorn in the open market of 
the Hessian god whom men ate; girls of six- 
teen cried aloud, Woe to sinners I the journey- 
men blacksmiths forced the council to hberate 
one of their comrades who had been impri- 
soned for preaching. 

Nevertheless, the Anabaptists were not yet 
masters. 

On the 8th of February a tumult occurred, 
in which, excited by a real or an imaginary 
danger, they took possession of the market- 
pl^ace ; while, on the other hand, the council 
and the anti-Anabaptists invested the walls 
and.gates. It was soon evident that the latter 
had a great superiority both in numbers and 
strength, being joined by auxiliaries from the 
neighbouring peasants and the bishop. They 
dragged cannon to all the entrances to the 
market; and many thought that the matter 
must now be decided, the market-place se- 
cured, and the Anabaptists, of whom so many 



were strangers, be expelled. The houses of 
those who had not been rebaptized were al- 
ready marked by garlands of straw, as a pro- 
tection in the approaching pillage. On the 
other hand, enthusiasm and fear, courage and 
danger, produced in the Anabaptists an exalta- 
tion of mind in which they beheld the most 
extraordinary visions; — a man with a golden 
crown, a sword in one hand and a scourge in 
the other; or a human form with gouts of 
blood dropping from his clenched fists. Or 
they fancied they saw the city full of lurid 
fire, and the man on the white horse of the 
Apocalypse, riding on the flames and brandish- 
ing a sword.* It became a question whether 
wild fanatics like these should be attacked 
with artillery ; and the Hessian preacher Fa- 
bricius, who had been the object of so much 
contumely, exerted all his influence to prevent 
it; he admonished those who were prepared 
for the fight, to spare the blood of brethren. 
Some members of the council, too, were moved 
with pity, if not with secret sympathy. They 
also reflected that they should certainly meet 
with resistance, and that perhaps, in the uni- 
versal confusion, the bishop would make him- 
self master of the city. In short, instead of 
proceeding to the attack, they began to nego- 
tiate. Plenipotentiaries were named, and hos- 
tages mutually given ; at length it was settled 
that every one should enjoy freedom of con- 
science, but should keep the peace, and obey 
the civil authorities in all temporal things.! 
The Anabaptists regarded their deliverance 
(and with justice) as a victory. In one of 
their writings on the restitution it is said. " the 
faces of the Christians (for this n^me they ar- 
rogated exclusively to themselves) became 
beautiful in colour." Children of seven years 
old prophesied in the market-place. " We do 
not believe." adds the writer, ''that a greater 
joy was ever known on earth." 

And in truth, from this hour, they daily, ad- 
vanced to a decided superiority in power. ^ 

They had now, for the first time, acquired 
a leoally recognised existence. Men of con- 
genial sentiments flocked to Münster from all 
sides; husbands without their wives, wives 
without their husbands, sometimes whole 
families together. Rottmann had promised to 
every man^who would repair thither, tenfold 
compensation for all that he abandoned. 

So sudden was the revolution, that on the 
21st Februar)^, when the election of a new 
council took place, the Anabaptists had the 
majority. The electors w^ere no longer ap- 
pointed according to the flesh, but according 
to the spirit ; they were all inspired artisans. 



* Restitutie (Jes rechten und warrachtijjen Verstandes 
förniger articule: einein Münster gedruckte Schrift, aus 
der Arnold (Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie) die Besli^ytre- 
den hat abdrucken lassen.— " Restitution of the right and 
true understanding of foregoing articles: a writing printed 
in Münster, of which Arnold (Kirchen- und Ketzerhis- 
torie) has reprinted the concluding discourse." See the 
Confession of Jacobliafschmidt, in Niesert, p. 15.'). 

t Dorpius, D. iii. : "Das ein jeder solt frei sein bei 
seinem Glauben zu bleiben, solten alle Widder heim, ein 
jeder in sein haus ziehen, frieden haben und halten."-- 
" That every one be free to abide by Ins faith, and all 
shall go home again, every man to his own house, and 
have and hold peace." 



Chap. IX. 



CHARACTER OF ANABAPTISM. 



433 



Nor were these men at all disposed to spare 
their adversaries, or to tolerate their existence 
near themselves. On the 27th Febpuary a 
great meeting of armed Anabaptists was held 
at the town-house. It began with prayers, 
which lasted for some time; the prophet 
seemed to be sunk into a deep slumber ; sud- 
denly, however, he started up and declared 
that such of the mibehevers as would not be con- 
verted must instantly be driven out ] such was 
the will of God. He made no secret of his 
designs. "Away with the children of Esau !"' 
exclaimed he, "the inheritance belongeth to 
the children of Jacob." Rapacity was com- 
bined with enthusiasm. Hereupon the streets 
resounded with the fearful cry of "Out with 
the ungodly !" It was on a stormy day, in 
the middle of winter. The snow, which still 
lay very deep, began to melt ; a violent wind 
drove the rain and sleet through the air. The 
houses were broken open, and all who would 
not abjure their baptism were driven from 
their homes and hearths. An eye-witness has 
painted the wTetched spectacle of mothers, 
who could rescue nothing else from their 
houses, with their half-naked babes in their 
arms ; little children wading barefoot through 
the snow ; old men, who left the city leaning 
on a staff, stripped of the last penny of the 
miserable remnant of the earnings of a long 
and toilsome life.* 

The Anabaptists were thus not only the 
masters of the city, but its sole occupants. 
What their adversaries had scrupled to do to 
them, they inflicted with fanatical eagerness. 
They divided the city among themselves; and 
coihmunities from different parts of the coun- 
try took possession of the religious houses. 
The movable property of the exiles vvas col- 
lected together, and seven deacons were ap- 
pointed by Matthys to distribute it gradually 
to the faithful, according to their several ne- 
cessities. 

The Anabaptists would have immediately 
proceeded to extend their dominion beyond 
the city, had not the bishop, now^ supported 
by the neighbouring princes, encamped around 
it with a splendid army. 

Cleves and Cologne had at first hesitated 
whether they should merely keep off the in- 
fection from their ovfn territory, or render as- 
sistance to the bishop. But the consideration, 
that the Landgrave of Hessen might send him 
succours, and that, in case these were victo- 
rious, a change might be attempted in the see 
under his influence, induced both these west- 
ern neighbours to follow his example. t They 
found that the bishop was ill armed and ill 
ad vised ; they saw what danger might ensue 
if the Anabaptists succeeded in gaining over 
the smaller towns subject to thfe see, and they 

* Kersenbroik. Ilistoria Anabaptistica MS.; for it is 
necessary alwaj's to compare the German translation of 
this work, of 1771, with the original. Mencken's reprint 
contains scarcely a third of the original, and just the 
most important things are left out. 

t Protocol of a sitting of the council at Berg (Düsseid. 
A.) " Nachdem zu besorgen, das Hessen mit underlouffen, 
und vielleicht eine verennderung der stifte gescheen mochr 
te." — "Afterwards it is to be feared that Hessen might 
interfere, and perhaps an alteration of the see take place." 
5^ 2 m 



therefore determined to send succours, first of 
artillery and infantry, and then of cavalry ; 
always, however, under the condition that' the 
see should compensate them for their outlay. 
The bishop now strained every nerve; fresh 
taxes were levied, and all the jewels from the 
churches were devoted to the expenses of the 
war; the bishop's vassals took the field at 
their own cost. In April and May, 1534, the 
city was beleaguered on all sides. If, as it 
was very well provided with the requisites for 
war, the allied troops could not flatter them- 
selves that they should immediately reduce it, 
they at all events attained no inconsiderable 
advantage by* confining the disorders within 
the walls of Münster. 

The matter of immediate interest is, to 
watch the internal and spontaneous develop- 
ment of this singular phenomenon. We shall 
see a religious element (such as, under one 
form or another, had appeared in the eccle- 
siastical movements of preceding ages) at 
V70rk within a narrow sphere, but in complete 
freedom, and producing the most remarkable 
results. 



CHARACTER AND 



PROGRESS OF 
MÜNSTER. 



ANABAPTISM IN 



It might be presumed that, from the time 
the Anabaptists were masters of Münster, 
hardened by success in the narrowness of 
mind common to sectarians, they would not 
only tolerate nothing that was likely to oppose 
them, but even nothing that was not com- 
pletely identified with themselves. Accord- 
ingly, all the pictures and statues in the cathe- 
dral and the market-place were destroyed. 
The almost entire disappearance of the monu- 
ments of the Westphalian school of art, which, 
if in existence, would assert their place by the 
side of those of Cologne, is to be ascribed to 
the wanton barbarism with which they were 
destroyed at this period. Rudolph von Langen 
had brought back from Italy a noble collection 
of old engravings and manuscripts, illustrative 
of the great recent revolution in Jiterature ; 
these were solemnly burnt in the market- 
place. t The reformers even held it a duty to 
destroy all musical instruments. Nothing was 
to remain but the Bible, and even that subject 
to the interpretation of their prophets. 

Every thing was to be in common among 
those who had undergone the second baptism. 
The rule which had been laid down as to the 
property of the exiles, was very soon applied 
to the possessions of the faithful. They were 
ordered, under pain of death, to deliver up 
their gold and silver, their jewels and effects, 
to the chancery, for the common consumption. 
In short, a sort of St. Simonism was established. 
While the idea of property was abolished, each 
man was to continue to exercise his craft. 
Regulations are extant, in which journeymen 
shoemakers and tailors are specially men- 



I Kersenbroik. In,campum dominicum cum incredibihS 
Ijbrorum multitude perlata esset, qui etiam ultra viginti 
millibus dorenorum valebant,— incomparabilera urbis the;- 
saurum flauiraa subita absumit. 



434 



JAN BOCKELSON, OR JOHN OF LEYDEN. 



Book VI. 



tioned '; the latter being enjoined to take heed 
that no new garment or fashion be introduced. 
There are also rules for the smiths and lock- 
smiths: in short, every trade was treated as a 
public charge or office. The most honourable 
of all these was, as may be imagined, the de- 
fence of the country. Even boys were trained 
to this, and acquired an extraordinary dexte- 
rity in shooting with the bow. which was not 
yet entirely superseded by firearms. Those 
to whom a special office was committed, were 
exempted from the service of the watch. The 
w^hole community formed one military-reli- 
gious family. Meat and drink were provided 
at the common cost ; the two sexes, "brethren 
and sisters," sat apart from each other at 
meals; they ate in silence, while one read 
aloud a chapter of the Bible.* 

It is obvious that a comm.unity so singularly 
constituted could not consist with the forms of 
municipal administration, in which the biirger- 
meister and. city councillors possessed power 
and pre-eminence. The prophet, Jan Malthys, 
"who devised the new institutions, very soon 
seized on the supreme authority, which con- 
temporary writers describe as truly ro^'al — 
a.bsolute.t Matthys, however, did not survive 
the Easter of 1534. ' At a tumult in which he 
was foremost — for his fanaticism was not of 
the cowardly sort — he was killed. 

We have already mentioned that he had 
been accompanied to Münster by Jan Bockel- 
son, surnamed of Leyden. the son of a magis- 
trate (Schulz) of the Hague, and a Westpha- 
lian serf woman who had been bought from 
her husband.:!: In his wanderings as journey- 
man tailor, he had been as far as Lisbon on 
the south and Liibek on the north, and had at 
length settled in Leyden, near the gate lead- 
ing to the Hague. He soon grew discontented 
with his business, and opened a sort of inn^ 
W|[iere he and his wife sold beer and wine. 
It was his great ambition to make a figure in 
the poetical association which Leyden. like 
most of the cities of the Netherlands, at that 
time possessed, called the Kammer van Rhe- 
toryke. The flow of his verses (Refereyne) 
was the easiest, his scholars were the most 
distinguished ; he wrote dramas, in which he 
pJayed a part; and it is very likely that he 
here became imbued with the spirit of hos- 
tihty to the church which was common to the 
schools of rhetoric of that day. In this state 
of mind, Anabaptism fell in his way, and 
took complete possession of him. He speedily 
acquired a tolerable knowledge of the Holy 



* Kersenbroik, fol. 218. Ordinatio politici regiminis a 
32 senioribus recens introducta. §9. Ut in cibis admiiiis- 
trandis legitimus servetur ordo, pracfecti ejus rei, officii 
sui me mores, ejnsdem generis fercuJa^uti hactenus fieri 
cnnsuevit singulis diebus fratribus sororibusque in dis- 
junctis et disparatis mensis modeste et cum verecundia 
sedentibus apponent. It appears, indeed, as if this re- 
lated more particularly to those engaged in the defence. 

t Hortensius, p. SOI. Joannes Matthias hanc autorita- 
tem sibi pararat, ut unus jam inde supra leges esset, unus 
scisceret, juberetque quee viderentur, antiquas et abroga- 
ret leges, aliasque pro libidine conderet. 

X Confession of Jan Bockelson. " His father was called 
Bockel, and was a Schulte (magistrate) in Sevenhagen." 
It should be Grevenhagen, in which place Kersenbroik 
was praetor. Bockelson's mother was a serf woman of 
gichedelich, from Zolke, in the Münster territory. 



Scriptures; though, as is usual wnth such 
autodidactic artisans, he utterly confounded 
national and rehgious elements, and applied 
whatever seized upon his ardent imagination, 
with all its accidental circumstances and rela- 
tions, to the actual w^orld. He possessed an 
agreeable exterior, natural eloquence, fire and 
youth ;§ even before Matthys' death he played 
a certain part, and after that event (which 
he said he had predicted) he took his place. 
And in boldness at least, he w^as nowise in- 
ferior to his predecessor. The opinion was 
already afloat, that, even in civil aflairs, it was 
our duty to disregard all human laws and oidi- 
nances, and to hold merely to the word of 
God. The public attention was turned upon 
the new prophet. After he had remained 
silent some days, '-'because God had closed 
his m.outh," he at length declared, that there 
must be twelve elders in the new Israel, as in 
the ancient, and immediately proceeded to 
name them. Rottmiann, on his side, assured the 
congregation that such was the will of God, 
and presented the newly appointed elders to 
it. The preacher and the prophet now dis- 
pensed with all the civic forms of election, 
and nominated the magistrates. The people 
universally acquiesced, and accepted them. 
Six of them were to sit to administer justice 
every morning and afternoon; the prophet, Jan 
Bockelson, was to proclaim their sentences to 
the whole people of Israel, and Knipperdolling 
to execute them with the sword. 

It is evident that this was a new step in 
the progress of visionary religion, or rather of 
fanatical prophecy. A table of laws was an- 
nounced, composed exclusively of passages 
from Scripture, especially the books of Moses. 

The extravagant abuse to which such an 
application of Scripture naturally leads, soon 
became evident in other ways. 

Jan Matthys had already abandoned his 
wife, who was advanced in years, and had 
married a young girl called i)ivara; he had 
persuaded her that this was the will of Heaven, 
and had brought her to Münster. Jan Bockel- 
son coveted not only the post, but the wife, of 
his predecessor ; but as he was already mar- 
ried, he put forth the doctrine, that it was 
allowable for a man now, as -weW as under 
the old covenant, to have several wives. At 
first, the natural good sense of m^ankind re- 
volted against such a proposition. We may 
remember that propositions of this kind had 
been long before submitted to Luther, who 
had rejected them on the ground that mar- 
riage was a civil ordinance, and therefore 
must be obeyed. In Münster, arguments of 
this nature were utterly despised ; people in- 
sisted on living merely in accordance wdth the 



§ " Doch find ich von jenem in Truck ausgangen, dass er 
von Angesicht, Person, Gestalt, Vernunft ein redsprech, 
rahtweiss anschlegig, an Behendigkeit unerschrockenem 
stolzen Gemüt von künen Taten und Anschlegen ein edel 
wohlgeschickt und wunderbarlich Mann sey gewesen." — 
" But I have found from that printed book, that he was in 
countenance, person, stature and intellect, an eloquent, 
sagacious, cunning man; of prompt, dauntless, and 
haughty spirit; of bold deeds and-designs ; a noble, capa- 
ble, and extraordinary man." Sebastian Frank, die an- 
dere Chronik, 266. 



CflAP. IX. 



CHARACTER OF ANABAPTISM. 



435 



Holy Scriptures. Rottmann preached the new 
doctrine for several days in the churchyard of 
the cathedral.* Things were not, however, 
come to such a pass, that so crying an insidt 
to good morals and to ail honest usage and 
tradition could escape opposition, even under 
existing circumstances. All that remained of 
the old-established citizens, all who were not 
utterly given over to the new opinions, rallied 
around a smith of the name of MoUenhok. 
The watchword of "the gospel" was heard 
once more ; there was a talk of recalling the 
exiles, and restoring the old constitution of the 
city, and some of the prophets and preachers 
were actually imprisoned. But they were now 
become too strong for opposition 3 there were 
too many enthusiastic strangers in the town; 
and the common people were intoxicated by 
the doctrine of equality. Mollenhok's parly 
were soon compelled to take refuge in the 
town-house; and cannon being posted in front 
of it (partly drawn by women), they waved 
their hats out of the windows, in token of sur- 
render. They ought to have known that this 
would not save their lives. Never were prison- 
ers more pitilessly treated than these, by men 
who were but yesterday their '-brethren in the 
spirit;" Many were bound to trees and shot. 
'•He who fires the first shot,'- exclaimed Jan 
Bockelson, "does God a service." The others 
were beheaded. t 

It was consistent with that fanatical narrow- 
ness which acknowledges nothing but its own 
creed, to punish every deviation from it with 
death and destruction. Terror is the neces- 
sary and invariable offspring of a system of 
belief which rejects every other. At the pro- 
clamation of the table of laws above mentioned, 
extermination from among God's people was 
denounced against every man who shoukl dis- 
obey them. Above all, wo to him who should 
call in question the divine commission of the 
lawgiver ! Even Matthys had caused the 
punishment of death to be inflicted on one 
Master Truteling, a smith, a man of good^ re- 
pute, who had addressed some disrespectful 
words to him. We stated that Knipperdolling 
undertook the office of executioner. He had 
the power of putting to death any man whom 
he detected in disobedience to the new laws, 
on the spot, and without trial : for the wicked, 
it was said, must be rooted out of the earth. 
Preceded by four heralds, with a drawn svkord 
in his hand, he traversed the streets, carrying- 
terror wherever he went. 

But since every thing, however wild and 
eccentric, must still follow the laws of its pe- 
culiar nature, nor can stop in its career till it 
has displayed its original instincts in the 
clearest light, this monstrous phenomenon,' 



* In a contemporaneous notice in Spalatin's Annales 
Reformationis, p. 302, it is stated that Rottmaiin also 
took four wives. 

t Ne escrebris bombardarum tonitrnishostes oppidanos 
inter se dissidere snspicentur neque tantani pulveris jactu- 
ram faciant, decretuni est reliqiios sexaginta sex gladio 
ferire. quis pcetiEe executio Knipperdollingo committitur, 
q;'i sinjfiilis diebus aliquot pro arbitrio suo productos et 
tandem ad unum o.iines capite plectit, nisi quod propljeta 
interim animi et exercitii causa iu nonnullos animad- 
verterit. (liersenbroik.) 



having vanquished all external opposition, 
now entered on the last stage of its internal 
development. 

The spiritual power, in conflict with the 
temporal, had called prophecy to its aid ; and 
had first opposed, then defied, and finally 
overthrown, the civil authority; it had then 
driven out or exterminated all its opponents, 
and had established a sort of government, over 
which it exercised absolute sway. But it had 
not yet reached its culminating point. Theo- 
cracy, being founded on the claim to a pecu- 
liar preference and favour of the Divine Being, 
has a natural tendency to assume a monarchi- 
cal form. The chief prophet could not con- 
tent himself with merely proclaiming the will 
of the elders to the people of Israel, although 
they were in fact appointed by him ; he con- 
ceived the project of becoming the king of 
that people. 

Another prophet, who had arisen by his 
side, one Dusentschuer, formerly a goldsmith, 
spared him the trouble of announcing his in- 
tentions. - Dusentschuer declared that God had 
revealed to him that John of Leyden should 
be king. The preachers, who aKvays advo- 
cated the most extravagant ideas, immedi- 
ately supported him ; indeed, John himself 
afterwards avowed that, without their assist- 
ance, he could neither have introduced poly- 
gamy, nor established monarchy. He accord- 
ingly granted them a share of his power. After 
the people had given their assent to his new 
dignity (every man subscribing his name), he 
declared that he could not tarry alone in the 
sanctuary; the congregation must join him in 
praying to God for good servants of his house. 
After all the people had prayed, Rottmann 
appeared, and read from a paper the names 
of those who were pointed out by the divine 
approbation for the highest dignities. One of 
the highest was himself. He was the presi- 
dent or speaker (worthalter), — like the pre- 
siding bürgermeisters of the free cities ; Knip- 
perdolling, who had frequent fits of prophetic 
ecstacy, was Statthalter, or lieutenant ; while 
the king's privy council was composed of 
preachers and the most eminent of the fana- 
tics. In short, the principle of spiritual fana- 
ticism now attained to absolute sway in this 
monarchi-theocratic government. 

The mystical views which lay at the bottom 
of the whole Anabaptist movement now as- 
sumed a more distinct form. The hopes 
which had hitherto seemed dim and remote, 
appeared more attainable, more possible to 
be realised. 

The Anabaptists deduced from Scripture 
that in the beginning God had created all 
things good by the word ; but they had not 
remained good, and God's ordinance now re- 
quired their restoration by the word. But all 
things had their course in triads — in three pe- 
riods. One was to be succeeded by another, 
so that the past should be eclipsed by the 
present; tiU at length a third should appear — 
that, namely, to which there should be no 
alteration or end. 

The first age of the world ended with the 



436 



ANABAPTIST BOCTFJNES. 



Book VI. 



deInge. It had now reached its second epoch. 
God had resorted to various means of turning 
men to himself; he had sent them Abraham 
and the prophets, had showed them signs and 
wonders, had given his written word ] lastly, 
had sent his only Son: but ail in vain — men 
would not tolerate righteousness near them, 
much less let it rule over them ; therefore 
must the wrath of God go forth, even as in 
the days of Noah, and be poured out upon the 
heads of the wicked, in order to bring about 
the third age, and the perfecting of the whole 
world. This moment was now arrived.* 

Rottmann, in his treatise on temporal and 
earthly power, viewed the matter from an- 
other side; but the tendency of his opinions 
was the same. 

He says, that it was God's will that all men 
should be subject to him alone, should behave 
as brethren, and should live quietly and joy- 
fully under him. But in consequence of the 
fall, the divine government had ceased, and 
an earthly power become necessary. This, 
however, vi-as in its very nature bad. and was 
constantly becoming worse. Four monarchies 
had been ordained by God from the beginning. 
The first had been likened by Daniel to a 
"beast ; but the fourth, or last, was a monster 
which had not its equal upon earth for blood- 
thirsty tyranny. But the time of this, too, 
was come ; its cracking betrayed the nearness 
of its fall ] all its wealth and treasure would 
become the spoil of the true brethren. t 

He exhorted them to seize the present mo- 
ment, that it might not be with the Christians 
as formerly with the Jews, who did not per- 
ceive the time of their visitation. 

The objection, that the kingdom of Christ 
was not of this world, they put aside in their 
own peculiar manner. J They made a distinc- 
tion between a spiritual kingdom, which be- 
longed to the age of suffering, and a corporeal 
kingdom of glory and splendour, which Christ 
was to enjoy with his true disciples for a thou- 
sand years. § They were persuaded that the 



* Von der Verborgenheit des Rykes Christi, ende von 
den Dagen des Herrn (Of the hidden Mj'stery of the King- 
dom of Christ, tlie end of the Days of the Lord), cap. v. 
Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzer-gesciiichte, i. 994. Pity that 
the last seven chapters were left out, merely for the sake 
of sparing a few leaves. 

t Rottman, Von tydliker und. irdisclier Gewalt (On tem- 
poral and earthly Power), MS. in Münster. Extracts 
from it, in Jochnuis, Geschichte der Wiedertäufer, p. 188. 
It is remarkable what a striking resemblance these no- 
Jions have with those proclaimed by Robespierre, after he 
thought he had put down atheism. .Compare his speech 
at the fete de I'Etre Supreme, 8th June, 1794. "L'auteur 
de la nature avait lie les mortels |»ar une chaine. immense 
d'amour et de felicite ; p6rissent les tyrans qui ont os6 la 
briser! Francais republicains, c'est ä vous de purifier la 
terre quMls ont souillee, et d'y appeller la justice qu'ils en 
ont ban nie." Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, 
xxxiii. p. 179. The difterence lies only in the religious 
ideas; the intention— to establish a primitive state of uni- 
versal happiness— is exactly the same. 

I A specimen of their exegesis is to be seen in the Con- 
fession of a Deist, formerly a Priest. " Christus spreckt, 
myn rike ist nicht van duser werlt, heft dusen Verstand : 
Christus rick ist ein rick der Gerechticheit und der Wair- 
hc-it, dat rike avers duser werlt ist ein rike der bosheit 
und ungerechticheit."— " Christ says, ' My kingdom is not 
of this world;' the meaning of which is, that Christ's 
kingdom is a kingdom of justice and truth, but the king- 
dom of this world is a kingdom of wickedness and injus- 
tice." 

§ See the conference of John of Leyden with Corvinus. 



kingdom of Münster would endure until the 
commencement of that millennium, and ought 
therefore to foreshow it, and be an image of 
it. They regarded the siege which they had 
to sustain as necessary : for the sacrifice must 
be offered up in the desert ; the woman must 
suffer their strife ; the court of the temple 
must be filled with dead. God, however, 
would not only avert the arm of force, but 
would also put his sword into the hand of hfs 
people without delay, that they might destroy 
all that did evil from the face of the earth. 
''Thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time 
is come. "II 

This was also the mystical reason for their 
appointing a king over them ; for the prophe- 
cies refeired especially to a king w^ho was to 
be the lord of all the earth. Dusentschuer 
called Jan Bockelson king of the whole world. 

This young visionary artisan was entirely 
persuaded that the whole future destiny of the 
world rested on him. He called himself John, 
the rightful king in the new temple. In his 
edicts he says, that in him the kingdom an- 
nounced by Christ was incontestably come; 
that he sat upon the throne of David. IF He 
wore round his neck a chain of gold, to which 
hung the symbol of his dominion, — a golden 
globe transfixed with two swords, the one of 
gold, the other of silver, above the handles of 
which was ä cross. His attendants wore the 
same badge on their green sleeves ; for green 
was his colour. Like all upstarts, he loved, 
magnificence. Thrice a week he appeared 
with his crown and golden chain in the market- 
place, seated himself on his throne, and ad- 
ministered justice ; Knipperdolling standing 
one step lower, wäth the sword. When he 
rode through the town, two boys walked beside 
him, the one carrying the Old Testament, the 
other a naked sword : all who met him fell on 
their knees.** There were some who expressed 

11 Rev. xiv. This is the reference in the orisiiial. But 
the words quoted are, "Schenket ihrdopiieit ein, denn die 
Zeit ist vorhanden." (Pour ye in double, for the time is 
at hand.) Such differences in the two versions are, how- 
ever, of very frequent occurrence. — Transl. 

^ Oue of his laws, given in Latin by Kersenhroik, and 
with slight differences by Herrsbach, is to be found in 
German, in the Archives at Düsseldorf It begins very 
characteristically. " Kiindlich und openbar sy alien Lief- 
hebberen und Tostendern der Warheit, und gotlicher Ge- 
rechticheit, sowol den Unvorstendigen, als in der Verbor- 
genheit Gottes Verstiindigen. So und in wetmaten de 
Christen und ere Tostendere sick under dem Panier der 
Gerechticheit als ware Israeliten in dem nyen Tempel in 
jegenwerdicheit des Richs, vorlanges verseen, durch den 
munth der Propheten belovet. vermitz (vermittelst) Chris- 
tum und seiner Ajtosteln in Kraft des Geistes angefangen 
und geopenbaret, und nu an Johann den Gereciiten in 
dem Stule Davids gelofflichen und inwedersprechlichen 
vorhanden, schicken wandern und haben sollen."—" Be it 
known and proclaimed to all lovers and followers of the 
truth and godly righteousness, as well tho?e who under- 
stand not, as they who understand the mystery of God : 
Inasmuch as the Christians and their adherents have sent 
forth, under the bannerof righteousness, as true [sraelites 
in the new temple, in the present existence of the king- 
dom long foreseen, promised by the mouth of the prophets, 
begun and revealed by means of Christ and his apostles, 
in the power of the spirit, and now come in (the person 
of) John the Rightful, the promised and incontestable oc- 
cupant of the throne of David." 

** Ant. Corvinus de miserabili Monasteriensium Ana- 
baptistarum obsidione ad G. Spalatinum, ap. Scliardium, 
ii. 315. Aulam prsefecturis ac officiis ita instituerat, ut 
si natus rex fuisset, prudentius non potuerit: erat enim 
in excogitandis iis quas regalem pomiiam decebant, mirus 
artifex. 



Chap. IX. 



ANABAPTIST DISORDERS. 



437 



disgust at his pomp, and at the number of his 
wives, to which he was continually adding. 
"Out upon you! ".exclaimed he; " but I will 
rule over you, and over the whole world, in 
spite of you !" Even Knipperdolling could 
not help mixing buffoonery with his terrible 
functions. He once caui3ed himself to be sus- 
pended over the heads of the crowded multi- 
tude in the market-place, that he might breathe 
the spirit into them all. He danced indecent 
dances before the king, and seated himself on 
his throne, i These men were like madmen ; 
a secret and irresistible consciousness of the 
untruth of all their wild visions forced itself 
upon theni. Knipperdolling, indeed, had once 
a serious quarrel with the king, but it was 
soon made up; Knipperdolling did penance, 
and all things returned to the track of credu- 
lous obedience. In October, 1534, the whole 
city celebrated the Lord's Supper in the fol- 
lowing manner : — Tables were set for all the 
adult women (who were far more numerous 
than the men), and for those of the men who 
did not hold watch on the walls, — four thou- 
sand two hundred persons ; John of Leyden 
and his wife Divara appeared with all their 
courtiers, and served at the tables; it was a 
regular meal. After this they took wheaten 
calces, ate of them first, and gave of them to 
the others — the king the bread, the queen the 
wine; saying, "Brother (or sister), take and 
eat ; as the grains of wheat are baked together, 
and the grapes are pressed together, so are 
we also one." Then they sang the psalm, 
"Allein Gott in der Höh' sey Ehr" (To God 
alone in the highest be honour).* So far, this 
ceremony might appear religious and innocent. 
But mark the sequel. The king thought he 
perceived at the feast " one who had not on a 
wedding-garment." He fancied that this man 
was Judas, ordered him to be led out, went 
out himself, and cut off his head ; he believed 
he-had felt himself commari^ded by God to do 
this, and returned cheerful and delighted to 
the feast. t 

Of all the phenomena which attended this 
monstrous delusion, the mixture of piety, sen- 
suality, and blood-thirstiness is the most re- 
volting; however reluctantly, we must pursue 
our observation of it somewhat farther. 

There was a woman in Münster who boasted 
that no man could control her; this boast had 
irritated the desire of John of Leyden to have 
her among his wives: she lived with him for 
some time, but growing tired of him, she gave 
him back the presents she had received from 
him and left him. The Anabaptist king re- 
garded this as the greatest' of all crimes, led 
her to the market-place, beheaded her himself, 
and kicked away the corpse with his foot. 
Hereupon all his other wives joined in singing, 
" To God alone in the highest be honour." 

Every thing being overthrown and trans- 
formed, and universal equality established, 
nothing remained, save the self-love and self- 

* Neuste Zeitung von den Wiedertäuffern zu Münster, 
1535. 

t Dorpius; " and he was so pleased with this murder, 
that he continually laughed." 

2m* 



will of the visionary fanatic to whom all paid 
willing homage. In him spiritual pride and 
sensual desire, frenzied enthusiasm and natural 
coarseness, formed a strange, we might say a 
grotesque mixture, which is very remarkable, 
viewed as a psychological product. Freedom 
was, of course, out of the question, among 
men who had given themselves up to courses 
of so horrible and disgusting a character. 
How frightful is the contrast between the in- 
nocence of the little sect of the Gardener- 
brethren of Salzburg and their delirious de- 
pravity ! 

Yet it riveted the affections of men ; they 
fought for it with the intensest animosity. 

A woman of Sneek, in Friesland, named 
Hille Feike, who had travelled to Münster to 
seek, as she said, the salvation of her soul 
from God's w^ord, felt herself incited by the 
story of Judith, which she had heard read at 
table, to follow her example. She actually 
set out, on a similar errand, dressed in all the 
bravery she could collect, with jewels fur- 
nished her from the treasury, and provided 
with a sum of money. But the unusual splen- 
dour of her dress excited suspicion. She was 
taken before the bishop whom she had in- 
tended to kill, and being questioned, she con- 
fessed her design, and was put to death. t 

On the 30th of August, 1534, the bishop 
made an attempt to storm the city ; but he 
found it excellently prepared to receive him. 
A small body of picked men stood in the mar- 
ket-place, ready to hasten, under the king's 
orders, to those points which were most 
threatened. Others were posted in the alleys 
of trees behind the walls. The main force 
awaited the enemy on the walls; between the 
men stood women and boys, the latter armed 
with bows and arrows, the former with large 
cauldrons, in which, as they said, they were 
cooking the enemy's breakfast. At five in the 
morning the great Hessian carronade, called 
the Devil, gave the signal in the camp; the 
landsknechts moved upon six different points 
at once, and succeeded in passing over the 
ditches and stockades ; they placed their lad- 
ders, and already more than one standard- 
bearer had planted his colours on the walls. 
But the besieged had allowed them to come 
on thus far unmolested, in order to over- 
whelm them with more certain destruction. 
The fire of musketry now poured down among 
the crowded ranks. The women threw down 
wreaths of burning pitch on the necks of those 
who w^re climbing, or they poured the seeth- 
ing lime which they had mixed in their caul- 
drons over them;§ the storm was totally re- 

J Bekanntnisse Hyllen Feyken aen p3Ti am Freydag 
nach Nativitis Joh. Baptistse. — Pynlig Bekanntnisse Hyl- 
len Feyken am Saterdag na J. B. Niesert, i. 40, 44. 

§ Here is another specimen of Kersenbroik's descriptive 
powers. Piceas coronas adhibita face incendunt, atque 
ita fragrantes furciilisquibusdam ferreis in ascendentium 
colla injiciunt, qui horrendis flammis ipsa arma penetran- 
tibus niiseris modis excrnciati ^orsum deorsumque cursi- 
tant majorique motu flammas exsuscitant et frustra chi- 
rotecis e crassioribus femorum pellibus ad hoc comparatis 
ardentia serta eximere tentant, ita ciiim fragranti pice et 
resina contrahuntur ut manus inde retrahe;;e nequeant-: 
tandem quidam eorum proni concidunt, seseque in terre 
algenti pree intolerabili cruciatu ita volvunt ut herbs cir- 



438 



SPREAD OF ANABAPTISM. 



Book VI. 



pulsed without need of any assistance from 
those posted in the interior of the city; the in- 
habitants had displayed military talents and 
courage which robbed the landsknechts of all 
spirit for a renewal of the onslaught. 

The prince bishop was obhged to content 
himself with surrounding the city with block- 
houses, for which he had to levy a ne'vv tax. 

The spirits of the Anabaptists were natu- 
. rally raised by so brilliant a victory. 

In October, after the communion described 
above, some of the faithful were charged to 
go into the neighbouring cities, and to relate 
the signs and Vvonders that had been done 
amongst them. In the very hour in which 
they received these orders, they set out to 
execute them. They all fell, as was to be 
expected, into the ' hands of the bishop's 
people, and expiated their design with their 
death. 

This, however, by no means induced John 
of Leyden to renounce his vast projects. 

We may remember that a universal fer- 
mentation had seized on the lower classes, 
especially the artisans, in the German towns; 
and that the Anabaptist spirit tooli root more 
•particularly among these classes. At this mo- 
ment we meet with the same appearances in 
almost every part of Gernnany. In Prussia, 
the Anabaptists enjoyed the protection of one 
of the most powerful men in the country, 
Frederic von Heideck, who was in high favour 
with Duke Albert; and they even gained over 
a portion of the nobility.* Great as was the 
number of fugitives from Mürb.»-ia, we still 
find them there by thousands. In 1534, the 
Saxon visitators found the valley of the Werra 
filled with them, and in Erfurt they avowed 
that they had sent forth three hundred pro- 
phets to convert the world. t In the year 
1534, we trace single emissaries in Anhalt, 
and iu Franconian Brandenburg, where people 
had to produce their baptismal register before 
they could be admitted to the second baptism. 
In Wiirtenburg, the duke's hereditary mar- 
shal, a Thumb von Neuburg, kinsman of 
Schwenkfeld, gave them as3-ium for a time in 
his lands in the Rerasthal.t In Ulm, there 
were threatenings of new opinions bordering 
on Anabaptism, like those of Sebastian Frank 
or Schwenkfeld ; while in Augsburg an Ana- 
baptist king actually arose. In Switzerland 
they- were always to be found in the Protest- 
ant cantons; and as their denunciations were 
chiefly directed against the bad life of pre- 
tended Christians, the zealous Haller^sought 
to turn their appearance to account, for the 
purpose of establishing a better church disci- 
pline. § la Strasburg, many pertinaciously ad- 
hered to the belief that Hoffmann would come 
forth from his prison in glory and splendour ; 
they also added an Enoch to this their Elias. 

cumquaquc flammas emarcescerent : hinc magno clamore 
animam evomuiu: alii vero conceptas flarnnias vestinc- 
turi in fossas proruunt et pondere arinoruai depress! sub- 
sidunt. 

* Baczko, iv. 219. 

t Seckendorf, Hist. Lutli. iii. § 25, p. 71. 

X Lang, ii. 33. Sattler, iii. p. 104. 

§ Haller and Frecht in Ottius, p. 69, 81. 



Dreams and prophecies of this kmd were rife 
along the whole course of the Rhine ; in Co- 
logne and Treves, troops of light cavalry tra- 
versed the country, to prevent or disperse as- 
semblages of Anabaptists. 11 But their strong- 
hold was the Netherlands. In Amsterdarn, 
where, a short time before, an emissary from 
Münster had made numerous proselytes, they 
more than once ventured to show them&elves 
openly. When Count Hoogstraten, the privy 
councillor of the regent, came thither in Octo- 
ber, and endeavoured to introduce some more 
rigorous measures both against Lutherans and 
Anabaptists, a nocturnal tumult arose, which 
very nearly led to the most formidable conse- 
quences.! From that time there were inces- 
sant rumours of the design of the Anabaptists 
to take possession of the city. Leyden was 
kept in a constant terror of fires and tumults.** 
In the beginning of the year 1535, a meeting 
of nearly a thousand Anabaptists took place 
in the Groningerland, which the stadtholder 
was obliged to disperse by an armed force. ft 
In East Friesland, a prophei expressed the 
hope that the whole of Upper and Lower Ger- 
many would rise, as soon as the king should 
go forth with his mighty banner. Even those 
who did not share in their opinions, thought 
that if John of Leyden could only win a few 
succe.ssful battles, 'he would find followers 
enough to convulse the world, as the Longo- 
bards or Franks had done of old.tJ We have 
seen that John of Leyden laid claim to the 
whole world as his property. He once gravely 
appointed twelve dukes, amongst whom he 
formally partitioned the world, and in the first 
place Gei-many. He treated the neighbouring 
princes of the empire as his equals. In a 
letter to Landgrave Philip of Hessen, he calls 
him "dear Phil" (lieber Lips), as the land- 
grave's most intimate brothers in arms were 
wont to do.H He begged him to take up the 
Bible, and especially to study the lesser pro- 
phets; there he would find, as he says, 
"Whether we have usurped the power and 
title of king, or whether this matter is ordained 
of God to some other end." 

But before things were ripe for a general 
and combined effort on their part, the empire 
was roused to take energetic measures to stem 
the rising torrent. 

PREPARATIONS FOR AN ATTACK ON MUNSTER. 
REDUCTION OF THE CITY. 

The mode in which this look place, may 



II Protocol of the Council of March, 1534. 

IT Lambertus Hortensius Tumultuum Anabaptistarum. 
liber unus, Schardius Scriptt. rer. Germ. ii. p. 306. These 
Netherland reports are the most important thing in Hor- 
tensius. 

** Brandt, Histoire de la Reformation, i. p. 50. 

tt Letter of the Stadtholder of Friesland to the Bishop 
of Münster. Levvarden, 25th January. (Düss. A.) 

Jt Sebastian Frank, Andre Chronik, p. 267- 

§§ 14th Jan. 1535. Printed in the little book: Acta 
Handlungen Legation und Schriften, so durch Landgraf 
Philippseli in der Müusterschen Sache geschehen.— DocUr 
ments of the Proceedings, Legation, and Correspondence 
of Landgrave Philip, coricerning the Affairs of Münster. 
1536, sheet ii. 



Chap. IX. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CIRCLES. 



439 



serve as a perfect specimen of the conduct of 
-affairs in the empire generally. 

It would have been natural to expect that 
this triumph of opinions, so severely prohibited 
by all successive lecesses of the erapire, in a 
considerable city, and the new vigour thus 
given to them in many other places, would 
have caused the whole empire to arise in its 
strength to crush a danger threatening to every 
condition of men. 

Yet the affair was left almost entirely to the 
Bishop of Münster, and his political friends. 

We have seen how their jealousy of Hes- 
sen, and their own danger, had induced Co- 
logne and Cleves to come to the bishop's 
assistance. 

Each of them sent, in the first place, some 
artillery ; though only on the security of \the 



But it was sufficiently evident that Münster 
would never be reduced in this way. 'I'hey 
determined, as had been proposed from the 
first, to apply to the nearest circles, and to 
engage their co-operation. 

Cologne belonged to the circle of the elec- 
torate of the Rhine ; Cleves was head of that 
of Westphalia and the Lower Rhine, The 
circles had begun, for the first time, to take 
an important part in affairs during the last 
Turkish war; and the princes were now au- 
thorized by the recesses of the empire, to 
require their co-operation in this matter. 

It was first discussed in ]Mainz, at a meeting 
of the circle of the electorate of the Rhine. 
Cologne and Cleves reckoned their outlay, 
and demanded compensation, and, more es- 
pecially, that the other states of the circle! 



chapter, and under condition that any damage | should immediately share it. But the only 



done to the guns should be repaired 

The councils of Cologne and Cleves then 
had a meeting to deliberate on what was 
further to be done. 

They met on the 26th of Llarch, 1534, at 
Orsoy, and determined to send the bishop suc- 
cours of men, but not of money: each prince 
to send two companies of landsknechts at his 
own cost. On the 7th of May, at a second 
meeting at Neuss, they added, that each 
should also have two hundred fully mounted 
horsemen before Münster, in readiness for the 
storming of the city. The Duke of Cleves had 
already commanded his subjects to take no 
foreign service, nor to permit any one belong- 
ing to them to do so, till this matter was ter- 
minated. 

Meanwhile, the bishop required other aid 
than that of troops. As the resources of his 
country were not sufficient, he incessantly 
pressed for a ''brave sum of money"' on loan. 
At first, there was an idea of raising him a 
thousand gulden on security; but as this turned 
out to be either impracticable or insufficient, it 
was resolved, at a fresh meeting between the 
council of Münster and those of Cologne and 
Cleves, at Neuss, on the 20th of June, that 
each party should contribute twenty thousand 
gulden — sixty thousand in all — in order to 
provide every thing necessary for the as- 
sault;* the bishop, however, engaging to repay 
the two other pov/ers, after the conquest of 
Münster. We have seen, however, the bad 
success of that enterprise. When the coun- 
cils met in camp in the beginning of Septem- 
ber, they hoped to find the city reduced; they 
found nothing but the consequences of defeat, 
and universal discouragement. The erection 
of the block-houses took place in consequence 
of the common resolution of the three sove- 
reigns. They agreed again to raise fifty thou- 
sand gulden for that purpose. 

* " That each prince, Cologne, Cleves, and Münster, 
should contribiUe and pay 4000 soldiers, for tlie support 
of the kiiechts who now lie before Münster, and 1000 
miners for a iiionlh (which sives a sum of 12,000 knechjs 
and 3Ü0U sappers and miners); and also, shall altogether 
furnish 10,000 Emden gulden, f'or the purchase of powder; 
which, reckoning each kneclit's and miner's pay at four 
Emden gulden, together with the actual 10,000 E. g., 
amount in all to 70,000 E. g., which are equal to 60,000 
gold gulden ; so that each elector and prince has under- 
taken to contribute 20,000 gulden." 



j result of this was, that, in spile of all their 
, resistance, the meeting ordered them to keep 
'up the block-houses; agreeing, however, to 
i deliberate further on the matter at a general 
assembly.! 

I On the 27th of October, the states of the 
' circle of the Lower Rhine and Westphalia 
met in a convent at Cologne. As a general 
meeting was in prospect, they declined voting 
any permanent succours. But in order to be 
prepared at any moment to send such as 
might be demanded in haste, they agreed to 
raise the same sum of money as a month's 
tax for the last Turkish war would have 
amounted to.- 

Meanwhile, the more distant circles, like 
those of Hessen and Saxony, were invited to 
join in the deliberations. Saxon councillors 
met those of Cologne and Cleves at Essen, 
in the beginning of November; the Hessian, 
shortly after, those of the Palatinate, Mainz, 
Treves and Vv'ürzburg, at Oberwesel. Their 
deliberations acquired great earnestness and 
energy, from their fear lest the bishop should 
apply for aid to the house of Burgundy, which 
might seize this opportunity to get possession 
of iMünster; for Mary had already asked for 
succours for that city, from her states in the 
Netherlands. Rather than this should hap- 
pen. Saxony bound itself to take an equal 
share of the expenses of the blockade. Here, 
too, ambitious schemes were at work; but 
mutual jealousy compelled every one to keep 
within legitimate bounds. 

The meeting of the three circles — the two 
above named and that of the Upper Rhine — 
determined on at Mainz, took place in Decem- 
ber, at Coblenz. They expressed their readi- 
ness to bear the expenses of the continued 
blockade. Three thousand men were to be 
kept before IMünster, and to that end fifteen 
thousand gulden were to be raised monthly. 
Count Whirich von Dhaun was appointed com- 
mander; four councillors of w^ar, from Cologne, 
TreveSj Cleves and Hessen, were to accom- 



t Extract from the recess of Mainz, in the Düss. Arch. 
" The electoral councillors consider of the most useful and 
profitable way, how other princes and states of the em- 
pire, besides their own electoral circle, the circle of the 
Upper Rhine, and that of the Lower Rhine, and West» 
phalia, may be induced to take part ia tliis business." 



440 



RISING OF THE ANABAPTISTS, 



Book VI. 



pany him, and the troops were to take the 
oath to the states of the circles.* 

It is evident, however, that even this was 
rather a measure of defence against any attack 
on the part of the besieged, than one at all 
calculated to effect the subjugation of the 
city. For this the circles did not think them- 
selves powerful enough; they determined to 
call the entire empire to their aid. 

The course of this affair, as we have already 
remarked, strikingly illustrates the character 
of the German commonwealth. The mea- 
sures necessary to reduce to obedience a city 
in open rebellion, did not originate with the 
supreme head of the empire ; but the sove- 
reign to whom that city belonged, and his 
nearest neighbours, were left for a long time 
to struggle with it unassisted; till the growth 
of the danger gradually widened the circle of 
allies, and at length drew the whole body of 
the empire, though not without partial oppo- 
sition, into the contest. 

One of the first acts that Ferdinand had to 
perform after his recognition as King of the 
Romans, was, to convoke a general assembly 
at Worms on the fourth of April, in conformity 
with the petition of the three circles. 

The States were not, it is true, unanimous; 
the Elector of Brandenburg, for example, main- 
tained that the three circles were able alone 
to make an end of the Anabaptists, and re- 
fused to take any part in the measures for 
that object. But by far the greater number of 
the States sent delegates. A resolution was 
passed, to levy one month and a quarter of the 
last general tax for the empire, on all the 
States. The amount which this might be ex- 
pected to produce was not great enough to 
enable the allied princes to bring any consi- 
derable accession of force into the field. The 
only advantage was, that they were now sure 
of being able to continue the blockade till 
they could obtain a decisive result. The ap- 
pointment of the commander-in-chief, which 
had taken place at Coblenz, was confirmed by 
the imperial authorities ; only with the addi- 
tion of two councillors to the other four: after 
ihe conquest of the city, the emperor and the 
wStates w^ere to decide on the course to be pur- 
sued with it. 

It v/ere superfluous to enter into any minute 
recital of the deeds of this little array. It is 
sufficient to say that it succeeded in cutting 
off all communication with the city, and in 
reducing it by hunger. 

The chief hope of the besieged was, that 
they should receive help and supplies from 
the country where their doctrines were the 
most widely diffused, and whence they them- 
selves had mostly sprung. Zealous Anabap- 
tists from the Netherlands had come to see the 
state of things in Münster, and had gone back 
and announced the approaching triumphal 
procession of the king, whom they also ac- 
knowledged, and whom they were to accom- 
pany through the world. The cry of, Death 
to all priests and nobles ! w^as revived ; with 

* The recess of Coblenz is only to be found in Kcrsen- 
broik. I sought it in vain in Coblenz and in Düsseldorf. 



the addition, that the only lawful sovereign in 
the world was the King of Münster.t About 
Easter, 1535, they were all in motion. The 
West Frieslanders took Oldenkloster, not far 
from Sneek; the Groningers marched upon 
the monastery of Warfum ; while |he Holland- 
ers, many thousand strong, crossed over to 
Overyssel, thinking to meet others of the 
faithful at the hill convent in the Hasselt 
country. 

It seems as if they had intended to make 
these convents, whence Christianity had once 
radiated, centres from which to spread Ana- 
baptism over the land, and then to go to meet 
their appointed king. But the organised and 
armed force of the provinces was stronger than 
these irregular bands. The Groningers and 
Hollanders were dispersed on their way with- 
out djfficulty.i' Oldenkloster, which the Ana- 
baptists had possession of, made some resist- 
ance, and was not retaken without loss. They 
afterwards made an attempt to conquer Am- 
sterdam for the King of Zion, and actually got 
possession of the town-house one night; — 
though, indeed, for that one only.§ They did 
not choose to observe the conditions under 
which their co-religionists had succeeded in 
obtaining power in Münster, and ascribed that 
success to a miraculous interposition of God, 
which they expected to be extended to them- 
selves; and, of course, expected in vain. 
' The prophet had incessantly encouraged the 
people of Münster with the hope of the as- 
sistance of his countrymen, whom, he said, 
neither sword nor any other deadly peril, 
neither fire nor water, would prevent from 
m.aking their way to see their king: but as 
these prophecies Vv'ere not fulfilled, some mur- 
murs arose among them.|| By degrees the 
famine became insupportable. Those of 
weaker faith began to doubt of the whole 
matter, and quitted the city. They were at 
first repulsed by the camp : women with their 
children were seen sitting in the ditches by 
the stockade; through which some compas- 
sionate landsknechts handed them food ; but 
it was found impossible to drive back whole 



t " Slan dout alle Monniken und Papen und alle Overi- 
cheit de in der werlt sint, went allenne unse Konink is de 
rechte Overicheit."— " Slay all monies and priests, and all 
sovereigns in the world ; since our king alone is the true 
sovereijrn." Beninjia Historie van Onstfriesland, bei 
MaithJius. Analecta vet. sevi, iv. p. 680; where some 
characteristic details are to be found. 

J Extraict de ce que Maistre Everard Nicolai, conseiller 
au grand conseil ordonne ä Malines escript ä son frere 
Mr. Nicolas Nicolai. Les Anahaptistes par instig:ation 
et messaigos se sont esmens et rassembles en nomhre de 
plusieurs mille sur la costc de la mer d'Hollande pour de 
la neviger au pays d'Overyssel oil i!s devaieat ä certain 
jour prefix teiiir communication de ieurs affaires dedans 
un monastere qui s'appelle Ber-rklooster aupres de la ville 
de Hasselt, «fcc. Nicolai was gone there expressly to con- 
vert them. According to him, there were tv/enty wagons 
and three thousand people. He found, however, only five 
men and thirteen women, whom he soon convinced of 
their error. 

§ Hortensius Tumult. Anabaptistarum, bei Schardius 
ii. 310. 

|( Nie Tydongen en den Erzb. tho Collen. (New tidings 
to the Archbishop of Cologne.) Niesert, p. 198. Accord- 
ing to a letter of the commander of the 7th of May, a 
soldier who had escaped said, there was great distress, the 
common people murmured, the king with his retinue only 
sought to prevent an insurrection. 



Chap. IX. 



TAKING OF MUNSTER. 



441 



troops into the city. They presented a spec- 
tacle which recalled to their learned contem- 
poraries the horrors of Saguntum and Numan- 
tia. Skeletons covered with a shrivelled skin, 
with a neck scarcely able to support the weight 
of the head, meagre lips^ and hollow, trans- 
parent cheel?^ ; — all of them filled with horror 
at the famine they had shared and witnessed, 
and hardly able to stand. But many were 
still determined ''not to flee back to Egypt," 
as the king expressed it. They rejected the 
summons sent them in the beginning of June, 
by the commander-in-chief, wnth the indigna- 
tion of men assured tha.t they have truth on 
their side. Not that they concealed from 
themselves that they should perhaps be tram- 
pled under the hoofs of the last monster de- 
scribed by Daniel; but they clung to the hope 
that he would soon be crushed by the corner- 
stone, and the kingdom be given to the saints 
of the Most High. They are said to have in- 
tended, when all was lost, to set fire to the 
city, and rush out uj^on the enemy's guns. 

And perhaps it would have come to this, 
had there not been found a traitor willing to 
help the besiegers (who had not yet forgotten 
the disastrous assault of last year) to cross the 
ditches and walls. If they had only the inner 
walls /and the musketry to contend with, the 
result could not be doubtful. Those who re- 
mained in the city could not be in much better 
phght than those who had quitted it ; the king 
only and those belonging to his court, — his 
councillors, friends, the new dukes and go- 
vernors, and such privileged persons, had sus- 
tenance for a short time.^ When the bishop 
disclosed his plan to the landsknechts, and 
promised them that the commander, with the 
nobles and captains, should lead the way, they 
expressed themselves willing; for they were 
tired of their straw beds in the block-houses. 
The scene before us is a deplorable one ; — on 
the one side wild, violent men, hurried away 
by their dreams into excess and crime, now 
famished and desperate, yet still drunk with 
enthusiasm ; and on the other, bands of lands- 
knechts kept together with difficulty ; slug- 
gish and listless in their movements, and only 
roused to make a decisive attack when there 
could remain no doubt of the result. Here- 
was no field for glorious exploits. 'At the 
appointed hour, on St. John's eve, 1535, a 
few hundred landsknechts crossed the ditches 
where they were the narrowest, and mounted 
their ladders where the walls where the 
lowest. They knew the Anabaptists' watch- 
word, deceived the sentinels, and then threw 
them over the walls: thus they took a bas- 
tion, made their way to the cathedral close, 
and. without waiting long for their comrades, 
shouted their war-cry and beat their drums. The 
Anabaptists sprang from their beds and rushed 
together to defend themselves. The result was 
for a moment doubtful; but only until the 
main body of the besiegers pressed in through 



* Corviniis ad Spalatinum: Vidi ipse multos ibi lihros, 
tjiiorum detracta coria victuin miseris supiieditarunt — 
immo scio pueros quoque comesos ibi esse, id quod ab iis 
auditum mihi est, qui in reliquias quasdam capta urbe 
ejus rei testes inciderunt. 
56 



a gale opened from within. The Anabaptists 
then fought with fury, and did great mischief 
to the assailants with their musketry; they 
killed a hundred and fifty nobles and officers, 
who were in the foremost ranks of the enemy : 
but it was the struggle of desperation. As the 
king was attempting to retreat to the strongest 
bastion, he was taken prisoner. Rottmann, 
resolved to escape the ignominy that awaited 
him as captive, rushed into the thickest of the 
fight, and found his death there. A few hun- 
dred of them still defended themselves behind 
a heap of carriages near St. Michael's chapel, 
with such bravery, that their assailants deter- 
mined to allow them to capitulate. It appears 
that the terms granted were not observed. 
They were told they should be allowed to go 
home, and that when the bishop came JFie 
would determine what further should be done. 
It is true, indeed, that he would hardly have 
spared their lives. But the landsknechts, ex- 
asperated by the loss of their comrades, were 
not to be prevailed on to wait for his coming; 
they rushed after the people retreating into 
their houses, and it was almost impossible to 
stay the slaughter ; and this, when stayed, was 
only succeeded by more formal executions."!" 

For, as things now stood, it is not to be 
wondered at that the entire extirpation of 
Anabaptism was contemplated. Even the 
women were driven out of the city, and every 
one who afforded them shelter was threatened 
to be treated as an Anabaptist. No one knew 
what became of them. Gradually, those who 
had been driven out of the city before, and 
who formed abqut a third of the former popula- 



t Here, as well as in the account of the conquest of tlie 
city, I follow a pamphle« called '• WarhafFtiger bericht der 
wunderbarliclien Handlung der Dueffer zu Münster in 
VVestvalen, wie sich alle Sachen nach eroberung der stat 
und in der Eroberung zugetragen ; die noch vor der Exe- 
cutioh des Jan von Leiden geschrieben worden, sie hat 
sein Eildnissin Holz."— " True account of the wonderful 
affair of the Baptists in Münster in Westphalia, how aU 
things after the conquest of the city and during the con- 
quest happened; which was written even before the exe- 
cution of .John of Leyden ; it has his etBgy in wood (en- 
graving)." Kersenbroik, however, relates otherwise: 
Donantur vita et positis armis urbe protinus, prreeuntibus 
quibusdam militiae ducibus, exire jubentur. Cum vero 
liberum exeundi coninieatum impetrassent, multi eorum 
ad aides suorum necessariorum forte aliquid inde alJaturi 
sese subducunt atque iter ab aliis ad exeundum paratis 
sponte sua divelluntur, ubi cum longiorem moram fecis- 
sent, jam tuto egressos eodem certe commeatu confisi sine 
ducibus subsequi contendunt, qui a militibus intercept! 
mactantur. I leave every one free to judge,— but this ap- 
pears to me like a dressing up and apology. The old ac- 
count above says: — "Ward auf beiden partheien so vil 
gehandlet das ein yetlicher solt wider heim in sein haus 
ziehen, bis auf die Zukunft des bischofs des gnädigen 
herrn.Klann solt weiter in den sachen gehandlet werden, 
Darauff wa/d jenen glauben zugesagt, und zoch ein yet- 
licher wieder heim in sein haus. Ais aber die landsknecht 
grossen merklichen schaden empfangen — fielen sie mit 
erimmigen Zorn in die heuser und wo sieder einen fun- 
ö:<:'\\, rissen sies mit den köpfen aus den heusern auf die 
Strassen, howens zu stucken, stechns all zu tod. Kurz 
demnach ward umbgeschlagen daz man kein mer todt- 
schlagen solt," &c. — " it was agreed by both parties that 
every one should go to his own home again till the' com- 
ing of the Lord Bishop's Grace, and then the matter should 
be further handled. Thereupon this was trusted to, 'and 
every man went to his own home again. But as the lands- 
knechts had suffered great and notable damage, they fell 
with furious rage on the houses, and where they found 
any one they dragged him by the head out of the house 
into the street, hewed him to pieces, or stabbed him dead. 
Shortly afterwards they sl^w all round, till there were no 
more to slay," &c. 



443 



REACTION IN MUNSTER. 



Book VI. 



tion, returned; but as even they v/ere not held 
entirely guiltless, they were obliged to pay a 
small acknowledgment- to the bishop for the 
recovery of their estates. No one suspected 
of Anabaptism could be re-admitted into the 
city, without giving security to the amount of 
four hundred gulden. Cleves and Cologne 
endeavoured to mitigate the severity of the 
re-action, and especially expressed their dis- 
approbation of the plan of building a fortress 
in the city.* We shall see, at a subsequent 
period of our history," what were the plans of 
these two sovereigns, in regard to religion; 
plans, which they required the bishop to pro- 
mise beforehand to adopt. A deputation of 
the empire also demanded the restoration of 
the city to its ancient rights and privileges. 
But of this there was not the slightest hope. 
The bishop, chapter and equestrian order, or 
nobles [Ritterschaft); w^ere, indeed, only pre- 
served from utter destruction by the help of 
their neighbours; and the army which had 
won the victory lor them had been assembled 
in virtue of a decree of the empire ; but the 
admxinistration of the empire was very far from 
having energy enough to take the affair into 
its own hands. On the contiary, the chapter 
and nobles seized this opportunity entirely to 
annihilate the independence of the city, which 
had long been odious to them. In spite of the 
intervention of the two powers above men- 
tioned, it was decided to build a fortress in 
Münster, and even at the cost of the city 
itself; the half of its revenues were to be 
applied to that purpose : the commander of 
this citfidel was to be taken from among the 
nobility of the country, nominated only with 
the consent of the chapter and body of nobles, 
to whom he was to swear allegiance, ami 
whose commands he was to obey, even if the 
sovereign v^^ere present.! The town council, 
too, was for the future to be nominated with 
the consent of the chapter and the nobles. 
The city, which had nearly emancipated itself 
from j:he yoke of the nobles and clergy, was 
thus once more entirely subjected to it, as a 
consequence of the insurrection. The chap-, 
ler and the nobles got possession of far more 
power than the prince; as Bishop Francis, 
who had to encounter their violent opposition, 
afterwards experienced. The restoration of 
Catholicism, in all its rigour, followed of course 
in the train of these events. 

Meanwhile, the captive king and his coun- 
cillors, Knipperdolling and Krechting-, were 
already brought to trial. The king was at 
first full of defiance, treated the bishop with 
insolent familiarity, jested with those who re- 
proached him with his polygamy, and pro- 
. tested that he would never have surrendered 

* Proceedings at the meeting 9t Nuyss, 1535, 15 July. 
They objected that for this the consent of emperor and 
empire were necessary ; it was contrary to the privileges 
tof the city, and it would be better to raze the walls, and 
fill up the ditches. 

t Kersenbroik gives the Articuli de propugnaculo, which 
are not quite correct in the German re-translation ; e. g. 
§4. Neque hie sine capituli et nobilitatis consensu in- 
auctorabitur neque exauctorabitur ; the translation of 
which is, " he should neither be appointed nor dismissed 
without the approbation of the chapter." 



the town, even if all his people had died of 
hunger. In the first conversation which seve- 
ral Hessian theologians had with him, he mani- 
fested the greatest obstinacy. But he very 
soon requested another conference, in which 
he said that none of them in Münster had 
any certain knowledge of the millenium, the 
clear perception of which had been revealed 
to him in prison; he now confessed that the 
resistance he had offered to the authorities 
was unlawful, polygamy rash and untimely, 
and he even acknowledged the obligation of 
infant baptism. t He promised, if he were par- 
doned, together with Melchior Hoffmann and 
his wives, to try to bring all Anabaptists to 
silence and submission. In this disposition 
he remained, even after he must have known 
that it could avail him nothing. He confessed 
to the bishop's chaplain that if he M-ere to 
suffer ten deaths, he had deserved them all. 
Knipperdolling and Krechting, on tl^e other 
hand, were perfectly obdurate : they appeared 
far less versed in theological questions than 
.lohn of Leyden, and their convictions being 
founded on less knowledge, were more stub- 
born ; they persisted in declaring that they 
had only followed the admonitions of God. 
They were all condemned to be put to death 
with red-hot pincers in the market-place of 
Münster. § 

Protestantsand Catholics witnessed the exe- 
cution, which was the result of their combined 
efforts ; but what wa« already their temper ta- 
wards each other ! One of the Hessian divines 
above mentioned, describes, in a letter to the 
court chaplain of Saxony, the delight of the 
mass-priests at the execution. Some, how- 
ever, he adds, appeared to want, to complete 
their ^satisfaction, that the Lutherans should 
be disposed of in the same manner. The 
Lutherans did not disguise from themselves, 
that, for the present, there remained no hope 
for the progress of their doctrines in Münster. |j 

The effect of this catastrophe on the Ana- 
baptists was, that the anarchical principles 
they had professed, although they still found 
champions, were gradually abandoned ; and 
the milder form of their opinions remained 
the prevailing one. This change, it is clear, 
could be of little immediate avail to them; 
they were not the less obnoxious to severe 
and bloody persecution. 

This later and mitigated period gave birth 
to the spiritual songs which haye been, from 
time to time, republished from their hymn- 
books. They contain such sentiments and 



J Gesprech oder disputation Antonii Corvini und Jo- 
hannis Kymei mit Johann von Leiden. Printed contem- 
poraneously at Wittenberg. In sheet G there is a con- 
fession of John of Leyden, " mit miner eigiiene hand on- 
dertekent," " undersigned with my own hand." 

§ Des Münsterischen Königreichs an und abgang, Blu- 
thandel und End; the rise and fall of the kingdom of 
Münster; trial and execution ; Samstag nach Sebastiani, 
Anno 1536. The frontispiece represents the tower of St. 
Lambert's church, with the iron baskets in which the 
bodies were exposed, that of the king rather higher than 
the two others. The pamphlet is merely a history of the 
execution. 

II Corvinus ad Spalatinum, 1. 1. 318. Tanto An-abaptis- 
tis iniquior sum, quanto certius comperi illorum malitia 
factum esse ut vix mutire nunc audeant qui antea Veri- 
tät! erant addictissimi. 



Chap. X. 



SCANDINAVIA AND THE HANSA. 



443 



expressions as the following : — They are beset 
on every side by crafty and malignant ser- 
pents; the great dragon hath arisen, and rideth 
in hia wrath throuoh Germany ] but they are 
resolved not to suffer themselves to be fright- 
ened by fire, or water, or sword ; they know 
that God can save his true children, and that 
He will, in every case, take care of the soul, 
even though the flesh should bleed. ^' The 
tyrants of the Burgundian court'' are arrayed 
against them ] they imprison men and women, 
and make inquisition into their faith. These, 
however, display a single and steadfast mind; 
they will not deny Him who is the eternal 
good, and they seal their belief in him with 
their blood. ^' Therefore they are thrown into 
prison.' They are happy, for they see them- 
selves surrounded by the heavenly hosts and 
martyrs; they behold God in the sun of grace, 
and know that no man can banish them from 
their fatherland, which is with God. They 
call to mind analogous events ; such as the 
miracles in the old martyrologies (treating 
them after their manner).! Lastly, they pre- 
pare today themselves as victims on the altar, 
and to be led to the place of execution ; the 
clear fountain of the divine word consoles 
them with the hope of being made like unto 
the an gels, t 

In Germany, the utmost they could obtain 
for their opinions, under their mildest forms,. 
was some degree of toleration. 

But at the moment of their total overthrow 
in Münster, many had fled in despair to Eng- 
land. Here, amid the storms of the seven- 
teenth century, their w^hole system of opinions 
assumed a most remarkable form. For ex- 
ample, a great deal of what is peculiar in the 
mode of life of the Quakers is a mere repro- 
duction of what Justus Menius imputes to the 
Anabaptists. 

But the colonies of North America now lay 
open to them. Those things for which there 
was no room in a constituted society, where 
such experiments could produce nothing but 
disorder and destruction, were practicable in 
a world where every thing had to be created. 
In Providence and Pennsylvania the moral and 
religious icfeas of the Anabaptists were first 
developed and reduced to practice. 



CHAPTER X. 

BÜRGERMEISTER WULLENWEBER OF LIJBEK. 

The disturbances created by the Anabap- 
tists were not the sole interruption to the regu- 
lar progress of the reformation in Germany. 
The source whence these had sprung gave 



* See the Lied des gefangenen Wiedertäufers (Song of 
the imprisoned Anabaptist), Die zwei Jungfrauen von 
Beckum, (The two Virgins of Beckum,) " O lieber vater 
und herzog mild," ("Ö beloved Father and clement 
Duke,") in the Münsterischen Geschichten und Sagen, p. 
277, f. 

t See Pura, in the Wunderhorn, 1. 146, and Algerius, in 
the same, p. 353. 

X Abschied vom Leben (Farewell to Life), Münst. Gesch. 
u. Sag. p. 284. 



birth to other movements, which, although 
they took very diff"erent directions, threatened 
to become equally formidable, 

A spirit of anarchy and insubordination had 
prevailed in the towns ever shice the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century ; and now that 
the commonalty took so active a part in carry- 
ing out the reformation, the religious move- 
ment couid not fail to be tinctured with this 
democratic spirit. 

Nevertheless, respect for established politi- 
cal institutions was a leading principle of the 
German reformation. In by far the greater 
number of towns, the lawful authorities kept 
their place; indeed, there were only two of 
the larger ones in which the old councils were 
completely overthrown, Münster and Liibek. 

To these two cities, therefore, all restless 
and innovating tendencies impetuously rushed. 

At Münster, where the clergy had ahvays 
been paramount, attempts were made, as our 
readers have seen, to establish a kind of so- 
cialist theocracy. 

A strong moral or intellectual impulse, if 
allowed its free course, will always set at 
work the most peculiar powers and instincts 
of the organization upon which it acts; now 
Lübek, the centre of the Hanse towns, had 
interests of a mercantile and warlike nature; 
and precisely these were the most powerfully 
acted upon by the prevailing democratico- 
rehgious spirit. The incidents which occurred 
there were not less remarkable than those in 
Münster, but of a totally different character. 

But in order to understand them, we must 
first cast our eyes round the theatre on which 
they were acted. 

The first consideration that will strike us is, 
that the power of the old Hansa rested on two 
main points ; first, the union of all the mari- 
time towns of Germ^any, from Narwa to Bru- 
ges; and, secondly, the ascendancy which the 
more central of them — the so-called Weiidish 
cities — had acquired over the Scandinavian 
kingdoms. 

In that age Scandinavia w^as still of the 
greatest importance to the commerce of Ger- 
many. Calculations were published at the 
time, of the possible products of the moun- 
tains of the great peninsula, the plains of the 
Vorlande, and the surrounding sea ; the copper 
and iron of Sweden ; the furs of the northern, 
and the masts of the southern parts of Nor- 
way ; the produce of the cattle-breeding and 
the agriculture of Denmark; above all, the 
profits arising from the herring fishery, which 
supplied the whole of northern Germany as 
far as Swabia and Franconia ; and lastly, the 
advantages of the command of the sound. § 

As governments were now continually spring- 
ing up, anxious to improve the natural resources 
of their country for their own profit, the north- 
ern kings had long been trying to oppose a 
check to the excessive influence of the cities. 

This would not have been of great moment, 

§ Summarium von allem was die drei Reiche Denemark, 
Schweden und Norwegen an whare und anderm vermüeen ; 
im Archiv zu Brüssel. Summary of all that the three 
kingdoms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, possess iii 
wares and other property. In the Archives at Brussels. 



444 



LUBEK AND DENMARK. 



Book VI. 



had not the union between the latter been dis- 
solved. In the private war which broke out 
in 1427, between the Wendish cities and 
Erich; the sovereign of the united kingdoms 
of Scandinavia, the Netherlands severed them- 
selves from the former, obtained peculiar pri- 
vileges, and followed their own separate inte- 
rests. Lübek was, indeed, in the fifteenth 
century, strong enough to prevent their ac- 
quiring an ascendancy; but it was not able 
completely to counteract their influence in the 
East. 

When Christiern IL, the last of the kings 
who wore the united Scandinavian crowns, 
married the sister of Charles V., he was not 
only intent on securing powerful political allies, 
but also on gaining a firm support for his com- 
mercial schemes in the Netherlands. 

We accordingly find that he was assisted in 
his attempt on Sweden by the Netherlands — 
especially by the dowry of the Burgundian prin- 
cess; and immediately afterwards, in defiance 
of all treaties, began to violate the privileges 
of the Hansa. Hanseatic merchants were de- 
tained at Schonen, ships coming from Riga 
carried off", and new and exorbitant duties im- 
posed. The king's wish was, to emancipate 
himself completely from Lübek, and to raise 
Copenhagen to be the great emporium of the 
trade of the North. The Hanse towns were 
fully persuaded that the king, contrary to all 
he had signed and sealed and sworn, aimed at 
nothing less than the ruin of the maritime 
towns. 

The gallant resistance made by Lübek is 
well known. It was she who sent to Sweden 
Gustavus Vasa, the enemy and rival before 
whom Christiern's star paled, and supported 
him with all her might. When Stockholm 
surrendered to him, the keys of that city were 
presented to the two town-councillors who ac- 
companied the Lübek fleet; by them they 
were then delivered to the new king, who had 
just granted them a most hberal and advanta- 
geous charter.* 

Nor was the share which Lübek took in the 
change of affairs in Denmark much less im- 
portant. When Frederic of Holstein accepted 
the crown offered him by the aristocracy of 
that country, and repaired to Copenhagen, a 
Lübek army accompanied him by land and a 
Lübek fleet was ready to support him by sea. 

Severin Norby, who still for a while kept 
Christiern's flag afloat in the Baltic, at length 
succumbed mainly to the exertions of the navy 
of Lübek, which burnt his ships on the coast 
of Schonen. 

From that time, Christiern incessantly me- 
naced the country from which he had been 
driven, with an invasion. He formed an alli- 
ance with England ; raised troops in Germany 
with the aid of his kinsmen and friends ; sent 
ships to sea against the Han seats from Zealand 
and Brabant ; and; as he still had communica- 
tion with the interior of the country, and an 
imperial party still existed in the towns, he 



* Regkmann lübliche Chronik, otherwise a mere repe- 
tition of Bonnus, has an article peculiarly confirming this 
statement. 



was always feared. Lübek enjoyed the fran- 
chises it had obtained, without molestation, 
mainly because the two kings could not do 
without her assistance against their menacing- 
foe. 

Their alliance was drawn closer w^hen Chris- 
tiern, notwithstanding the Protestant zeal he 
had formerly manifested, returned to Catholi- 
cism; and now, supported by efficient aid 
from the emperor, seriously prepared to make 
an effort to recover his throne. It is, hovvever, 
clear that there was not always the best un- 
derstanding bet wen the brothers-in-law. While 
Christiern was arming in Friesland, ^an impe- 
rial envoy endeavoured to bring about a recon- 
ciliation between him. King Frederic of Den- 
mark, and the Hanse towns. King Frederic 
declared that he would submit to an arbitra- 
tion if Christiern consented to do the same, 
and, above all, to suspend hostilities; a pro- 
posal which the enyoy hastened to lay before 
Christiern in Friesland. That monarch, how- 
ever, answered him with violent complaints, 
that after being so long an exile from his coun- 
try, he was not yet to be permitted to return 
to it, nor to be restored to his rightful throne. t 
Instead of disbanding his troops, he marched 
without delay into Holland. That which he 
could not obtain by fair means, he extorted by 
force — ships and money. He knew that the 
court of Vienna approved of his undertaking 
(if not at the present moment, yet on the 
whole), and wished for the same results. The 
emperor had often enough declared that he 
regarded Christiern's cause as his own. Ne- 
therland merchants afforded the king volun- 
tary assistance ; the houses of Frei of Cam- 
pen, Schultis of Enkhuysen, Bur of Amsterdam, 
and Rath of Alkmar. were mentioned as those 
to whom he was chiefly indebted for the funds 
necessary to his designs ; and he, in return, 
granted them the most advantageous charters. 
On the 15th October, 1531, they set sail from 
Medenblik. 

The Lübekers now addressed themselves to 
the Schmalkaldic league. They declared that 
nothing less was intended than the destruction 
of Protestantism, and that there was au express 
understanding with all the bishops to that 
effect. King Frederic offered to join the 
Schmalkaldic league with his hereditary do- 
mains, if at least the most considerable mem- 
bers of it, Saxony, Hessen and Lüneburg, 
would conclude a similar treaty with him in 
respect of his elective kingdom. t For, he 
said, that, however strong his attachment to 



t Liters Banner! ad Csesarem, de gestis apud Vandalicas 
civitates, s. a. Brussels Archives. 

X The acceptation generally given must be so modified. 
"Your grace will be pleased to know," says King Frede- 
ric in a letter to Landgrave Philip, dated St. John's Day, 
1531, " tiiat we are earnestly well inclined to enter upon 
a union and alliance of our kingdom, and also our heredi- 
tary domains, concerning secular affairs, commerce and 
transactions, with you and our beloved uncle, the Elector 
of Saxony, together with the Duke of Lüneberg." Tf this 
alliance should be concluded, " we are consequently not 
disinclined, but, on the contrary, fully minded, then to 
contract a union, understanding and alliance, on behalf 
of our hereditary dominions alone, with all electors, 
princes, counts and estates attached to the evangelical 
party." The landgrave hoped that Hamburg, Rostock, 
Wismar and Stade would also join. 



Chap. X. 



GEORGE WULLENWEBER. 



445 



the evangelical cause, lie would be prevented 
.from expressing it by tJie power of his bishops, 
every one of whom had a great following of 
nobles. 

Thus, as a counterpoise to the influence 
which Catholicism had exercised on the one 
side, an attempt was made to implicate the 
scarcely formed anti-catholic league in these 
pohtical affairs. But it did not succeed. 
Elector John would not hear of this twofold 
character of a member of the league ; nor in- 
deed was it necessary. No sooner had King 
Frederic given the Llibekers sufficient secu- 
rity for the trade with Holland,* than four 
Liibek men-of-war put to sea, before the 
Danes had made any preparations. Christiern 
had indeed landed in the mean time in Nor- 
way, and had, without difficulty, gained pos- 
session of the whole of that country, with the 
exception of a few fortified towns; but the 
Liibek cruisers burnt his ships on the coasts, 
provisioned Aggerhus, and formed a central 
point for the greater force which assembled 
in May, 1532; reheved Aggerhus, and com- 
pelled Christiern to negotiate, to capitulate, 
and finally to surrender himself into the hands 
of his enemies. As far as I have been able 
to discover, it was the delegate from Lübek 
who counselled the perpetual detention of 
Christiern. 

As the Dutch were parties to this defeat, 
they instantly began to feel the consequences 
of it. In the summer of the y-ear 1532, above 
four hundred merchant vessels were lying 
.useless in the ports of Holland; there were 
ten thousand boatmen out of employment, 
and wheat rose to double its usual price. t 
While Christiern was in Norway, King Fre- 
deric had allowed himself to be prevailed on 
to sign an ignominious treaty ; but in virtue 
even of that he now claimed compensation, 
which he rated extrem'ely high, and which 
the Netherlands refused to pay. The king- 
dismissed the ambassadors of the stadthol- 
deress with an unfriendly message; upon 
which the Lubekers took the confiscated 
church treasures out of the sacristies, and 
fitted out a squadron with them, which, in 
the year 1533, lay in the Sound. 

Upon this, the great towns of Holland fitted 
out a fleet to chastise that of Liibek — "the 
rebel and foe to his majesty." 

They insisted on the high dignity with which 
their sover'eign was invested, as if that gave a 
greater colour of right to their proceedings.' 

It seemed as if matters must come to a 
decision by arms, now and for ever, between 
the two divisions of the ancient Hansa ; espe- 
cially since the democratic faction in Liibek, 
the rise of which during the religious troubles 
we have noticed, was now at the helm, and 
engaged in these affairs with the most ardent 
zeal. 

In the early and primitive days of Liibek, 

* Bonnus and Regkmann : " with the assurance 

that they would agaia assist the city of Liibek against 
the Hollanders, and not allow them afterwards fo sail 
through the Sound with so many ships." 

t Wagenaar, Niederländische Geschichte, ii. 423. 
2n 



when, as in Venice, a share in the administra- 
tion of public affairs was regarded as a bur- 
den, a statute was framed, according to which, 
a man who had sat two years in the council, 
was at liberty to quit on the third. t People 
had, however, long been accustomed to re- 
gard this burden as an honour, and were jea- 
lous of sharing it with anybody. Neverthe- 
less, the rising faction interpreted the statute 
to mean that no one should be allowed to sit 
more than two years in the council ; conse- 
quently, that a third part of the college must 
be renewed every year. The most active 
supporter of this construction M'as George 
Wullenweber, one of the directors of the 
Hundred and Sixty-four ; he probably thouoht 
it the best means of getting possession of the 
supreme power, with an appearance of lega- 
lity; and it was entirely approved of by the 
excited citizens. In February, 1533, the coun- 
cil was renewed, and Wullenweber was one 
of the first elected to it ; scarcely had he sat 
a fortnight, when (8th March) he was chosen, 
bürgermeister. This completed the overthrow 
of the constitution of Lübek. Wullenweber 
now united the power of a popular leader 
with that of a lawful magistrate. He seemed 
determined immediately to prosecute the war 
with Holland with the utmost vigour; order- 
ing even the great chandeliers of St. Mary's 
church to be taken down, and cast into guns. 

But before he proceeded farther, changes 
took place which gave his activity a totally 
different direction. 

It was natural that the northern govern- 
ments, delivered from the enemy they had so 
long feared, should not cling so closely to the 
cities which had hitherto afforded them pro- 
tection. They were now once more free to 
feel the oppression which these protectors 
exercised over them ; — the obstruction which 
they offered to their own commercial activity. 
In the victory of Liibek over Holland, they 
could not possibly see any direct advantage 
to themselves ; for there, too, a dernocratic 
faction, against which they had a natural an- 
tipathy^ had gained the upper hand. Had 
they not reason to fear that it might excite 
similar agitations among their own subjects? 

While things were in this state, King Fre- 
deric died at Gottorp, in April, 1533, and a 
number of pretenders to the Danish crown 
arose, Frederic's sons, of whom the one^ 
Christian, w-as inclined to Protestantism, the 
other, John, was trained in the Catholic faith, 
had both numerous adherents; the latter, espe- 
cially among the higher clergy. It is affirmed 
that a distant relation. Joachim of Brandenburg, 
also put in claims to the succession, and ven- 
tured to entertain hopes. Others thought of 

t "Des driden Jaers sol he frye sin des Rads, men lie 
möghe id dann mit Bedde von erne hebben, dat iso soekö 
den Rad."— "The third year he should be free from the 
council, unless he be requested to offer himself as a mem- 
ber again."— Becker, ii. p. 54. I do not know on what 
grounds Barthold rests his interpretation of the statute, 
in his aj-ticle on Wi»llenweber, in Raumer's Taschenbuch, 
for 1835, p. 37. It is as follows: — No man shall sit for 
more than two years in the council, unless the citizens 
propose an extension of the term, for some special rea- 
sons. 



446 



HENRY VIII. OF ENGLAND AND MARCUS MEIER. 



Book VI. 



the Elector of Saxony. The me^.ory of Chris- 
tiern was not yet wholly effaced, but the house 
of Austria hastened to set up a new pietendef 
in his place; Count Palatine Frederic, to v\ horn 
the emperor gave the daughter of Christiern 
in marriage. 

In this general uncertainty, Lübek thought 
it might also have a voice, and that it per- 
ceived in what direction its interests lay. 
Wullenweber went to Copenhagen, and ad- 
dressed himself first to the council of state on 
the subject of the Dutch war; but he found 
no ericouragement. He then turned to the 
nearest Protestant pretender, Duke Christian, 
and offered him his assistance to obtain the 
crovni. Christian had, however, sufficient pru- 
dence and reserve to decline this. Wullen- 
weber saw that he should gain nothing by a 
war with Holland, if, meantime, he lost Den- 
mark. He conceived the' idea of taking ad- 
vantage of the confusion of the moment, and 
establishing in that country the dominion of 
his city (and consequently his own), on a 
firmer and more extensive basis than ever. 
He thought that he might reckon on the sym- 
pathy of a party in the country, and at the 
same time on the support of one of the great 
powers of Europe. 

A part of the Lübek fleet which had put to 
sea against the Dutch, had touched on the 
English coast, when its commander, Marcus 
Meier, had ventured to land without a pass- 
port, and had been arrested and lodged in the 
Tower of London. This happened just at the 

; time in which Henry VIH. (as we shall have 
occasion to relate more at length) had entirely 
broken with the see of Rome, and had deter- 
mined to emancipate his kingdom from the 
povi^er of the pope ; he was. therefore, looking 
round on every side for allies to assist him in 
his defence.. We have a resolution of his 
privy-council, in pursuance of which an em- 
bassy was to be sent to the Hanse Towns 
(among other places), in order to form an alli- 
ance with them.* Considering also- the grow- 
ing coolness with the emperor, it could not 

^ be a matter of indifference to the English 
whether the throne of Denmark was filled by 
a prince in the interest of the house of Bur- 
gundy, or in that of its opponents. It is, there- 
fore, /no wonder that the king, instead of 
' punishing the commander of a fleet which 
had taken the sea against the Netherlandere, 
invited him to his presence, and negotiated 
w'ith him. From the documents extant, it 
appears that Marcus Meier promised, in the 
name of his party and his city, that no prince 
phould mount the Danish throne, whom 
Henry VHI. did not approve. Henry, on the 
other hand, showed himself ready to sup- 
port Lübek in its undertaking, and hoped to 
gain over the King of France to the same 
cause. 

Meier returned to Lübek, full of this most 
■unexpected result of his expedition. 

This man had formerly been a blacksmith 
at Hamburg, but had left his trade to enter the 



* Propositions for the King's Council, in Strvpe's Me- 
morials Ecclesiastical, i. 238. State Papers, i. 411. 



army. He served first in that body of adven- 
turers v;hich Christiern II. collected in Fries- 
land, and conducted into Holland and then to 
Norway. Here he was taken prisoner, but he 
immediately seized the opportunity to take 
service with Lübek. This unquiet commu- 
nity was just the element for him ; he attached 
himself to the rising chiefs of the popular 
party, and as early as the year 1532, the com- 
mand of the troops destined for the Turkish 
war was entrusted to him, and he marched to 
the frontier and back again, through the whole 
German empire, at their head. He next, ready 
for either kind of warfare, went to sea; and 
he returned fi^m England, decorated with a 
gold chain and the honour of knighthood. He 
now began to play a great part in Lül^ek, 
keeping a vast retinue of servants and horses, . 
and going, after the somewhat barbaric fashion 
of that age, dressed with the utmost possible 
splendour;! he was young, handsome, and 
brave ; and, of course, found favour in the 
eyes of the principal citizens' wives. By a 
marriage, contracted shortly after his return, 
with the rich widow of the lately deceased 
bürgermeister, Lunte, he gained a footing 
among the patrician families; and, at his 
wedding, the captain of the city, surrounded 
by a mounted band, escorted him from the 
Holstein Gate. 

Marcus Meier had, from the first, been on 
intimate terms with Wullenweber ; their inti- 
macy now became closer than ever. At the 
sittings of the Hansa they appeared at the 
head of a numerous retinue, in glittering- 
armour, and preceded by trumpets. The good 
fortune that had hitherto attended them, gave 
them confidence in the future. 

Their first efforts were directed towards 
ruling in Lübek itself. 

There were still in the council some of the 
former members, and'these, as may be ima- 
gined, did not concur in all the propositions 
of the innovators. At Easter, 1534, they were 
turned out of office without ceremony, not- 
withstanding the utter repugnance of such a 
proceeding to the principles laid down by 
Luther. The superintendent, Bonnus, would 
no longer look on, while the authorities were 
attacked, dismissed, and banished ;$ he, there- 
fore, sent in his resignation. 

Their main object now was to have their 
hands free in pohtics and war; and they there- 
fore determined, though after some hesitation, 
to conclude a truce with the Dutch for four 
years; even on the condition of granting the 
free passage through the Sound, demanded by 
Holland. 

They could now direct all their thoughts 
and plans tow^ards the North, where things 
assumed the most favourable aspect for them. 

In the Danish cities, nay, even in the capital 
of Sweden, as well as on the south of the 
Baltic, there were civic bodies impatient of the 
yoke of an oppressive aristocracy. 



t Sastrow, i. 115. 

J Letter of Hermannus Bonnus to the extraordinary 
Council, 4th May, ]o34. Starke, Lübekische Kirchenhis- 
-torie, i., Eeila-e, lu. v. 



Chap. X. 



CHRISTOPHER OF OLDENBURG. 



447 



In Denmark the citizens had discovered, 
after the lapse of some time, that the expul- 
sion of Christiern II. had been of no benelit to 
them . All the immunities from burdens which 
that king had granted them, had been gradually 
revoked. They u^ere especially indignant that 
the nobility, not content with the enormous 
privileges it enjoyed, endeavoured to get the 
profits of commerce into its hands.* The two 
biirgermeisters, Jorg Mynter of Malmoe. and 
Ambrosius Bogbinder of Copenhagen, both 
Germans, entirely shared Wullenweber's de- 
mocratic sentiments. Protected by Frederic, 
Jorg Mynter had introduced the reformation 
into JMalmoe, and would not allow it to be put 
down, as the national council seemed to intend. 
They promised the Lübekers that, as soon as 
their men-of-war shonld appear off the Danish 
coasts, they would abandon the council, and 
fight openly on their side. It appears as if it 
had been concerted that both cities should join 
the league of the Hansa ] but on this point the 
authorities are not unanimous. 

Very similar views were entertained by 
Andres Handson, master of the mint at Stock- 
holm : with whom all the German citizens, 
and a part of the Swedish, seem to have been 
in an understanding. King Gastavus affirmed 
that their designs aimed directly at his life, 
and that powder was laid under his seat in the 
church, with the intention of blowing him up 
in the sight of the assembled congregation. 

If we remember that, in all the Hanse towns, 
nay, in all nether Germany, the popular incli- 
nations had manifested themselves in a simi- 
lar manner, and though repressed for the mo- 
ment, were by no means entirely extinguished; 
— if we combine with this the popularity ac- 
quired in the West by Anabaptism (w^hich w^as 
only a religious cloak for the democratic prin- 
ciple), we shall perceive how mighty was the 
agitation w^hich shook the North German w^orld. 
It was a ferment like that preceding the revolt 
of the peasants, which had not then penetrated 
Lower Germany, but had been arrested and 
quelled on its frontiers. Now, however, — after 
a lapse of ten years, — Lower Germany was in 
a state of agitation not less violent. At the 
lime of the peasants' war, some- few towns 
partook of it : now, they were its leaders and 
champions. Lubek, Vvdiich Bonnus calls the 
capital of all the Saxon tongues, led the w^ay. 
What was to be expected if bold demagogues 
were already masters there, and had at their 
disposal the means for the execution of their 

plans ? 

— . y ■■ — 

* Address from the Commons of Copenhajren to Q,ueen 
I^Iary, Ma\', 1535, (BrusseJi? Arch.,) specifies the reasons for 
their irritation, " Darum das dieses P^ichs Raidt und der 
Adel, über das sie unsern rechten König— eiitsetst, bisher 
mit manigfaltiger unredlicher Beswerung niciit weniger 
uns denn alle andere Stette und gemeinen Mann im gan- 
zen reich fon unsern, christlichen Freiheiten und Gerech- 
tigkeiten gezwungen, die Kaufmaiinschap hinweggenom- 
men," &c. — " Because that the conncil of this kingdom, 
and the nobility, besides that they have deposed our right- 
ful king, have hitherto, with manifold, dishonest, and in- 
tolerable conspiracies, forcibly suppressed our Christian 
liberties and rights, taken away our privileges as mer- 
chants," &:c. The last complaint is also reported in the 
Rerum Danicarum Chronologia, in Ludewig Reliqufe MSS. 
ii-p. 70, auf. Nobilitatis osores gravissimi ob negotia- 
tioiies quas exercebant ditiores. 



But the cities now, like the peasants before 
them, could not do without a commander of 
noble bii'th. They engaged the services of 
Christopher of Oldenburg, who, though a canoa 
of Cologne cathedral, was a brave warrior and 
a zealous Protestant. As a child, his mind had 
been richly stored with history; and when, at 
a riper age, he had repaired to the court of 
Philip of Hessen, it was» thoroughly imbued 
with that mingled spirit of war and religion 
which then reigned there ; he had afterwards 
assisted in putting down the peasants, and in 
delivering Vienna; he was not without eleva- 
tion of mind, and had all the parts and quali- 
ties of a gallant soldier. 

It was, however, impossible that a member 
of the house of Oldenburg should adopt the 
quarrels of a few biirgermeisters without solid 
grounds; or, at the least, without a plausible 
pretext. 

The Liibekers determined to allege that they 
were about to liberate and reinstate on his 
throne the captive king Christiern, whom no- 
body had more bitterly hated, or more success- 
fully sought to injure, than they. Yet there 
was a certain' tincture of "truth in this. The 
object they had immediately in view, w^as not 
their mercantile interests (which Christiern 
had thwarted), but the democratic, or rattier 
anti-aristocratiC, which he had always es- 
poused. t But they took ample precautions as 
to the former. Count Christopher promised 
that, if he conquered, he would cede Gothland, 
Helsingborg, and Helsingör to the Liibekers, 
whose ascendancy^ in the Baltic would thus 
have been secured forever. Nay, he gave 
them the assurance that he w^ould deliver King 
Christiern into their hands, as soon as he had 
rescued him from prison.! What a power 
over the three Scandinavian kingdoms w-ould 
they have acquired by the possession of the 
person of their legitimate monarch ! 

For they were resolved not to suffer Gus- 
tavus Vasa to remain in Sweden ; they had 
even thought of setting up the young Svante 
Sture as a temporary rival and competitor. 

In May, 1534, Count Christopher entered 
Liibek. The present intention of the inhabit- 
ants was to seize upon the property of the 
cathedral, which they meant to confiscate at 
the death of the bishop. Christopher took 
Eutin without difficulty. His attack on some 
castles in Holstein, such as Trittow, which he 
conquered, and Segeberg, was merely in order 
to- give occupation to Duke Christian, and in 
the mean time, undisturbed by him, to attain 
his ends in Denmark;§ 

Disregarding the means of defence which 
Duke Christian instantly raised, and the ad- 
vantages which he obtained, Count Christo- 
pher, eager to complete the great work, put to 
sea at Travemiinde, on the 19th June, 1534, 
with twenty-one ships lOf war. 
Never did an invading army find a country 



t See Havitfield, G. ii. Pontanus ap. Westphalen, 1144. 

J Declarations of Wullenweber in his Interrogatorium ; 
authenticated by Gebhardi, ii. 135. 

§ Wullenweber declared that these schemes related only 
to Denmark. 



448 



LUBEK AND ENGLAND. 



Book VL 



better disposed for its reception. The bürger- 
meister Mynter put out to meet the fleet, with 
the news that he had raised a revolt in Mal- 
moe, and had got possession of the citadel, 
which he had destroyed . Hereupon Christo- 
pher cast anchor some miles in front of Copen- 
hagen. As soon as he showed himself, the 
insurrection, for which every thing was ready, 
and which, like those'in Germany, was directed 
against the nobles and the clergy, broke out in 
Seeland. In Roschild the multitude plundered 
the bishop's palace and delivered up the city. 
They fell upon the castles of the nobles and 
rased them to the ground. The majority of 
the nobles, solely to save their lives, consented 
to renew their former oath to Christiern IL, 
and in an unusual form. On the 15th of July, 
Copenhagen went over; Laaland, Langeland, 
and Falster followed the example of Seeland 
without delay. Nothing was wanting but the 
arrival of the count in Malmoe, to carry all 
Schonen with him. In Fünen it seemed for a 
moment as if the revolt of the peasants, which 
had just arisen, woukl be put down by the 
council of state ani the nobility; but some 
small succours from the count sufficed to in- 
sure victory to the peasants, and recognition 
to the exiled king. There remained only Jut- 
land. A pirate, named Clemint, who had 
joined Count Christopher in Malmoe, fell upon 
Aalborg; and collecting the Jütish peasants 
around tiim, soon drove the nobles and their 
heavy cavalry put of the field. 

While thesis tidings were coming in, the 
syndic of Liibek, Doctor Oldendorp. one of the 
most active members of the reforming party — 
a man ^-of unquiet spirit," to use the words 
of old Kantzow^ — travelled through the Swed- 
ish cities, to invite their participation in this 
undertaking. He was personally a represent- 
ative of the democratic interests, and he now 
unfolded the most flattering prospects that it 
was possible to conceive ; it may easily be 
imagined how he was received by the people. 
A few of the old councillors opposed him, but 
in vain. The Stralsunders threw their bürger- 
meister, Claus Smiterlow^, into prison, carried 
the cannon on board the ships of war, and 
elected a new council. The expenses of the 
war were to be paid by forced contributions 
from the richer sort, without any assistance 
from the people. ' The old bürgermeisters of 
Rostock were compelled by force to give their 
assent to the preparations for war. All the 
towns of the surrounding countries were roused 
to attempt great things. Reval and Riga sent 
contributions. Nothing was heard of but Lii- 
bek. '-Had the cities succeeded as they 
hoped," says Kantzow, ''not a prince or a no- 
bleman would have been left."'^' 

Meanwhile, the people of Liibek did not 
neglect to cultivate their friendship with Eng- 
land. On the 30th May, they sent three coun- 
cillors to that country, to express to the king 
their sentiments as to his quarrel with the 
pope to ofler hira their alliance against the 



* Kantzows Chronik von Pommern, in the accurate edi- 
tion of Böhmer, p. 211. 



see of Rome, and at the same time to request 
his support and assistance in their own affairs. t 

We have before us the copy of a treaty of 
the 2d August, 1534, according to which they 
also left the king the free disposal of the 
crown of Denmark, in case he desired either 
to take possession of it himself, or to recom- 
mend another candidate;! while he, on his 
side, confirmed all their ancient privileges, 
gave them a sum of money, and promised them 
further support. 

One symptom of the impression which these 
events made in Europe, may be found in a 
letter of the Archbishop of Lund, in wfiich he 
begs the emperor to reflect on the conse- 
quences of an alliance between the Hanse 
towns and England ; how easily Holland 
might then be invaded, and an insurrection 
raised there ; and conjures him to take some 
means to prevent it. He added, that if the 
emperor thought himself bound by his treaties 
with the house of Oldenburg, he might declare 
war in the name of Frederic of the Palatinate 
and the youthful, Dorothea. There was living 
in Liibek one Hopfensteiner, formerly in the 
service of the Archbishop of Bremen, who in- 
cessantly entertained the imperial ministers 
with reports of the great regard still paid to 
the emperor's interests in the Hanse towns, 
and represented an enterprise of this kind as 
very easy. The Archbishop of Lund offered, 
in case of need, to carry on the war in his own 
name.§ 

But before the imperial court, or the govern- 
ment of the Netherlands, could resolve on a 
measure of so decisive a kind, the Liibekers 
had met with a resistance in the North, which 
daily assumed a more formidable character. 

Duke Christian of Holstein was a man of 
tranquil, North-German temper: a nature not 
lightly m.oved, but when once urged by ne- 
cessity, capable of acting with admirable per- 
severance and discretion. He had already 
shown of what he was capable, by the man- 
ner in which he had introduced the reforma- 
tion into the duchies. His mind and character 
Vv-ere profoundly penetrated with the religious 
and .moral spirit of the German reformation. 
He sang the Lutheran hymns with as much 



t Oratores missi de villa de Lubicke, in Rhymer's Fee- 
dern, vi. ii. 214. Further information on these affairs may 
be expected from the continuation of the State Paj)ers. 
It is remarkable that the king wished also to form an 
alliance with the Hamhurghers, "for the redressing and 
amending of the injuries doon to his majestie by the 
Bishop of Rome." Articles were to be laid before thenu 
for their acceptance, e.g., "Against Goddes prohibitions 
the dispensation of the Bishop of Rome or of an other 
man is utferlie nought and of no value;" the same which 
were after laid before the Liibekers, and also some others 
specially relating to the bishop's government: they were 
to send twelve ships to the king's assistance, and raise 
]0,()00 men at liis cost— 3000 horse and 7000 foot. Printed 
in the Report of the Rec. Commission, App. C. 

t If he would do neither, for he was as yet undecided, 
they engaged to repay his loan. "Alle und itlik Geld, so 
S. K. M. der Stadt thom besten vorstrecket." — "All and 
every money which H. R. M. had advanced for the benefit 
of the city." Words of the treaty, which Dr. Schmidt 
had the kindness to procure me from the Bremen Arcliives. 

§ Litera; Archiepiscopi ad Csesarem et D"». de Granvella, 
in the third volume of the Imperial Documents at Brus- 
sels. The letter of the 1st of August, 1534, which I in- 
tend to give in the Appendix, is particularly worthy of 
note. 



Chap. X. 



CHRISTIAN ELECTED KING OF DENMARK. 



449 



fervour as any worthy artisan of an imperial 
city. Perjury he visited with new and in- 
creased penalties. To read the Bible, to listen 
to passages from history, to converse at table 
with some learned divine or wise statesman, 
to follow the discoveries in astronomy — such 
were his pleasures. His political and military 
acts were, as we see, based on deep and solid 
grounds, and prompted by elevated motives 
and tendencies. =* 

To this prince the leaders of the popular 
party in Lübek had, as we have stated, oftered 
the crown of Denmark j he had declined it, 
because he would not owe it to force, and 
they had, in consequence, dh'ected their first 
hostilities against him; being at length irri- 
tated, and earnestly supported by his subjects 
and his neighbours (and among them the 
Landgrave of Hessen), he at length took the 
field with a considerable force, in the intention 
of chastising the Lübekers for their attacks. t 
In September, 1534, he appeared before the 
city, and, in order to cut off the communica- 
tion with the sea, proceeded without delay to 
block up the Trave. Marcus,Meier protested 
that he should not succeed in this. But 
Meier's arrangements only proved his com- 
plete unfitness for serious warfare. The Hol- 
steiners first took possession of the bank of 
the Trave as far as Tremsmühle ] they then 
took up a strong position on the opposite bank, 
on the Burgfeld, and connected their posts by 
a bridge which effectually closed the river. 
All attempts of the Lübekers, both by land 
and water, to get possession of this bridge, 
were fruitless; they were repeatedly beaten 
before the eyes of their wives and children, 
and were forced to yield other important 
points. The city which was laying plans to 
get the whole North under its influence, saw 
itself cut off from all communication with the 
sea at its very g-ates. 

The first and most urgent of all necessities 
for Lübek was. to rid itself of so imminent a 
foe. Already misunderstandings broke out in 
the city; the citizens were discontented, the 
Hundred and Sixty-four resigned, and even in 
the council the men in power encountered re- 
sistance. They were compelled to enter upon 
negotiations with Holstein, which they were 
no longer in a condition to conduct according 
to their wishes. We have no accurate infor- 
mation either concerning the preceding move- 
ments in the town, or these negotiations; but 
it is evident that the latter embraced the 
affairs of Denmark as well as those of Hol- 
stein, and that a considerable approximation 
was made between the parties. Christian 
seemed inclined to make some concessions, 
and WuUenweber declared that he would 
have consented to the terms of peace, had 
not Dr. Oldendorp prevented him. Thus it 
happened that they agreed on nothing but 
the affairs of Holstein ; Lübek ceded all that 
she had taken from Holstein. But a stranger 
peace was never concluded. Whilst the con- 



* Eracius, Historia Christiani, iii. p. 395. Hemming, 
Oratio funebris ad calcem historise Craginffi. 
t Chytrffius, Hist. Sax. p. 408. 
57 2n* 



tracting parties agreed about Holstein, each 
reserved to itself the right to continue the 
war with all its might concerning the affairs 
of Denmark. I 

Bat these also were decided by the per- 
sonal qualities of Duke Christian. 

Such were the straits in which the states of 
Denmark found themselves, in consequence 
of attacks from without and revolt weithin, 
that they had at length, although not without 
strenuous resistance on the part of the clergy, 
determined to elect the duke to the throne. 

By this measure, all the fears of the Protest- 
ants of that kingdom, which had been very- 
lively, were dissipated. In their manifesto, 
the Lübekers had spoken of the introduciion 
of pure religion as the chief object of their 
undertaking. This was now of course with- 
out a meaning, and all the sympathy that they 
could look for on this score, had vanished. 

Now, moreover, the interests of Denmark 
were defended by an able and courageous 
champion. As he would perhaps have yielded 
too much in the camp before Lübek, so he 
would afterwards, perhaps, have consented to 
extend anew the privileges of the Lübekers ;t 
but they would be contented w^ith nothing less 
than the disposal of the kingdom and the 
crowm. There was now no other resource, 
therefore, than the sword. Without loss of 
time. Christian turned with his victorious 
troops from Lübek to Jutland. Even in De- 
cember, 1534, he succeeded in retaking Aal- 
borg, and pacifying the whole province. . His 
two brothers-in-law, the King of Sweden and 
the Duke of Prussia, took up arms for him; 
the former by sea and land, and the latter by 
sea only. His other brother-in-law, the Duke, 
of Pomerania, sent him subsidies which arrived 
just at the critical moment. Two or three 
Hessian companies, which he had had with 
him at Lübek, marched with him to the 
North. Throughout a great part of Norway, 
he was already acknowdedged king. 

On the other side, the Lübekers once more 
collected all their forces. 

They succeeded in gaining over to their 
cause a neighbouring prince, Duke Albert of 
Mecklenburg. 

Duke Albert, who had adhered with great 
fidelity to the party of the deposed and impri- 
soned Christiern, subsequently declared that 
he had received no pay from Lübek ; his only 
motive was, '' that it seemed to him good and 
praiseworthy to set free an anointed king, who, 
contrary to bond and seal, had been thrown 
into prison. "II It was said that the crown of 

I Regkmann's Chronicle (p. 176) agrees with the Inter- 
roiratorium of WuUenweber, if accurately compared. 
Only Regkmann gives some conjectures, e. g. that Wul- 
lenweber's enemies would not permit that Lübek should 
be aggrandized by him. 

§ According to a letter of Hopfensteiner, 20th of Janu-' 
ary, 1535, the king promised, first, that the captive king 
Christiern should be well taken care of; secondly, satis- 
faction given to Count Christopher: thirdly, restitution 
of what Lübek had expended on the kingdom of Denmark, 
"in his father's time;" fourthly, much more liberty and 
justice than they have hitherto had, and also certain 
towns as pledges: — " but they would not consent." 

II Albert's Declaration, Monday after Reminiscere, 1537. 
, (Brussels Archives.) 



450 



CHRISTIAN III. 



Book VI. 



Denmark, or even that of Sweden, had been 
promised to him as a recompense for his ser- 
vices. It does not appear that any such direct 
and positive engagement was entered into; 
according to Wullenweber's declaration, the 
promise made to him was, that Liibek would 
protect him in the possession of whatever he 
might obtain from King Christiern.=* It is pos- 
sible, however, that more distinct views were 
held out to him ; according to Hopfensteiner,t 
the plan of the Lübekers was, that, if King 
Christiern was liberated, Duke Albert should 
continue to govern Denmark as regent, while 
the king should be maintained suitably to his 
rank in Liibek; they enjoying all the advan- 
tages they had ever claimed, — Helsingor and 
Helsingborg, with the tolls, Gothland, and per- 
haps even Calmar and the Swedish miiT,es. 
On the 9th April, Duke Albert embarked at 
Warnemünde. ,He seemed to have made pre- 
parations for a permanent residence in Den- 
mark; taking with him his wife, who was 
with child, his court, and even his huntsmen 
and hounds, in order that he might enjoy the 
pleasures of the chase, after the German 
fashion, in the thick forests of Denmark. It 
was of great advantage to the Lübekers, that 
a distinguished prince of the empire, sovereign 
of no inconsiderable territory, had espoused 
their cause. It inspired the Danish towns like- 
wise with courage and confidence. Hitherto 
they had borne the whole weight of the con- 
test alone; but Albert brought some indepen- 
dent power to their aid, and was rather to be 
regarded as an auxiliary than a salaried com- 
mander. Wullenweber, who accompanied the 
duke, at length succeeded in bringing about 
an understanding between him and Count 
Christopher, who had, at first, shown consider- 
able dissatisfaction. Shortly after, a Liibek 
squadron brought further reinforcements, un- 
der the Counts of Hoya and Tecklenburg. 

Meanwhile, Marcus Meier, who had been 
sent to Schonen, had bestirred himself there 
with great success. He executed one of his 
usual daring and dexterous manoeuvres. Be- 
ing taken prisoner, he turned his ill luck to 
such good account, that he got possession of 
the very castle in which he was imprisoned — 
Warburg, in Holland. 

The two parties were, as w^e perceive, very 
equally matched ; perhaps that of Liibek and 
the cities was somewhat superior in numbers. 

The question was no longer, as perhaps at 
an earher period, w^hether the ecclesiastical 
reform would extend to Denmark ; its destiny 
was completely secured by the accession of a 
Protestant king. The question rather was, 
whether the ecclesiastical reform would com- 
bine with a political revolution ; whether the 
democratical principle, which, emanating from 
Liibek, had spread itself over the whole North, 



* Interrogatorium. 

t Hopfensteiner, 26th November, 1534, at which time 
the negotiation was already begun. The prospect of 
gaining Mecklenburg contributed the most to bring about 
the rejection of Christian's proposals. Wullenweber de- 
clares that he neither prevented the peace, nor engaged 
Duke Albert on his side; but that this was done by 
others: this account is perfectly consistent. 



would be triumphant there, or not ;— the same 
question M'hich, from the moment of its first 
agitation at Wittenberg, in Carlstadt's time, 
had kept Upper (and more recently Lower) 
Germany in that state of ferment which had 
just been so terribly quelled in Münster. 

The whole force of the democratic principle 
was now united at this remote point of the 
North. Had it conquered, it would have caused 
a fresh and mighty reaction in Germay. 

On the 11th June, 1535, on the spot where 
of yore Odin was worshipped with sanguinary 
rites — where legends of the greatness of the 
house of Oldenburg, mutilated by its own divi- 
sions, have their seat— on the island of Fünen, 
not far from Assens, near the Oxnebirg, this 
awful question was decided. On both sides 
were Germans and Danes. The royal party 
were led by Hans Rantzau, who had won his 
knighthood at Jerusalem, and had traversed 
the whole of Europe ; and who combined, in 
a still higher degree than his master, zeal for 
Protestantism, and love of arts and science,^ 
with address in the council and valour in the 
field ; the troops of the cities were commanded 
by the Count of Hoya. Rantzau conquered, — 
like Landgrave Philip at Laufen — like the 
princes in the peasants' war — by the supe- 
riority of his cavalry and artillery. It was in 
his favour that the enemy did not wait for 
him, but made the first onset, and fell into 
disorder. The best men of the cities' army 
fell, and it sustained a total defeat. § 

At the same time, the fleets met at Born- 
holm. The king's fleet included Swedish and 
Prussian, that of Lübek, Rostock, and Stral- 
sund ships. It was now to be decided whether 
the princes or the cities were henceforth to be 
masters of the seas. The battle had already 
begun, when they w^ere parted by a storm ; 
but the royal fleet w^as evidently superior ; 
the Danish admiral, Skram, who commanded 
it, captured a great number of Lübek trading 
vessels on the coasts. 

Christian III. was thus victorious by land 
ahd by sea. Fiinen had been forced imme- 
diately to submit, and did homage to him at 
Odensee. With the help of the fleet, which- 
arrived at that moment, he crossed over to 
Seeland^ where he was received with great 
joy by the nobles. The inhabitants of Scho- 
ningen did him homage, as soon as he ap- 
peared. Warburg was soon retaken, and used 
as a pledge between Denmark and Sweden. 
In the beginning of August, 1535, the con- 
quests made by the cities were once more 
reduced to Malmoe and Copenhagen. 

Notwithstanding this, the possession of 
these two points would still have rendered a 
resumption of their former plans possible, had 
not the discontents which had arisen at the 
first reverses, ripened meanwhile into a com- 
plete revolution. 

And lastly, that interposition on the part of 
the authorities of the empire in the internal 



X ChytfEeus : oculus nobilitatis eruditae in his terris ful- 
gentissimus. See Christiani, N. Gesch. von Schleswig 
und Holstein, i. 479, ii. 54. 

§ Cragius, Historia Christiani III. p. 95. 



Chap. X. 



REACTION IN LUBEK. 



451 



affairs of Lübek, which the imperial envoys 
had two years before demanded, was now 
energetically put in practice. The city-was 
admonished, by a mandate of the Imperial 
Chamber, to reinstate the expelled biirger- 
meisters; and all the members of the town- 
council. In itself, this mandate would have 
had little effect ; but it expressed a demand 
which was now imperiously heard in almost 
all the other cities of Lower Germany, and 
was, therefore, supported by public opinion. 
Above all, the Lübekers felt that they were 
beaten ; their world-embracing plans had en- 
countered an invincible, nay, a triumphant 
resistance; the energy of the democratic spirit 
was broken by their failure. 

On the 15th August, 1535, the council con- 
voked the commons, and laid before them the 
mandate of the Imperial Chamber. The mo- 
ment in which Wullenweber was on a journey 
of business in Mecklenburg was not taken 
without design. The commons first convinced 
themselves that the mandate contained no- 
thing about the re-establishment of the ancient 
ecclesiastical forms ] and, being satisfied on 
that point, declared themselves ready to obey 
it, and to put a stop to all innovations in tem- 
poral things. At the next sitting of the coun- 
cil, George von Hövelen, who had been made 
bürgermeister against his will, rose up and 
took his old place among the councillors. 
The councillors appointed by the commons 
perceived that, under these circumstances, 
they could not maintain their posts, and quit- 
ting their chairs, they resigned their dignity. 
We may imagine the astonishment of Wullen- 
weber, when he returned and found so com- 
plete a change effected in his absence. He 
had long ceased to possess the popularity 
which had raised him to power, and no effort 
to regain it had been of any avail. He, too, 
was compelled to resign. Recalled by his 
fellow-citizens, escorted into the town by a 
hundred and fifty old friends, and the ambas- 
sadors from Cologne and Bremen, — for the 
Hansa happened to be sitting, — Nicholas 
Brömse re-entered Lübek.* A recess was 
drawn up, in virtue of which the evangelical 
doctrines were retained ; while, on the other 
hand, the council was reinstated in its former 
rights. The Lutheran principle, which de- 
manded only a reconstitution of spiritual 
things, and allowed the temporal, wherever 
it was possible, to subsist, was here, too, tri- 
umphant. 

It was obviously no longer to be expected 
that the Danish war could be carried on with 
vigour. Gert Korbmacher, the miner, who 
joined another expedition to the Sound, ex- 
presses his disgust at the little earnestness 
that was shown in it. 

The wg,r, however, went on, though feebly 
enough, and sometimes new and extensive 
plans were connected with it. 

From the trial of Wullenweber, it appears 
indisputable that he had intended to resume 
his schemes and enterprises. There were at 

* Becker, Geschichte von Lübek, aus Reiinar Kock und 
Lambert von Dalen, ii. 91—95. 



that time a few bands of landsknechts, under 
the command of a colonel named Uebelacker, 
recruited in the name of the Count Oldenburg 
in the Hadeln country. Wullenweber set out 
to join them. On his trial, he declared that 
his intention was to lead these troops across 
the Elbe at Boitzenburg, and before the walls 
of Lübek, without delay ; his partisans would 
have opened the Mohlenthor to him, he would 
have overthrown the council, and have estab- 
lished a completely democratical government, 
together with Anabaptism. But even in his 
examination, these plans appear in the light 
of half-matured projects; and before his death, 
Wullenweber utterly denied them,! and espe- 
cially retracted all personal accusations of par- 
ticipation which had been extorted from him. 
It is difficult to reject a confession, the most 
material points of which were made without 
the fearful agency of the rack ; but it is utterly 
impossible to ground any belief on a declara- 
tion which the accused retracted at the mo- 
ment of his death. The existence of these 
plans, therefore, must for ever remain pro- 
blematical. If they ever existed, they could 
have had no other result than that which we 
have already witnessed. Wullenweber fell — 
as he had been forewarned — into the hands of 
his bitterest enemy, the Archbishop of Bremen, 
who, as in his quality of spiritual lord he could 
not stain his hands with blood, gave him up, 
to his brother, Duke Henry of Brunswick. 
Here he was subjected to the examination 
above mentioned,! accused by both Denmark 
and Lübek, and because he would not deny 
all that he was accused of, condemned to die 
according to the old forms of the German law. 
The justice of the land pronounced that '-he 
might not have done unpunished, that which 
he^had done." He was beheaded, and thea 
quartered. 

Wullenweber is a perfect representative of 
the rash and perverse spirit which was rife, 
during that period, among the inhabitants of 
the German cities. He had begun, like so 
many demagogues in other towns ; the talent 
of leading a mobile population at his pleasure, 
and the natural force of the political and reli- 
gious interests, elevated him to a station 
whence he could dare to intrude, self-sup- 
ported, among the great powers of the world. 
He knew no moderation ; failures did not 
teach him caution ; he evoked once more the 
ancient spirit of the Hansa, prevailed on Ger- 



t In Article 31, he saj's, " They have never entirely con- 
cluded the affair of the Anabaptists; but one thing 
brought on another." 

X In Regkmann's ClT,ronicle there is a report of his last 
accusation and execution, with some of his letters writ- 
ten from his prison. Strangely enough, the defence has 
thus been published without the accusation. This, which 
is contained in the trial, I intend to print in the Appen- 
dix. The trial, which 1 found in the Weimar Archives 
among the Wolfenbüttel papers, has been of great use 
and value to me. Wullenweber confessed but few of the 
charges, and those the most doubtful ones, under the tor- 
ture. On the other hand, there is much of another kind 
without any immediate relation to the criminal accusa- 
tion, and rather of an historical nature, which is occa- 
sionally strikingly confirmed by passages of the Chroni- 
clers not generally considered authentic, or by forgotten 
documents. Of course I have admitted nothing that WuK 
lenweber denied again before his death. 



452 



PROTESTANTISM IN DENMARK. 



Book VI. 



man princes to engage in his wars, and con- 
tracted alliances with foreign potentates. Mo- 
tives of all sorts — democratic, religious, mer- 
cantile and political — were confusedly blended 
in his mind; he entertained the project of 
making the reformed Lübek the centre and 
head of the democracy of the North, and him- 
self the director of this newly organised world. 
But he thus deserted the sphere of the ideas 
which had given force and success to the 
German reformation ; the powers which he 
attacked were, at length, too strong for him ; 
the reverses which democracy suffered on 
every hand, reacted on his native city : the 
ground was thus cut from under his feet, and 
he fell into the hands of his enemies. Having 
failed to conquer the North, the only alterna- 
tive that remained to him, was to die on the 
scaffold. 

It is altogether a remarkable generation 
which we here find engaged in conflict. Bold 
demagogues Avho have raised themselves to 
power, and stubborn patricians who never for 
an instant gave up their cause ; princes and 
lords who make war for war's sake; and 
others who steadily contemplate an object, 
Vt'hich.they pursue with persevering resolu- 
tion : all robust, violent, aspiring natures ; all 
connecting some public interest with their 
ovvu private advantage. Among them, and 
&econd to none in capacity, the aged king, to 
whom the greater part of all that was con- 
tended for, legally belonged ; whose name 
sometimes resounded in the fight as a war- 
cry, but who expiated the sins of his youth by 
an endless captivity. Victory declared her- 
self on the side of the strongest. > She could 
neither be won by those who had not yet 
thoroughly secured their own cause, nor by 
those who had adopted projects to which they 
were in fact strangers. Victory remained 
with the duke, raised to the royal throne, who 
fought with ardour and energy for himself, 
and who was connected with the existing and 
the past by his policy, and with the progres- 
sive and the future, by his religion. All the 
intrigues of foreign potentates were abortive. 
In the year 1536, Christian III. (we shall see 
hereafter under what combinations) took pos- 
session of his capital, and remained master of 
the field. 

Independent, however, of all personal con- 
siderations, it may be affirmed that the enter- 
prise of Lübek was no longer compatible with 
the spirit and circumstances of the times. 
Those great communities which, in the middle 
ages, pervaded and bounded together all states, 
and the organisation of which is one of the 
most striking peculiarities of that period of 
history, were now on the eve of complete de- 
composition. In presence of an all-embracing 
sacerdotal order, and of an equestrian order 
which bound the whole nobility of the West 
in a sort of corporation or guild, civic bodies 
might also aspire to extend their commercial 
monopoly over kingdoms far and near. But, 
with their cotemporary institutions, they too 
were doomed to fall. The principle which 
pervades modem history, tends to the mutual 



independence of the several peoples and king- 
doms, on every political ground. That Lübek 
should emancipate herself from the hierarbhy, 
yet think to maintain a commercial supremacy 
(and not by the natural superiority of industry, 
capital, or skill, but by the force of compul- 
sory treaties and edicts), involved a historical ' 
contradiction. 

But it must not be supposed that the influ- 
ence of Germany over the North was thus de- 
stroyed. On the contrary, it was now estab- 
lished on a more liberal, but a firmer basis 
than ever. It was no longer the influence of 
force, but of intelligence. Who does not know 
what efforts were made in earlier ages to carry 
Christianity into the North from Germany'? 
yet an accurate investigation will convince us 
that England was far more instrumental to its 
conversion. That alliance of a specially reli- 
gious nature which Anscharius and his suc- 
cessors failed to bring about between Germany 
and the northern kingdoms, was now effected, 
though in another manner, by the reformation. 
The destruction of the influence of Lübek did 
not prejudice Protestantism; scarcely had 
Christian III. taken Copenhagen, when he pro- 
ceeded to introduce its doctrine and rites as 
they prevailed in Germany, under the direc- 
tion of the same Wittenberg theologian, who 
had reformed so many parts of Lower Ger- 
many — Doctor Bugenhagen. This system of 
faith struck root there, with the same rapidity' 
and depth with which it had established itself 
in Germany, and formed the basis of the inti- 
mate union of the whole moral life of the North 
with that of Germany. From that time, the 
same current of thought, the same develop- 
ment of ideas, has distinguished the German 
and the Scandinavian portions of the great 
Teutonic family. In the North, too, the church 
severed herself from the restless domain of 
politics ; her whole activity was confined to 
the intellectual regions. 

We have observed the same result in all 
the events of the latter years of our history. 

Zwingli, who contemplated not only a puri- 
fication of faith and doctrine, but a radical 
change in the Swiss confederation, and espe- 
cially the progress of democratic ideas, had 
fallen ; his political projects had failed ; in the 
last days — perhaps the last moments — of his 
life, he could seek consolation only in the 
prospects of the church. The Anabaptist 
movement, which aimed at so complete a 
change of all the conditions of society, was 
suppressed, and, in Germany, annihilated. 
Even the general agitation of the middle 
classes of the trading cities, which had been 
connected with the schemes of Lübek, proved 
fruitless, and necessarily subsided. If seemed 
as if the religious principle which had arisen, 
in its ow^n peculiar strength, could en«lure no 
such intimate connexion with politics. 

The chief anxiety of the reformers was, to 
protect their faith from all interpretations 
which could lead its followers into these de-, 
vious and dangerous paths. 

To this anxiety may be attributed the intro- 
duction of symbolical books among the Pro- 



Chap. X. 



ASPj:CT OF AFFAIRS. 



453 



testanls. In order to secure themselves from 
the propagation of Anabaptist opinions, the 
Wittenberg teachers once more solemnly- 
adopted the resolutions of the early assembhes 
of their church, in wliich the doctrines of the 
Trinity, and the two natures in Christ, were 
originally established ; as had already been 
expressed in the Confession of Augsburg. 
They held it necessary to render conformity to 
these doctrines indispensable both to theolo- 
gical advancement in the universities, and to 
appointments in the church.* 

Not that they meant by any means to hold 
up their Confession as an eternal and immuta- 
Ijle rule or form of faith. In the negotiations 
carried on with England in the year 1535, the 
case was expressly pronounced possible, that 
some things in the Apology and Confession 
might, on further examination of God's word, 
be found susceptible of correction and im- 
provement. t Nor, keeping in view the rela- 
tions with Switzerland, can it be denied that 
the doctrine itself was in a state of living pro- 
gress and construction. The connexion formed 
by Saxony with the Oberländers, which, spite 
of a great approximation, did not amount to a 
complete adhesion on the part of the latter, in- 
volved an influence of their dogmatic view^s 

* Statuta coUegii facultatis theologicte in Förstemann, 
Liber Decanorum, p. 152. Volumiis puram evangelii doc- 
trinam, consentaneam confessioni quam Augustifi— exhi- 
buimus, — pie proponi ; — severissime etiara prohibemus 
spargi liEBreses damnatas in synodis Nicfena, Constanti- 
nopoJitaoa, Ephesina et Chalcedonensi, nam harumsyno- 
dorum decretis de explicalione dpctrinte, de Deo Patre, 
Filio, et spiritu Sancto, et de duabus naturis in Christo 
nato ex virgine Maria assentimur, eaque judicamus in 
scriptis apostolicis certo tradita esse. 

t Petitio illustrissimorum principum data lagatis ser™ae 
r^ise dignitatis, 25th December, 1535. The king was to | 
promise to conform to the Confession and Apology: nisi i 
forte qusedam — ex verbo Dei merito corrigenda aut mu- | 
tanda videbuntur. i 



on those of Saxony ; we shall shortly see how 
earnest were the efforts made to bring about 
a complete amalgamation. 

The example of Saxony was soon followed 
by the cities of Lower Germany. In April, 
1535, the preachers of Bremen, Hamburg, Lü- 
bek, Rostock, Stralsund and Lüneburg entered 
into a convention, in which they determined, 
that, in future, no one should be permitted to 
preach who did not solemnly subscribe to the 
sound doctrines contained in the Confession 
and Apology. This appeared to them the only 
means of keeping down Anabaptists and other 
heretics, who would otherwise throw every 
thing in church and state into confusion. :|: 

And. we may ask, was not this in conformity 
with the principle in which the whole Protest- 
ant movement had originated '? 

The intention of its authors was not to pre- 
scribe new laws to the world ; they had no de- 
sire to shake the foundations of political and 
social life, as actually constituJ;ed : their only 
object was, to emancipate themselves from a 
hierarchy which, exclusive and worldly as it 
had become, still laid claim to absolute and 
divine authority. 

In this undertaking vast progress had now 
been made ; but it \vas far from being tho- 
roughly accomplished. Mighty powers, con- 
strained by their nature and interests to resist 
all attempts at separation, were still arrayed 
against it. We shall still have to tell of the 
stern conflicts and the various fortunes of this 
high mtellectual warfare. 



t Bericht von etlicher grossen Gemeinen Prediger Un- 
terredung. Report of the conference between certain 
great preachers. In Schroder's Evangelischem Meklen- 
burg, i. 301, " qui v'elut obliti humani nominis omnia sur- 
sum ac deorsum miscent tarn id republica quam in causa 

Christians religionis ne dissimulatione malum irre- 

pat atque magistratus auctoritas labefactetur." 



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